The following is a marketing plan for a fictional product, One Drop - an improved

dish detergent - that my Marketing Principles group developed.

Marketing Plan

Improved Dish Detergent

in

Germany

by

Bunleak Phat

Dakotah Reed

Jordan Wilson

Trista Shannon

Zach Rhodes

Group #7

Introduction

Product

The product we decided to provide to consumers in Germany is a new dish washing detergent

called One Drop. This dish detergent is multi-purpose. Not only can you use it in the dishwasher, but it is

also safe on your delicate dishes as well. This dish washing detergent is powerful enough to break down

tough grease and it is formulated to be soft on a user’s hands. One Drop is concentrated into liquid-form

so it only takes a drop per use. Our product is more economical and efficient at getting the job done,

making the user’s money go further and time spent doing dishes to a minimum.

Country

We will be focusing on marketing our product One Drop in Germany. Some important

demographics about Germany are that it is located in north central Europe between France and Poland.

Germany is one of the largest countries in Europe with a population over 81 million people. One very

important statistic for our purposes is that there is over 34 million women over the age of 20 in Germany.

Germany is an important country to target because of their rapid economic growth. As of now it has the

biggest economy in the European Union. Germany’s economy is rising rapidly in the world ranks,

topping out at fourth in 2011. Germany’s residents now have more purchasing power and disposable

income than ever before because of their booming economy. This makes Germany a great country to

market One Drop because they will easily try a new, more efficient dish detergent.

Research and Planning

Cultural Differences

Doing business in another country requires understanding and respect of the cultural differences.

Misunderstanding or ignoring these cultural differences can be fatal and potentially ruin even the best of

efforts and affect the investments as the whole. Germany is a low-context culture country, meaning they

expect and need a lot of information as far as details, facts and figures, graphs, data, and statistical

analyses. This is in contrast to a high-context culture that communicates through other forms such as body

language or gestures, preferring fellowship before business-talk. Germans value order, privacy and

punctuality, and they like straight-forwardness. Rank is very important in business. Always call them by

their last names along with appropriate titles, and the lower-level employees are not allowed to meet with

the higher ranking officials. Germans do not like comedians or any type of jokes when doing business. In

Germany, gifts are usually not exchanged at a business meeting, yet they may accept small gifts after a

successful negotiation. They love American-made gifts, personal items or extravagant wine. However

never give them pointed objects like knives, scissors or umbrellas as they consider them to be unlucky in

Germany.

International Involvement

According to German Business Portal website, “Germany exported 85.6 billion Euros and

imported 73.5 billion Euros in goods. Germany’s leading imports came from France, the Netherlands and

The United States.” We are deciding to export the products from the manufacturing facilities in the United

States to warehouses for storage in Germany. We wanted to avoid the high risk involved in joint ventures

and direct investments, but we wanted to familiarize ourselves with the German market and become

comfortable with our competitiveness there. We did not want to license our product because we would

like to be in full control of our product in Germany and also leave open the opportunity to directly invest

later on.

Target Markets

Now it is time to take our product to market. This is a crucial step because in order to do so we

must determine what the marketing mix for our product will look like. The marketing mix needs to be

made up of the best possible price, promotion, distribution and product design that will appeal to our

target market. Your target market is who you want to purchase your product, or who specifically you are

marketing to. In order to define this person, it is best to look at market segmentation and segmentation

variables to define it even further. Having a clear definition of who you are marketing to is very beneficial

for several reasons: 1) Marketing to a specific audience allows you to tailor your marketing strategy to fit

that specific demographic, making it much more cost effective than mass marketing. 2) Having a target

audience not only allows you to design your marketing so it directly appeals to a certain group as well as

place it where they are likely to identify with it.

To define our target market we are going to look at three specific market variables. The first will

be gender. We will be targeting our advertising at females specifically because similarly to that of the

culture in the United States, women in Germany, more so than men, are likely to be the ones concerned

with the cleanliness and upkeep of the home. Therefore will be a far more receptive audience when it

comes to marketing a new and improved dish washing detergent. Also females are more likely to take

time at the supermarket to find the new detergent and test its abilities at home. The second segmentation

variable that we will be looking at will be family size. This is very important to our marketing strategy

because we intend to market our product as being a more efficient cleaning agent that can be used in both

the sink and dish washer. This markets great to busy, economical parents who do not want to constantly

run to the store for more dish detergent. Further busy parents can go from purchasing two products to

purchasing one that can be universally used to clean their dishes. The third segmentation variable is

volume usage. Our product will be marketed in a way that shows that you can use less of the product to

accomplish the ends as you would have using the normal amount of our competitors product. This is an

important selling point for families looking to make their dollars go further than they could when

purchasing two of our competitor’s products.

After looking at our three market variables that we are focusing on, we can now define what our

target market looks like and from there move on to determine the best marketing mix to reach them. Our

marketing variables show us that we need to aim our marketing mix at mothers and wives, running busy

households and looking to save time and money during these busy and tough economic times in an easy

and convenient way.

Marketing Channels

Now that we know who we are going to market to, it is time to determine what the most effective

marketing channels to use are to get our product in front of our target audience in the most convenient

way possible. However, before further explaining that we must first have a clear understanding of what

marketing channels are and how to use them.

Marketing channels are the means that companies use to move a product from its manufacturers

to the hands of the customers who need it. These channels can take on a variety of different forms. For

example some manufacturers directly sell to the final consumer, such as Dell. You can order your

computer directly from them online with the exact configuration that you want and their manufacturing

site ships it directly to you. Other companies work a bit differently adding more people and steps to the

process of getting their goods to consumers. For example Coca-Cola has many more steps in the process

for delivering Coke to its consumers. It goes from manufacturers to distribution centers to retailers to

consumers.

Now that we have looked at two examples of marketing channels: a short channel or direct

marketing channel and a longer, more extensive one called long-standing distribution channel, we can

look at what the marketing channels will be like for One Drop.

One Drop is an American-based company with production labs and manufacturing facilities

located within the United States. This makes marketing and selling One Drop in Germany a bit more

complicated and leads our marketing channels to look more like a long-standing distribution channel. One

Drop will be manufactured in the United States, then shipped in mass quantity to Germany and stored in

mass storage there. From there the product will be sold to retailers who will need it moved to their

distribution centers, and from there they will move it to their retail locations for final customer purchase.

Promotion

Now it is time to promote our dish detergent and get our new product in as many German

households as possible. There are four ways to promote our product; they include advertising, sales

promotion, publicity, and personal selling. According to the textbook, advertising is a paid non-personal

communication about an organization and its products transmitted to a target audience through mass

media. This includes by means of newspapers, magazines, television, and the radio to name a few. Since

we are aiming our product at busy mothers and wives, we want a magazine that busy, working women

read and will notice our advertisement. One of our main advertisements may be in a German magazine

that compares to our version of Good Housekeeping or Food Network for example. To really show how

much better our product is than any other dish detergent out there, we will use competitive advertising by

promoting our features, uses, and advantages. We would need to get a media plan- established to specify

the media vehicles we will be using and the dates and times the advertisements will appear. Since dish

detergent is not a seasonal product, we do not have a specific period of year to promote it. Illustrations

will be a major component of our print ad since we want to spark audience attention about our product.

We want to use graphics and comparisons that will put us ahead of our competition.

Sales promotion is another way we will promote One Drop. This involves a material that acts as a

direct inducement and added value to the product. According to the text, marketers spend more money on

this than advertising, and it is a faster-growing area. Ways to promote our dish detergent through sales

promotion can be with coupons, free samples, rebates, sweepstakes, and contests. Our company will be

using coupons to encourage customers to use our product. However, we will not distribute free samples

due to the inconvenience. Dish detergent has packaging expenses, and it seems difficult to hand out free

samples especially when many consumers prefer to get their samples by mail. One thing we can do is add

a little bottle to the package of a regular sized one. This way, customers feel they are getting an extra gift

for buying our product. This would be a -premium by offering an extra item free or at minimal cost as a

bonus for purchasing our product.

Publicity is non-personal communication in news story form about the organization or its product

transmitted through a mass medium at no charge. Examples of these are news releases and press

conferences. Also to generate publicity, some companies give their product to celebrities for free so they

can be seen using the product. This brings awareness to their fans. We could have a German cooking

show, like our version of Rachael Ray, promote One Drop by having it sitting by the sink in the

background. One issue with this is that we want our product kept in relationship with positive events and

people. If the celebrity we are in connection with gets in legal trouble for instance, that would give us a

bad reputation. To minimize any unfavorable coverage we will have procedures and policies developed in

case any public relations issues arise.

Personal selling is a paid personal communication that seeks to inform customers and persuade

them to purchase products in an exchange situation. This involves more specific communication directed

at the customer than the other promotions. Personal selling costs more than advertising, but the one-on-

one effect seems to have a greater impact. Since spaces are very important in Germany and physically

touching is not encouraged, we will use proxemic communication when personal selling to vary our

physical distance with the customer. Also, when doing business with Germans, it is very important to

maintain direct eye contact, so kinesic communication can also be used. This can show an individual’s

interest in our product by noticing eye contact and head nodding.

Pricing

Now, the final step is setting the price for our dish detergent. Our emphasis will be on non-price

competition. This emphasizes other factors than price, such as its unique product features, higher product

quality, and distinctive packaging. We must extensively promote our distinguishing characteristics of our

dish detergent to establish its superiority and set it apart from our competitors. Even though we are not

promoting our price, it still remains a crucial marketing mix component.

When actually setting our price, we need to develop a pricing objective, which is our goal for what

we want to achieve through pricing. Our objective can be status quo which mainly focuses on maintaining

a favorable public image. Since we are in non-price competition, we want to stabilize the demand for our

product and worry less about price as our competitive tool. Another objective we can have is product

quality. We want our product to be the best dish detergent available. Our customers should know that they

are getting the best product by our high product quality. According to the book, the products that

consumers perceive to be in high quality are more likely to survive in a competitive market.

After setting our objectives, we need to assess the target market’s evaluation of price. Many

consumers care about the price they are paying for a product, but their main concern is what type of

product, type of target market, and purchase situation they are getting with the price. Consumers today are

seeking less-expensive products and are shopping more selectively. They are looking for good deals that

provide better value for their money. According to the book, highly desirable attributes, such as organic

content or time-saving features are of great value to the consumer. Our dish detergent will be highly liked

by consumers since our top priority in our product is to save busy mothers and wives time and effort

when doing dishes. Also, our packaging is made out of recycled material, so this will attract many

consumers involved in “Going Green.”

The next step is evaluating our competitors’ prices. Our product has an emphasis in efficieny, so we

will compare it to basic, cost-efficient products. Regular Dawn dish soap can cost anywhere around $2.00

to $4.00, and that is for usually 32 ounces of liquid. We want to sell One Drop for more than that, even

though it is only 16 ounces, so our customers know that they are getting a product of high-quality. In

addition, since only one drop of the detergent is needed when applying our product, it will last the

consumer a reasonably long time.

When selecting a basis for pricing, it can either be cost, demand, or competition. An organization

usually considers 2 or all 3 of these. We will focus on cost-based pricing and competition-based. Cost-

based pricing- involves adding a dollar amount or percentage to the cost of the product. When production

costs are difficult to predict, we will use cost-plus pricing, which is when a specific dollar amount of the

cost is added to the seller’s cost to establish the price. In competition-based pricing, pricing is primarily

influenced by competitor’s prices. We want to price our product above competitor’s prices because we are

the only product out there that offers such a high-quality dish detergent.

Now we need to select a pricing strategy- which will help us achieve our pricing and marketing

objectives. Under the new-product pricing strategy, we will set the base price for One Drop using -price

skimming to make it seem worth-while for the consumer to purchase. By setting a higher price right

away, it will attract competition into the market, plus it still leaves us room to be flexible with our selling

price. Under psychological pricing, we will focus on -odd-even pricing. We will end our price in an odd

number, since we are targeting our product towards the middle class who want to save money. We want

them to think they are getting a bargain when they are buying One Drop. Even though we want to portray

our dish detergent as a high quality product, we will not use an even price since our main focus is on

saving our customers money. It may be costing them a bit more than regular dish detergent, but it is

saving them in the long run without having to buy two separate products for hand washing dishes plus

using the dishwasher.

Price strategies should help in setting a final price. The price we choose needs to be consistent with

the pricing practices in our particular market. We decided to sell One Drop for 3.99 in American dollars,

which is converted into 2.93 Euros. We feel that this is consistent with our competitors since we want to

prove to our consumers that they are getting the best quality at a bargained price. We will keep this price

flexible, though, in order to adjust to possible changes in the marketing mix.

Conclusion

Now that we have gone through step by step and determined the best possible plan to move our

product from that manufacturing stage in the United States to the hands of our German customers it is

time to move forward. To recap, we have determined that Germany has a growing economy and therefore

could yield high profits if new products are brought to market there. We found that our target market is

busy wives and mothers that are looking to save both time and money by buying products that work

effectively, lessening their work load. Now that those two items are in place we had to figure out how we

were going to get our product to their hands. We determined that a long-standing distribution channel

would be most appropriate for us as we still want our product manufactured in the United States

but also sold in the most convenient way for our customers. From there it was time to determine

who to promote to and in what forms and how to price our product. We found that since we are

marketing to busy and working women that a good place to advertise would be in women’s

magazines using a competitive marketing strategy that set us apart from other products. The ideal

price was determined to be $3.99 because it really serves as two products being condensed into

one ultimately saving the consumer money. These are the best fits for our product and the market

that we are looking to enter.