It is important to note that companies need to make decisions, and failure to do so hurts their bottom line. One such action involves understanding a company’s primary customer, value proposition, and profit formula. The given assessment will mainly focus on Dr. Martens as well as Meta, where the former will be the example of poor primary customer identification and value proposition. The latter will showcase a company that got its profit formula wrong.
Firstly, Dr. Martens is an example of a company that made the wrong choice of primary customer. It tries to appeal to adolescents, young adults, and rebellious groups to sell its products. However, the company should realize that it’s a footwear company focused primarily on boots, which can have a broader general appeal, especially among people vastly different from the primary group. For instance, the ad ‘TOUGH AS YOU’ and the comments below the video show how the buyers cannot relate to the appeal (Dr. Martens, 2020). Secondly, Dr. Martens is a of a company that got the value proposition wrong as well. Its value proposition is rebelliousness and style, but most boot buyers purchase the company’s footwear products for different reasons, such as leather quality. Thirdly, Meta has been experiencing a major decline in its revenues and profits, which shows how Mark Zuckerberg and the company got the profit formula wrong (Sherman, 2022). Instead of focusing on ads only, it should have moved to more lucrative web services such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
In conclusion, Dr. Martens makes quality footwear, but it does not understand that its primary customers are not rebellious teenagers or young adults but a broader population of people valuing quality products. Its value proposition is problematic as well since it fails to appeal to them through its ads. Meta’s profit formula is flawed since instead of diversifying into lucrative web services, it stuck with ads, which are failing at the moment.
References
Dr. Martens. (2020). TOUGH AS YOU | 2020 [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Sherman, N. (2022). Meta: Shares in Facebook owner dive 20% as investors lose faith?BBC News. Web.