Trap-Ease Case Study

1. For Martha to best assist Trap-Ease America to take advantage of the opportunity of profiting from providing its customers with a better mouse trap, it is necessary to evaluate the values of which market segments will be best served by the product, the strategic and long-term goals of the company and define the marketing concepts and mission orientation through which they will meet those goals. In Martha’s initial efforts, she defined the market segment and their values as women responsible for running the household who value safety and cleanliness over traditional mouse traps. It seems that the strategic plan of Trap-Ease is to profit quickly from early media popularity with little consideration to the long-range plans for customer retention. Due to this, the marketing strategy leans towards the selling concept; however, Martha believes that the product is innovative enough to gain popularity solely through the recent media attention without additional advertising or special offers that may produce more attraction from the consumer. I think the mission statement of the group from the beginning would have been “we make the better mouse trap.” That mission statement seems less fitting as sales remain slow and Martha begins to reconsider her original position regarding marketing of Trap-Ease’s product. I would write the mission statement for this company as “we make it clean and easy to keep your home and family safe and healthy.”

2. I do not agree with Martha’s vision of the target market for the product even before she began to doubt her initial marketing efforts. The reasoning is sound and logical but consumers often are not. While a woman in charge of running a household may be likely to notice a mouse problem first, they often let tasks involving unpleasantness to the man of the house. It’s fair to assume that since the target market is mostly women caring for a family and household, there’s likely a husband or significant other providing for the family