Strong Recommendations to Gillette
Gillette is going to choose a strategic option for Fusion and Fusion Power, its new breakthrough offering, which are following the MACH3, the former successful exiting offering, in order to increase sales of Fusion and Fusion Power of which sales are flat 10.6% in 1st quarter to 10.8% in 2nd quarter, which is little bit disappointing, compared to the MACH3 (See the Exhibit 1.)
Decision
I strongly recommend that Gillette should launch new advertising campaign with a promotion campaign, in order to achieve the strategic goal of increasing speed of diffusion of its new offering, Fusion, through rapid replacement of not only the competitors’ offering but also its existing offering. In a new advertising campaign, the company should emphasize on the superiority of Fusion and make the MACH3 obsolete by comparing attributes of Fusion and MACH3 directly. In promotion, the company should discount the handle of Fusion temporarily.
Grounds for the decision
First of all, the reason why the company should launch a new advertising is that value of new offering is currently not delivered effectively to customers. In the media, the marginal benefit of the two extra blades was unclear to many consumers and was questioned by the media as well. In addition, according to Rogers’s categorization of customers based on the time of adoption of innovation, the innovators and early adopters are just 16 percent. (See the Exhibit 2) Considering 10.8% of consumers already use the Fusion, most innovators and early adopters might already be using it. Therefore, in order to speed up diffusion of Fusion, it is critical that the majority of consumers rapidly perceive the created value of Fusion such as less irritation and greater comfort and easy trimming of sideburns through explaining concretely practical relative benefit to MACH3 in advertising. (See the Exhibit 3)
Also, the reason why the company should execute planned obsolescence is that main competitor of Fusion, is MACH3. Because
Decision
I strongly recommend that Gillette should launch new advertising campaign with a promotion campaign, in order to achieve the strategic goal of increasing speed of diffusion of its new offering, Fusion, through rapid replacement of not only the competitors’ offering but also its existing offering. In a new advertising campaign, the company should emphasize on the superiority of Fusion and make the MACH3 obsolete by comparing attributes of Fusion and MACH3 directly. In promotion, the company should discount the handle of Fusion temporarily.
Grounds for the decision
First of all, the reason why the company should launch a new advertising is that value of new offering is currently not delivered effectively to customers. In the media, the marginal benefit of the two extra blades was unclear to many consumers and was questioned by the media as well. In addition, according to Rogers’s categorization of customers based on the time of adoption of innovation, the innovators and early adopters are just 16 percent. (See the Exhibit 2) Considering 10.8% of consumers already use the Fusion, most innovators and early adopters might already be using it. Therefore, in order to speed up diffusion of Fusion, it is critical that the majority of consumers rapidly perceive the created value of Fusion such as less irritation and greater comfort and easy trimming of sideburns through explaining concretely practical relative benefit to MACH3 in advertising. (See the Exhibit 3)
Also, the reason why the company should execute planned obsolescence is that main competitor of Fusion, is MACH3. Because