Case Study Burt's Bees

Clorox purchased Burt`s Bees for our reputation in personal health care niche market. But we stay in the same market with same products for almost 20 years. Our regular market could not provide us an even more profitable market. We recommend turn Burt`s Bees into a mainstream American market with multiple products combination to earn the profit maximization.
According to the Clorox research recently, 53 percent of consumers willing to pay for eco-friendly products, and 47 percent of those customers want to pay 20-25 percent more on these natural products. That is to say, being natural and healthy is the customers demand. From 2000 to 2007, our revenue boosted to 164 million from 23 million. Clorox bought us almost 1 billion for the big opportunities
in the market for green goods. All these signs indicate that we should shift our business from niche market into mass market. Although we have thought the idea keeping Burt`s Bees stay in the niche market, such as developing partnership with spa chain to maintain our image as a premium status. The approach is still not able to maximize our profit.
Our product decisions should start with clear product lines and brand image. I suggest we keep the original Burt`s bees image on the products. Our products should be segment into different product lines, face and lip care for mass customers as regular product lines, body care, baby care and makeup for high-end customers as our luxury products lines. By saying so, I mean that natural personal care is a trend. We should launch different product lines to meet different demands rather than staying in the same and simple product line. The next step is choosing the distribution channel. I suggest keep our luxury lines products stay in the drugs store or healthy store, besides, we recommend display our body and baby care products into shopping mall such as Kohl`s and Macy`s. In this way, Burt`s Bees could remain a premium image to keep the good relationship with clients in the niche market. On the other hand, we recommend put our lips and hand care products into big-box market, such as Wal-Mart. Display the Burt Bees products near the Clorox promotion shelves. In this way, those used to buy Clorox stuff, especially those housewives can easily find the personal care products, Burt`s Bess particularly. Even they do not know our products before,
they care the natural products, they care their own healthy, and they can easily find such products in the market. I believe there is a big potential market among them. When choosing the price channel, we aim to stay the premium price in our luxury product lines, in order to keep the strong brand awareness of the natural and healthy. In the super market, we recommend set the price friendly strategy on our lip, hand and face care products. In addition, we could provide some coupon with Clorox`s products, provide discount package for Burt`s bees and Clorox products to attract those potential clients. Following this, we suggest to put a large portion of the profit into advertising budget. As a part of the company, we could use this opportunity expand our recognition and rebrand the eco-friendly image of Clorox. This can be done through TV advertisement, funding TV program such as “Discovery”, given sponsorship to environment events and distribute Burt`s Bees lip balm as samples, and direct mail with coupon to household or provide the discount to retailors if they display our products in their store.
In conclusion, I believe that going straight to mass market could bring an even more profitable result to Burt`s Bees, and create a more eco-friendly image for Clorox.