Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
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.
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.
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!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Brand Challenge
A challenge Happy Pills will face in the longer run would be how to grow sustainably. It is important that Happy Pills will not just be another fad in Singapore, but the brand needs to ensure that it is continuously innovative, distinctive, relevant and likable so as to continue to attract customers.
Specifically, one of the Points of Difference (POD) of Happy Pills is its unconventional packaging. However, there is nothing patentable about its packaging and this is something the brand has to be wary of. It would not be difficult for competitors to implement competitive Points of Parity for their respective brands to negate Happy Pills' current POD and introduce new forms of innovative packaging.
One way for Happy Pills to combat this potential problem is to create "package ownership" in the minds of consumers so that it will forever be viewed as the first-mover that came up with such unique and differentiated packaging.
Another challenge is for Happy Pills to overcome everything related to the medicinal image. A medicinal image that connotes sterile and cold is not desirable for a confectionery brand, even more so for Happy Pills, since it is supposed to be a light-hearted and fun brand that is based on spreading happiness. Since this medicinal association was made by interviewees who have never heard of the brand, Happy Pills would have to invest in building awareness of its brand, so that it is only linked with positive associations as opposed to negative ones.
Trends
Desire for Holistic Health
In the world we live in today, consumers make increasingly proactive choices. People want to be eco-friendly, eat organic and be health conscious. Many people are looking for alternatives and have higher awareness of the importance of total well-being.
They turn to brands thatare more than one dimensional; brands have to provide balance and quality in their lives.
Happy Pills can leverage on this trend by producing sweets with nutritious ingredients that taste good. Furthermore, with a pink medical cross as a symbol, associations of healing and wellness can be linked to the brand. Hence, taste good = feel good = look good.
As people look for moments of joy and pockets of relief in their daily lives, Happy Pills can be a brand that gives customers instant satisfaction, even if its only temporary. Especially with its cheeky outlook on life, Happy Pills can be the ideal “life fuel” people need.
Life Guides
Life today is filled with too much noise from the onset of globalization, increasing internet penetration and the rise of the mobile phones. Information overload has led consumers confused and often frustrated and helpless.
As people look for brands and services for leadership, the challenge for brands is how to provide messages that unify people as well as messages of optimism.
Happy Pills can leverage on this trend using its identity. With a brand mantra of “Happy, Fun, Cure-it-all”, it is essentially the antidote for all of life’s troubles. It is the alternative life guide, the life pilot.
With its confident attitude and the energetic spirit, Happy Pills is a brand that will be easily relatable to not just young customers, but the young at heart.
Active Citizenship
In developed countries, Maslow's lower-order needs are easily fulfilled, and hence, consumers are geared toward the higher-order needs like love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation.
We constantly look for ways to stand out yet we still want to fit in. We create, reinvent and refresh our identities as we strive to assert our individuality but still look from reassurance from others.
In a world of mass production, the challenge for brands is to allow individualism to prevail, yet remain profitable. Brands also need to engage customers in a way that enables them to empower themselves and fulfils their need to own what they do.
Happy Pills can already providesa level of customization for corporate gifts. However, it can be further leveraged by providing customization on its labels, sweets and packaging. It should strive to be a personalized brand for both corporations and consumers.
Happy Pills can embark on co-creation and give customers added value through their involvement. It is important for Happy Pills to have a conversation with its customers, as people don't just buy brands, they join them.
Is there a Strategic Gap?
Strategically, there are ways for Happy Pills to improve. Currently, Happy Pills entrance seems to be filling a space in the confectionary market, where consumers are unaware of their own higher order needs.
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| Confectionary Trends in Singapore |
The positioning of Happy Pills is strategically placed relative to current brands in the market, be it commonly found store-bought candy, or specialty shop confectionary. Coupled with a strong and unique brand identity, Happy Pills will be able to attract a niche group of consumers, who share the same cheeky and fun outlook in life.
Certainly, it is important for the brand to grow and innovate in order to keep up with trends and changes in consumer's tastes. Thus, to ensure that Happy Pills maintains its strong brand, we could explore trends like health, by adding vitamins or using natural ingredients in our sweets. Other areas like festivities could also be an opportunity for us to have custom holiday season gummies which are only available for a limited period. Lastly, we can encourage customers to create their own taglines, and make the more popular ones to become permanent in our selection. Customization can also be a business opportunity for Happy Pills, whereby companies can include their own logos/corporate event logos on the labels and distribute Happy Pills as corporate gifts.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Is there a Tactical Gap?
We now set out to define the brand challenge for Happy Pills' entry into Singapore. We do this by first observing whether there's a tactical gap between their desired identity and the image that's actually held by consumers (later on, we'll go further by seeing if there is a strategic gap between their desired identity, and what they actually ought to be like).
In Assignment 1 we've noted that Happy Pills' target identity is to be a brand known for sharing joy and happiness, customization and personalization, and the act of gift-giving. Tasting nice is, of course, important (and is actually important for any business in which customers put stuff in their mouth), but this is ultimately secondary to the happy, social-focused identity that they want to develop. So do consumers view Happy Pills in this way?
Recall in Assignment 2 that we split up our interviewees and respondents largely on the basis of whether they had actual prior contact with the brand before. In our exploratory studies, of those who had prior contact with the brand (mostly Spaniards in Singapore, they were likely to have visited Happy Pills retail outlets, seen Happy Pills TVCs, and/or received Happy Pills as a gift before) generally tended to associate Happy Pills with it's desired personality traits - they mentioned words like "fun", "different", "original", and "suitable as a gift". In the surveys, those who had prior contact with the brand gave Happy Pills a very good score on "suitable as a gift" (this trait was one of the highest-rated amongst all other traits), further showing the littleness, if any, of the tactical gap.
However, it is worth noting that the brand's score on extroversion and social-ness, while not bad, could be better. So we would say that Happy Pills could be doing slightly better by really focusing more on social exchanges in their marketing communications, but that is a really minor discrepancy. On the whole, they are still okay.
Off-topic, it's also interesting to look at the responses of consumers who lacked prior exposure to the brand. They form a pretty good benchmark for comparison, since anything they say can be largely isolated to product and packaging. This means that the difference between those with and without prior exposure can be largely attributed to marketing communications and their physical retail store touchpoints.
Furthermore, non-exposed interviewees raised many associations about the bottle presented to them looking "girly" (although this may have had to do more with our choice of sweets when filling up the sample bottle). Thankfully, this was not reflected by those who had prior exposure, but Happy Pills might just want to ensure that their product variety is sufficiently diverse, and their selection does not appear gender-biased in any way.
More importantly, many non-exposure interviewees and respondents brought up their opinions that Happy Pills felt "medicinal", and that this was not desirable. This medicinal image could thus be a negative POD. To overcome this challenge Happy Pills has a few options: separate the attribute, leverage equity of another entity, or redefine the relationship.
Separating the attribute would be contradicting the brand’s identity, so this is not a viable option, as Happy Pills would merely be another candy product with no POD. As noted by our good friend, Mr. Keller, “…one of the strongest associations consumers have with a brand is inspired by the look of its packaging.”
Leveraging the equity of another identity is something Happy Pills could consider. Perhaps they could have an actor/actress who plays a doctor in a movie or television show appear in advertisements to build a positive relationship to this medicinal image.
This could work in tandem with the third option for overcoming the problem. Happy Pills could work to redefine the relationship. Happy Pills could attempt to educate Singaporeans regarding the novelty factor of gifting a candy product in medicinal containers to friends and family.
In sum, we would say that aside from the potential problem of the medicinal association being negative when coming to Singapore (which we note is not much of a problem in markets in which Happy Pills is more well-established), the tactical gap between desired brand identity and actual consumer image is not too wide, and is not a big problem for us, as long as we take the necessary precautions already listed out above. We now turn towards the strategic gap so that we can finally draft out the complete brand challenge.
In Assignment 1 we've noted that Happy Pills' target identity is to be a brand known for sharing joy and happiness, customization and personalization, and the act of gift-giving. Tasting nice is, of course, important (and is actually important for any business in which customers put stuff in their mouth), but this is ultimately secondary to the happy, social-focused identity that they want to develop. So do consumers view Happy Pills in this way?
Recall in Assignment 2 that we split up our interviewees and respondents largely on the basis of whether they had actual prior contact with the brand before. In our exploratory studies, of those who had prior contact with the brand (mostly Spaniards in Singapore, they were likely to have visited Happy Pills retail outlets, seen Happy Pills TVCs, and/or received Happy Pills as a gift before) generally tended to associate Happy Pills with it's desired personality traits - they mentioned words like "fun", "different", "original", and "suitable as a gift". In the surveys, those who had prior contact with the brand gave Happy Pills a very good score on "suitable as a gift" (this trait was one of the highest-rated amongst all other traits), further showing the littleness, if any, of the tactical gap.
However, it is worth noting that the brand's score on extroversion and social-ness, while not bad, could be better. So we would say that Happy Pills could be doing slightly better by really focusing more on social exchanges in their marketing communications, but that is a really minor discrepancy. On the whole, they are still okay.
Off-topic, it's also interesting to look at the responses of consumers who lacked prior exposure to the brand. They form a pretty good benchmark for comparison, since anything they say can be largely isolated to product and packaging. This means that the difference between those with and without prior exposure can be largely attributed to marketing communications and their physical retail store touchpoints.
Furthermore, non-exposed interviewees raised many associations about the bottle presented to them looking "girly" (although this may have had to do more with our choice of sweets when filling up the sample bottle). Thankfully, this was not reflected by those who had prior exposure, but Happy Pills might just want to ensure that their product variety is sufficiently diverse, and their selection does not appear gender-biased in any way.
More importantly, many non-exposure interviewees and respondents brought up their opinions that Happy Pills felt "medicinal", and that this was not desirable. This medicinal image could thus be a negative POD. To overcome this challenge Happy Pills has a few options: separate the attribute, leverage equity of another entity, or redefine the relationship.
Separating the attribute would be contradicting the brand’s identity, so this is not a viable option, as Happy Pills would merely be another candy product with no POD. As noted by our good friend, Mr. Keller, “…one of the strongest associations consumers have with a brand is inspired by the look of its packaging.”
Leveraging the equity of another identity is something Happy Pills could consider. Perhaps they could have an actor/actress who plays a doctor in a movie or television show appear in advertisements to build a positive relationship to this medicinal image.
In sum, we would say that aside from the potential problem of the medicinal association being negative when coming to Singapore (which we note is not much of a problem in markets in which Happy Pills is more well-established), the tactical gap between desired brand identity and actual consumer image is not too wide, and is not a big problem for us, as long as we take the necessary precautions already listed out above. We now turn towards the strategic gap so that we can finally draft out the complete brand challenge.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Some Insights from Our Survey
Using SPSS to do some cross-comparison of our survey data yields some interesting findings. For instance:
Some people might question the viability of Happy Pills opening up in Singapore, stating that perhaps the demand for sweet stuff amongst Singaporeans is not as pronounced as that of the Spaniards.
We split up our respondents based on their country of origin: Spain vs. Singapore (to be fair, the group "non-spaniards" includes people from other countries as well, but they are an almost-negligible minority), and looked at their frequency of candy consumption/purchase. The relative distribution of the bars (note that Spaniards were a smaller sample, that is why their bars are all much shorter) seems to suggest that Singaporeans are purchasing at least an equal, if not larger, amount of candy. Singapore thus appears to be an attractive market to enter into.
We next split our respondents up into those who had seen/heard of Happy Pills before, and those who didn't, and compared their results on their SFU ratings for Happy Pills. Very clear differences emerged between those who had actual exposure to the brand, and those who were merely asked to guess based on photographs of the product and store.
In general, those who had actual encounters with the brand and product tended to rate Happy Pills more favourably. Those who were more exposed to Happy Pills stated that it was more full of happiness, more suitable as a gift, more innovative, and more nice-tasting than those who weren't. In addition, Those who did not have prior exposure rated Happy Pills as more "medicinal" (an undesirable characteristic). This perhaps suggests that in entering the Singapore market, we should opt to emphasise the fun nature of Happy Pills more than its original clinical and medical theme.
Some people might question the viability of Happy Pills opening up in Singapore, stating that perhaps the demand for sweet stuff amongst Singaporeans is not as pronounced as that of the Spaniards.
We split up our respondents based on their country of origin: Spain vs. Singapore (to be fair, the group "non-spaniards" includes people from other countries as well, but they are an almost-negligible minority), and looked at their frequency of candy consumption/purchase. The relative distribution of the bars (note that Spaniards were a smaller sample, that is why their bars are all much shorter) seems to suggest that Singaporeans are purchasing at least an equal, if not larger, amount of candy. Singapore thus appears to be an attractive market to enter into.
We next split our respondents up into those who had seen/heard of Happy Pills before, and those who didn't, and compared their results on their SFU ratings for Happy Pills. Very clear differences emerged between those who had actual exposure to the brand, and those who were merely asked to guess based on photographs of the product and store.
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| *A t-test confirmed at the 5% confidence level that all differences between means were significant. |
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| *A t-test confirmed at the 5% confidence level that all differences between means, except for "nice-tasting", "extroverted and social", and "medicinal", were significant. |
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| *A t-test confirmed at the 5% confidence level that all differences between means, except for "nice-tasting", were significant. |
In general, those who had actual encounters with the brand and product tended to rate Happy Pills more favourably. Those who were more exposed to Happy Pills stated that it was more full of happiness, more suitable as a gift, more innovative, and more nice-tasting than those who weren't. In addition, Those who did not have prior exposure rated Happy Pills as more "medicinal" (an undesirable characteristic). This perhaps suggests that in entering the Singapore market, we should opt to emphasise the fun nature of Happy Pills more than its original clinical and medical theme.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Our Survey Results At A Glance
We set up a survey online on Qualtrics, and asked our friends to take a few minutes to fill it up. A total of 151 respondents replied; the infographic below will tell you the rest. Raw survey data is available upon request.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Happy Pills TVC
Here's one of Happy Pills' television commercials, emphasising how Happy Pills are a source of comfort on bad days.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
What is shopping at Happy Pills like?
Monday, September 5, 2011
Word Cloud
Looks like people online aren't saying anything much about Happy Pills at the moment - according to social media tracker www.socialmention.com; random words are mentioned like "clara" and "miscarried"...
Word cloud tool: www.wordle.net
Hopefully that will change should Happy Pills set up a shop in Singapore!
Word cloud tool: www.wordle.netHopefully that will change should Happy Pills set up a shop in Singapore!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
#1 What is Happy Pills' positioning?
Target Market
At the moment, Happy Pills appears to target only one specific market segment. The average Spanish customer of Happy Pills appears to be a:
- Teenagers, working adults and the young at heart.
- of middle to high income, and is
- sociable,
- seeking gifts for those close to them, or
- seeking fun relief from the stresses of life.
However, age and income are less of divisive factors; young, old, and rich customers of Happy Pills exist as well. In coming to Singapore, Happy Pills would likely appeal to a similar segment.
Who are the competitors?
We define our market as confectionery or food items which can be gifts (“gift food”) that are of a mid-range price level of $5-$30.
At a primary level, we include specialty confectionery shops like Candy Empire and Cocoa Trees, which sell generic confectionary brands like Hershey’s.
- Candy Empire
Singapore's biggest selection of chocolates, biscuits and gourmet snacks. Confectionary wise, it has a wide range of jelly beans, marshmallows, liquorice and other suger free choices, all sourced from quality manufacturers in Australia, USA and Europe. - Cocoa Trees
Over 40 international renowned brands (mostly slightly premier chocolate) to choose from including Toblerone, M&M's, Ritter Sport, Hershey's etc.On a secondary level, specialty food shops like Garrett Popcorn, Mrs. Fields, Royce Chocolate are competitors as these stores are harder to find, and tend to be more costly than confectionary shops. In addition, these stores charge a premium on their quality, service and customization where applicable.
On a secondary level, we also take into consideration gourmet food stores and specialty stores that charge a premium for their specialty. These shops typically concentrate on selling only 1 brand.
- Garrett Popcorn
A Chicago tradition since 1949, Garrett popcorn is gourmet popcorn that makes use of highest quality ingredients in its secret family recipes. Introduced to Singapore only this year, to date they have more than 5 outlets island-wide. - Mrs. Fields
Famous products include cookies, brownies and muffins, which are baked continuously throughout the day and served fresh at all locations. - Famous Amos
Signature cookies made with a passed down family tradition since 1975. Synonymous with the name are the crunchy cookies and irresistible smell. - Royce Chocolates
Founded in Sapporo in 1983, Royce produces premium chocolates made with painstakingly sourced ingredients to ensure quality. with a wide range of snacks such as chocolate potato chips and nama chocolate. - Sticky
Sticky specializes in high quality, hand-made rock candy style lollies and sugar art, that is highly customizable according to customers' wishes - Chocolate Research Facility
100chocolate flavours in award winning and unconventional packaging, Chocolate Research Facility stems from the idea of chocolate for any occasion.
Going beyond "gift food", we could also consider other gifts as competition; such as flowers, greeting cards, souvenirs, and other gift shops.
Nature of Competition
The best way to visualize the nature of Happy Pills' competition is with a Venn diagram:
This diagram is important because you can't just think of Happy Pills as solely a gift, or solely a candy product - it straddles both categories. Its primary competitors are thus companies that sell confectionery designed for gift purposes (the companies listed in the middle ground). However, in a broader sense, companies placed in only one circle are also likely to compete with Happy Pills at some point or another. Within the gift-confectioneer section, its closest competitor is most likely Candy Empire. Happy Pills is on par with Candy Empire on several points, but also has its own differentiating points as well.
Positioning Strategy
Increasingly, we see more confectionery players opening their own speciality stores, overcrowding that space. Moreover, with the world becoming more affluent, confectionery brands are becoming more gourmet, with their target market as people with high disposable incomes.
We feel that Happy Pills is competing in a space that is relatively isolated, with a lot of room to grow. Differentiated by its innovative packaging and its idea of selling happiness rather than just candy, in addition to being one of the only 'pick n mix' candy company in Singapore, Happy Pills is almost in a 'Blue Ocean'. With moderate price points, Happy Pills is an affordable treat that caters to the 'mass-tige' crowd.
Points of Parity
- Wide variety of candy products
- High quality of candy, sweets generally perceived as nice-tasting
- Similar price range
Points of Difference
- Unique packaging, product is tailored specifically for gift-giving.
- Customisable selection of candy
- Meant for sharing joy with others
#1 How do we build the Happy Pills brand?
The Happy Pills customer-based brand equity pyramid is strongest at the meaning stage. Although the salience is currently low, it is definitely possible for Happy Pills to enter the market and easily gain greater awareness in the "gift food" category. Being a fun and creative product that allows customisation, Happy Pills is a great affordable treat for any occasion and for anyone. Happy Pills has successfully focused on the feelings and imagery associated with the product without compromising on the performance and quality.
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| Customer Based Brand Equity Pyramid for Happy Pills |
Being a new brand, it is difficult to estimate the number of loyal customers and repeat purchases of Happy Pills in Spain, no less in Singapore. However, we predict Happy Pills would be a product that people would have high affiliation with, it would see a loyal following of people who love the idea of Happiness packaged as a cure for all things. Happy Pills is the quick fix to comfort a friend, a way to show care and concern and a means to spread joy.
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Happy Pills is more than a product. It is an experience that is driven by consumer emotions, which cause customers to purchase the product for the fun of it, or with hopes to make themselves or others feel better. The brand’s proposition of selling feelings of happiness and friendship act as the benefit to serve experiential needs of its consumers.
Whether you are feeling down, lonely, disappointed, angry or heartbroken, Happy Pills is the Cure-it-all.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Why Happy Pills?
So, why did we choose Happy Pills as our brand to look at for this project?
Confectionery makers (and most firms in general, really) typically try to compete on product attributes - how good the candy tastes, how varied the selection is, whether it melts in your mouth, etc. But with Happy Pills, we can see a distinct and conscious effort to brand itself using quirky and memorable packaging in a unique way that deviates from the norm - a very clear and unambiguous attempt at a differential effect.
We thus thought that Happy Pills would make a very good case study on the effects of branding on an otherwise normal commodity. In analysing the brand, we'll look at its practices and successes in Spain, and where possible, attempt to translate it into a Singapore context - as if they want to become big here.
Stay tuned!
We thus thought that Happy Pills would make a very good case study on the effects of branding on an otherwise normal commodity. In analysing the brand, we'll look at its practices and successes in Spain, and where possible, attempt to translate it into a Singapore context - as if they want to become big here.
Stay tuned!
Monday, August 29, 2011
#1 Happy Pills? What's that?
Hi, this is the start of our brand blog on Happy Pills. Throughout the next few weeks, we will examine Happy Pills as a brand, in the context of it potentially setting up some outlets in Singapore. Should be a fun time.
Happy Pills is a chain of candy shops that originates from Barcelona, Spain. It was founded in 2007, and boasts a remarkably unique approach in its branding - by playfully touting its products as instant medicinal treats that can cure almost all of your life's problems. They are thus frequently given as humorous and light-hearted gifts amongst friends, in addition to being purchased for individual consumption.
Happy Pills intends to provide customers with an atmosphere of creativity and variety, in which they can customize gifts of happiness for the people they love. Happy Pills prides themselves on creativity, indulgence and fun. They believe that happiness can come from small but thoughtful packages, and know that others will share this belief with them.
Happy Pills? What's That?
Happy Pills is a chain of candy shops that originates from Barcelona, Spain. It was founded in 2007, and boasts a remarkably unique approach in its branding - by playfully touting its products as instant medicinal treats that can cure almost all of your life's problems. They are thus frequently given as humorous and light-hearted gifts amongst friends, in addition to being purchased for individual consumption.
Happy Pills intends to provide customers with an atmosphere of creativity and variety, in which they can customize gifts of happiness for the people they love. Happy Pills prides themselves on creativity, indulgence and fun. They believe that happiness can come from small but thoughtful packages, and know that others will share this belief with them.
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