Aqualisa Quartz: Simply a Better Shower Case Study Solution
The managing director of Aqualisa, Harry Rawlinson, is facing an interesting problem for selling the new premium product of the company, Quartz Shower. This shower had been is designed after a detailed research and it is highly innovative. It offers a number of advantages to the consumers and the plumbers. The company has been relying on the same marketing approach for Quartz as the approach for the other products of the company. Other products are in the maturity stage of their lifecycle while the Quartz is in the introductory stage, which is the primary reason for the low sales of the Quartz. The company has not spent enough time to educate the consumers and the plumbers about the fears of the consumers of using electronic showers. There is not strong trust in the brand yet and the company has only relied on trade shops to sell the products to the customers. The detailed analysis that has been performed in this report shows that the company needs to expand distribution in trade shops and invest in showroom displays. Management needs to educate the plumbers and form a plumbing community to increase the sales of the product. Lastly, the management needs to make contracts with the high-endcustomers, provide incentives to them, and invest in the consumer campaigns.
Problem Diagnosis
The managing director of the major UK manufacturer of the showers known as Aqualisa, Harry Rawlinson has just launched the most innovative shower in the history and now he is being faced by an interesting problem. The Quartz shower is the new innovative development of the company asit provides advantages in terms of cost, quality and the ease of installation. During the product-testingphase, this product had received rave reviews from both the plumbers and the consumers.
However, the initial sales of the new product has been quite disappointing. Now the primary decision that is faced by Rawlinson is that whether he should change the promotion strategy, channel strategy or the overall positioning of the product within the context of all the existing products of the company. He needs to determine the best strategy to generate the momentum of sales for the Quartz shower. There are a number of alternatives he has been facing such as:
1) Targeting and selling to consumers directly,
2) Focusing on the DIY market through home centers such as B&Q,
3) Targeting and selling to developers, and
4) Lowering the price of the new Quartz.
The first three options seems to be viable however; Rawlinson believes that it would not be feasible to go to the discounted price of the product because his product was very niche.
Analysis
First, we discuss the reasons due to which the initial sales of the Quartz shower had been falling.
Reasons for Low Initial Sales of Quartz
The primary factors that were responsible for the low sales of Quartz are as follows:
- Despite the fact that the Quartz shower was a premium product it had been priced between 850 to 1080 euros and this was too high as compared to the other shower products of Aqualisa.
- The plumbers are the one on whose advice the customers in selecting their showers and they were usually wary of the innovations and they did not liked the idea of installing the electronically devised showers.
- The product when launched was sold to the customers through trade shops and they did not have enough time to explain the benefits of the product to the customers.
- The sales force focused more on thee existing customers (90%) rather than acquiring new customers (10%).
- There are around 2000 showrooms in UK but Aqualisa products were sold in only 500 out of these showrooms.
Marketing Strategy Quartz Shower Brand
The case shows that there are three direct customers whom Aqualisa can target directly which are premium, valued and the standard customers and these can be targeted through the plumber’s showrooms. Moreover, exhibit 4 also shows that around 73% of the shower purchases in UK are done with the help of the advice of the plumbers. Therefore, Aqualisa can capitalize by emphasizing and communicating effectively with the plumbers. The marketing strategy for Aqualisa for increasing the sales of Quartz should be as follows:
Product
The innovative qualities of Quartz would have a significant impact on the UK shower market consumers. There are currently no other competitors in the market that match the value proposition of Quartz shower therefore, now is the right time to penetrate the market with an aggressive marketing strategy. The threat of substitutes is high in the market because of the availability of the less advanced showers and the consumers are also wary of new showers because of potential malfunctions and prior failures. Therefore, the marketing strategy should be able to convey the differences between traditional and Quartz shower................
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