The Integrated Marketing Communications Plan Part II

We now have an idea of what we want to say about Happy Pills. What's the best way to say it?

Firstly, whatever we create needs to tug at people's heartstrings in some way. We need consumers to go "Aww..." when they look at our stuff, because sweetness is at the core of our message.

Secondly, television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and your typical traditional forms of advertising might not be the best approach for us. After all, they are costly and have very short message lives. Furthermore, the thing about trying to sell warmth, sweetness and affection is that it becomes a lot less credible when the message is told directly by a business entity, who seems like it's out to exploit your feelings to make profits.

Rather, we're particularly inspired by the ideas of buzz marketing and social media. We listen more to ordinary people than to businesses - they're just far more credible. This is true particularly when the product in question is of a very personal and emotional nature.

So what's our grand idea?

We're going to create a space for people to share their own sweet stories of friendship and love. Welcome to thejoystories.sg

The mockup's not perfect, but it should give you an idea of what we're trying to do.

The idea behind this is that we want to build a social platform with content that people will actually want to read as well as generate - and we believe that stories about extraordinary acts of affection qualify well. We know that this kind of social content platform can be successful, because it is similar in concept to popular sites such as www.givesmehope.com, www.fmylife.com, and www.dearblankpleaseblank.com.

We're not trying to sell anything on this site. The only links back to the brand are the ownership identifier at the top (which, upon clicking, links back to the main Happy Pills website), and the overall colour scheme. The content posted on the site is not controlled in any way, so we won't chastise anyone for buying gifts that aren't candy pills in a bottle. The idea behind this social platform is not for us to directly push our product out onto the masses. Rather, it is done for us to be able to own the concept of joy.

We believe that small stories like these are very likely to be frequently shared on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (because such stories can often be personally relevant and thus invoke a strong emotional response). It should also appear on online content aggregators and get us some PR as well. This is how we expect our site to go famous.

Clicking the link at the top (which they will eventually, if they go to the site enough) then leads them back to our main, "traditional" web site (already covered in the earlier post about Place), where they can see the typical expected information such as who we are, where we're located, what products we have, and for what prices. Naturally, our tagline "Sweet like you" will be prominently displayed on the site. Site copy will also be anchored towards that tagline.

Subsequently, a tactic we could use in order to retain new customers would be the use of continuity programs. Distributing membership or points cards would be used as a tactic to encourage repeat purchases, and cement relationships with consumers who are already loyal. For example, a "Happy" card might reward the 10th purchase of a Happy Pills product with a free medium sized bottle for their continued business. This card also helps serve as a subtle advertisement whenever they open up their wallets and see it. Also, promotions could also come in the form of gift cards, where buyers could buy a card with a stored value of $20 for their friends/family and the receiver of the gift card can purchase (and customize) anything from Happy Pills store with value up to $20.

So there you have it, our IMC plan in a nutshell. We realize it's very online-centric, and doesn't talk much about the other components that typically fall under IMCs for other companies, but the bottom line is that these other components all don't really work for our particular case (e.g. personal selling and secondary brand associations all would probably confuse and dilute the brand message, rather than complement it). Having a single and unified communications strategy will most likely be beneficial for Happy Pills' planned entry into Singapore. Build a strong brand by owning happiness and sweet memories, and the rest of the magic will happen.

The Integrated Marketing Communications Plan Part I

In Assignment 3, we concluded that the Brand Challenge for Happy Pills' entry into Singapore would be to replicate its marketing strategy that made it successful in Spain, with a few minor adjustments.

Firstly and most importantly, the notion of sharing needs to be heavily emphasised - it is the key driver behind Happy Pills' success as a gift between friends and lovers. Secondly, its signature medicinal image might have to be tweaked somewhat - perhaps by subtle association shifts from bitter-tasting medicine towards notions of healing and curing. Finally, keeping trends prevalent in Singapore in mind, where possible, Happy Pills should make their product appear healthy, wholesome, and personally relevant to consumers.

With this in mind, we craft out our integrated marketing communications plan. Our first step is to develop the tagline, or motto. This is the guiding statement that will anchor all our communication channels together.

(We were originally going to just show you our final tagline, but on second thought we felt it would be cool to give you some insight into the whole process, to see the path we took to reach our final anchor message. This is much more fun, no?)

Here's some lines that we came up with, along with the thoughts that accompanied each of them:

The Gift of Joy - Portrays the idea of giving and happiness perfectly, and in its purest form. However, the downside was that this line seemed a little too generic, it could have been easily confused and attributed to other gift-focused brands (e.g. Hallmark)

Happiness in a Bottle - This is actually an existing line for Happy Pills. It's pretty good, and describes the product very well. However, the word "bottle" isn't entirely positive, since it likely conjures up associations such as "plastic", "manufactured", and possibly "medicinal". It also limits the scope of Happy Pills' packaging containers to only bottles. Another thing is that this line doesn't actually inform people that the happiness comes mainly from the fact that it's a gift - people might misinterprete the line and think that the taste of the sweets is so good that it makes you happy when you buy it for yourself (the taste of Happy Pills' candy is good, of course. But we all know that that's just a point of parity, the true differentiator lies in the social value of the product).

Happiness Should Be Shared - Once again, this fulfilled everything functionally, in terms of the message we wanted to convey. It felt slightly better than the first one, but still felt like it was slightly generic and typical, and too easily applicable to other gifts.

The Sweetest Way to Care for Someone - Our breakthrough with this line was in realizing that the word "sweet" had a double meaning that was perfect for what we were trying to accomplish. Someone does something nice for a person and other people go "Aww, that's so sweet!". So we knew we had something here. However, the line was too long and cumbersome to be memorable.

The Sweetest Form of Affection - We tried to shorten the line down, but it still suffered from the same problem. Too many big words, and not particularly catchy. There's also some possible issues with using the extreme form of the word "sweetest", because people might imagine the candy to be too overly and cloyingly sweet. Not very healthy and wholesome - people could avoid buying it because of that reason. So if we could use "sweet" in some way without conjuring up images of a sugar overdose, that would be best.

It was then that our final line occured to us:

Happy Pills: Sweet Like You - Short and sweet (literally, haha), these 3 words capture everything we need to say about the brand. It proposes an ideal image that the consumer can achieve by collaborating with the brand. It's so simple it's memorable. And it's not meaningfully copyable by non-candy merchants. We bet Ogilvy or TBWA couldn't do better.


So we now have a guiding message that all our marketing communications will point towards. Ideally, by the time we're done, whenever Singaporeans think of words like "sweet", "friendship", "gift", "nice", or "affection", they can't help but think of Happy Pills.

The 3P's of our Marketing Plan

Product. A key differentiating feature of our product is the packaging. Since the package is unique to the brand, we feel it is definitely essential to keep this proof point. However, we cannot ignore our finding of some Singaporeans, who are ignorant about the brand, having a slight negative association of medicinal images upon their first impression of the bottle. Therefore, it is highly important that Happy Pills Singapore should change this current perception of the brand, which is inaccurate.

Another key feature of the Happy Pills product is the candy itself. In our surveys, we found many associated the Happy Pills brand with "girliness". We considered this was possibly the fault of the candy we put inside as a placeholder (heart-shaped), or because of the colour of the logo. This is something we want to address as this should not be a gift given just to girls, or just given by girls. This can be done via customization which was mentioned in assig3. Customers may choose the colours they wish, and Happy Pills candy comes in all shades of all colours. We also need to adapt the candy selection to fit the tastes of Singaporeans versus those Happy Pills currently serve the needs of in Spain.

Place. Happy Pills' channel distribution is best taken with a direct approach. Two methods have been used for very important reasons. The first is the brick-and-mortar stores, and the second is through an online-shopping website. Direct channels are chosen as the products of Happy Pills are highly customized. In addition, product quality is important to the brand, and the information needs of consumers are high (the appropriate image of the brand needs to be conveyed to customers so they understand the meaning of the product.) Customizability is important because as mentioned in assig3, we feel it would be strategically wise for Happy Pills to allow customers to customize 1) packaging, 2) candies 3) logos and taglines. Most importantly, it is all about the amazing shopping experience. By having its own stores, Happy Pills benefits from being able to showcase its brand in a manner not easily achieved through normal retail channels. E.g. Customers in Happy Pills stores get served by the "Happiness crew" - one of the hallmarks of Happy Pills Singapore.

Through having its own stores, Happy Pills’ customers are better able to understand the distinguishing characteristics of the brand, which is the source of much of Happy Pills' brand equity. If it were sold through third party retail chains, these stores' images could be associated with Happy Pills brand, which could result in a loss of brand equity for Happy Pills, should there be negative associations. Furthermore, practicality reasons such as limited space in supermarkets would not allow Happy Pills to offer the wide selection of 'pick n mix' candies. Also, if Happy Pills were sold in supermarkets, it would likely be placed in close proximity to other candy products which would lead customers to believe that it is not a gift but for purely for personal consumption. Lastly, its high price point compared to other candy products would likely confuse customers in comparison to prices of candy competitors in the same vicinity.

The Happy Pills website would have a similar interface as the Happy Pill stores, as well as the same cheeky demeanour and positive outlook of life. The website would be interactive as well, with fun quizzes that customers can do to "self-diagnose" and thereafter get "prescribed" with specific products of Happy Pills, or help to determine which candies to buy for their friends, as a gift, or even just as a cheer on a bad day! These quizzes, or the results of these quizzes can then be shared online via social networking sites, and this will help spread awareness of Happy Pills (products, brand personality.. etc). Check it out for yourself here!

It is for these reasons that we recommend that Happy Pills maintain their current channel approach should they move into the Singapore market. Based on our surveys, we realize it is important to educate customers regarding the (non)-medicinal nature of the packaging, and direct channels are the best way to accomplish the positive associations of the brand.

Price. After analyzing the pricing of our competitors (Chocolate Research Facility, Sticky) in the Singapore candy market, we kept a largely similar pricing to what Happy Pills currently has in Spain (after converting from Euros to Singapore dollars). Based on our price conversions, and the current prices used by these competitors, we have determined that our prices (see image) are suitable for the Singapore market and our product in relation to competitors.

Promotions. Happy Pil... oops. This post is getting too lengthy. For more about Happy Pills Promotions and our Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy, stay tuned to our blog! IMC is coming up before you can say EUPHORIA!