Executive Summary
This Plan details the promotion and marketing strategies to be used by Billabong Company which is a market leader in the sale of garments to surfers. Despite its immense success, the company sales have been declining due to increased competition and the perception that the company’s products are old and un-fashionable.
In light of these predicaments, the company intends to launch a new campaign that will increase sales and change the consumer’s perceptions. The main target market includes surfers and the beachgoers. The target market age group ranges from sixteen to mid twenties.
This campaign intends to increase the company sales, change the consumer perceptions about their products, expand the target market to include beachgoers, increase the market share by 30%, enable the company become the leading brand among surfers and to increase traffic in the company’s website.
The promotion and advertising tactics include SLSA Design Competition, runway show, re-launch of the company’s website and 12 months summer competition. The campaign events will be advertised through posters, online advertising, sending direct mail to participants, public relations activities and through radio advertising.
A three stage process will be used to evaluate the performance of the campaign, these include, the pre-test evaluation, post-test evaluation and measuring the effectiveness of the campaign. The bottom up method will be used to determine the campaign budget.
Campaign Evaluation
Billabong advertising and promotion strategies will be evaluated through the following methods.
Pre-Test Evaluations
Screening of advertising and promotional messages
All advertising and promotions messages will be checked and re-read several times by the whole group. Errors and ambiguity will be corrected. The language used will also be evaluated to determine its complexity, meanings and impact (Waller 2012).
Interview with target audience
Interviews with the target audience will be carried out. During these interviews, the audience will be asked to interpret what different images and messages portray to them. Based on their response, corrections to advertisements and promotional pictures will be done.
Focus group
A focus group comprising of the target audience, billabong management team and the marketing team will be formed. The members will be asked questions regarding their perceptions, attitudes and opinions towards the different campaign images, posters and messages. Based on their response, the messages will be corrected and rephrased.
Post-Test Campaigns
After conducting the campaign, a number of evaluations will be carried to ascertain the customers change in perceptions. The principle aim will be to determine the perception shift so that the company is viewed as setting new fashion trends in the industry. The following strategies will be used.
Checking the customer feedback
The feedback and discussions on the company’s website and the social media will be used to determine the perception that customers have after promotions and campaigns.
Focus groups
Focus groups comprising of a group of 30 people drawn from target market will be interviewed. Pertinent questions to test customer’s perceptions and attitudes will be asked and their responses will determine the successfulness of their campaigns (Belch & Belch 2012).
Measuring Effectiveness
The campaign effectiveness will be evaluated by checking whether the objectives of the campaign are met. These will be evaluated as follows.
Monitoring the sales record: The sales record will be monitored on a monthly basis. If the IMC plan is effective, the sales should increase as per the set targets.
Internet traffic: The traffic in Billabong website and social media pages will be monitored to ensure that it increases by about 40%.
Monitoring consumer feedback information: The image created by the company will be evaluated based on the feedback information in the social media site and the company’s website.
References
Belch, G & Belch, M 2012, Advertising and Promotion: an Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 9th edn, McGraw-Hill/Irwin: New York.
Waller, D 2012, Developing Your Integrated Marketing Communication Plan, 1st edn, McGraw-Hill Book Company Australia, Sydney.