IMC Marketing Plan: Brita

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Water Filtration Systems for US Consumers Jennifer Giannosa Baker College

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ 4 Current Marketing Situation........................................................................................................... 4 SWOT and Market Analysis .................................. 5 Objectives and Issues...................................................... 6 Marketing Communication Strategy/ Positioning Strategy............................................................ 6 Specific Tactics........8 Message(s) ............................ 9 Media... .......9 Evaluation Process.... 10 Recommendations................. 11 Conclusions............................................................................................................... 12 References. ... 13 Table 1 ..14 Figure 1 .........15

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Abstract Maintaining an integrated marketing communications (IMC) plan involves the coordination of marketing mix tools, thereby presenting a consistent message to target customers. (Belch & Belch 2004) While previously, many companies maintained rather disconnected marketing efforts, today companies use IMC marketing plans to develop more effective and efficient marketing communication programs. Because consumer purchasing trends and preferences have recently changed, Brita, a water filtration product manufacturer, currently operates within a marketing environment which offers the company many opportunities for growth. Findings indicate that the company currently uses a variety of advertising methods, yet could benefit from expanded marketing efforts as well as a refined and more synergistic marketing message.

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Executive Summary Right now proves to be a crucial time for the water filtration industry. Although Brita engages in various forms of new methods of advertising, stepping up efforts may be the only way to hold onto its new found customer base. According to reports, the company has grown 24% since 2005 (Carr 2010). In 2000, Clorox purchased exclusive rights to the US market from its once parent company European Brita GMBH. Today Brita is owned by Clorox who is making big efforts to establish its Brita brand as number the number one water filtration product manufacturer in the US consumer market. Britas products include refillable water pitchers, water faucet filters, and in-appliance filters. The company also offers various products geared towards businesses but will not be discussed within this article. Customers are offered a selection of 17 different types of water pictures ranging in size, color, and style; each designed for different types of users. Current Marketing Situation Up until the late 2000s, the bottled water consumer market was experiencing high consumer demand. (Kaczanowska 2010) With high disposable income and a thirst for convenience, consumers could not get enough bottled water until a peak hit in 2008. By charging a premium price, it has been ultimately a gold mine. However, due to the recession of the late 2000s, this market has seen a steep decline. Conversely, this represents a great opportunity for Brita. Because of the recession, consumers have done things such as switch to generic or private label brands, reduce consumption of luxuries, and otherwise consolidated their spending. In fact, according to a recent survey by The Harris Poll, 1 in 5 adults have stopped purchasing coffee in the morning. (Corso 2010) Further, one quarter of adults have cut down on

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita their amount of trips to the barber, and even more importantly, 37% of adults have switched from purchasing bottled water to using refillable bottles. At the same time, another trend is becoming more popular; environmentalism. Consumers are becoming more aware of the effects of their never-ending consumption of products. With new government regulation and pressure from special interest groups and even friends, consumers are becoming increasingly interested in taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. While many question whether this trend is truly around to stay, currently there does not seem to be an end in sight. More and more products that highlight their green-friendly features are coming onto the market. SWOT and Market Analysis As for Brita, both of these consumer trends represent a great opportunity. Although there are conflicting reports on the status of the recession, polls have seen increased consumer spending and a steadily improving economy going into 2011. (Schnurr 2011) Yet still, some news sources question whether the reduced spending habits of the recession will stick with consumers or not. (PR Newswire 2010) This therefore represents a crucial time for Brita. With the improving economy, bottled water consumption has also been recovering. (Dai 2010) Brita should concentrate efforts on keeping consumers conscious of how much money they save by using its products. Looking at internal aspects of the organization, Brita enjoys strength from economies of scale through Clorox which currently owns the North American division of the company. The company therefore has access to a larger amount of advertising funds. On the other hand, there are some weaknesses within the company itself. Please see Table 1 for a SWOT analysis of Brita.

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Objectives and Issues Britas current marketing campaign is not integrated. Its TV commercials use a completely different creative style as compared to its Filtered for Good marketing campaign. With a rather depressed feel, the TV commercials use dark colors and slow music to depict an unfortunate scene: bottled water consumption. Conversely, the Filtered for Good campaign focuses on action and uses happy people doing their part to make a difference. In order to create a more constant advertising message, Brita should discontinue use of the depressing commercials, and instead a use a style similar to its Filter for Good campaign website within its TV commercials. Marketing Communication Strategy/Positioning Strategy According to Belch and Belch (2004), position refers to the image which comes to mind when a consumer thinks upon a certain brand. Brita is currently using its Filter for Good campaign to position itself within the minds of consumers. The main strategy of its current campaign is how the product benefits the environment. Although this is a strong focus on the companys overall advertising expenditure, the company also advertises additional benefits. For instance, many commercials in recent years have focused on health and convenience benefits. By expanding its line and adding filters which hook up to faucets, Brita was able to advertise the convenience of its product to customers. Other commercials communicated messages regarding the health benefits received from usage of the product. To adapt to changing times and increase sales, the company repositioned itself with its Filter for Good campaign in August of 2007. In an article by Marketing Week, Lawes analyzes trends in consumer behavior through semiotics (2009). Some current macro trends discussed include visual culture, accelerating

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita culture, return of the real, individualism, and relativism. Perhaps the success of social media marketing can be linked to trends in relativism and individualism. According to the article, people are becoming increasingly skeptical of large corporations; more distrustful of messages previously considered to be official. They want to retrieve their own information and share it with each other through email, online networks, and other forms of communication. This also can be seen through growing trends in corporate social responsibility and generosity marketing. Many large corporations support local communities in an effort to be seen on a level closer to the consumer. Tactics and Action Programs Britas Filter for Good campaign is taking a unique yet effective approach in advertising and promoting its products. The Filter for Good campaign is based on getting public support and encouraging action. Brita wants its consumers to get involved because it realizes that many consumers must change their lifestyle when switching from bottled water to Brita filters. The Filter for Good campaign uses bright colors and uplifting energetic messages to evoke feelings of action from consumers. On the website consumers can take a pledge to reduce their consumption of bottled water. They can also compete in contests to win various prizes. Brita markets its water pitchers in a package with a refillable water bottle. These packages are sold a various retailers such as Target, Sams Club and Walmart. Marketing within these stores offers great retail exposure of the product. The company also offers $5 off coupons to encourage new product users to try the product. Coupons are a type of sales promotion, one of the tools in the marketing mix. (Belch & Belch 2004) One of the reasons companies offer coupons is to appeal to a more price sensitive audience. In deed, many recent purchasers of Brita products are interested in saving money, so this is a good type of sales promotion for Brita.

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Specific Tactic(s) One specific tactic that Brita is taking is its Biggest Loser Sweepstakes. Consumers enter for a chance to win a workout with a personal trainer from the Biggest Loser TV show. The sweepstakes is based purely on chance and therefore would not be considered a contest. (Belch & Belch 2004) This type of sweepstakes will get consumers involved with the Brita brand. With this sweepstakes, Brita is directly targeting its desired consumer, those interested in health. Although this sweepstakes may bring the company attention, it also offers risks such as doing little to contribute to consumer franchise building, offering little relative effectiveness to the advertising campaign, and receive negative publicity among others. In addition, Brita also uses celebrity endorsements to advertise its product. The company seeks out celebrities, mainly musicians, who are environmentally aware and active. These celebrities are excited about endorsing the product and fans can also recognize this. According to Belch & Belch (2004), it is important to match the product image, target market characteristics, and celebrity personality when using celebrity endorsers. Finding prominent celebrities who are environmental activists to endorse the product is a highly suggested advertising tactic for Brita. Brita should increase expenditure on celebrity endorsements. Brita began a social media campaign with Facebook. (Marketwire 2010) The campaign was based on a contest where users submit environmental problems within their communities. This Facebook application links with the Filter for Good campaign site and encourages more traffic to the site. Using interactive online media is a great way to appeal to consumers, especially of a younger audience. Brita should also increase advertising expenditure to its interactive online advertisements. In addition, using creative and fun tactics to create new online campaigns will ensure that consumers are attracted to the site.

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Message(s) Although in the past Brita has focused on a message regarding health, today the companys main focus is environmental benefits. Appealing to an environmentally conscious audience seems to be Britas main focus. In addition to environmental benefits, health and savings benefits are also advertised. These three main messages should be the key to Britas advertising campaign. Brita filters have many benefits to consumers which are popular in todays health and environmentally conscious society. As previously discussed, although money saving benefits have been important to consumers during the recent recession, this trend may soon disappear. It is therefore important to communicate the message that the use of Brita products has many benefits. Media Brita already uses a wide variety of marketing mix tools to appeal to its target audience. TV commercials, relationship marketing event sponsorships, sales promotion contests and sweepstakes, online ad campaigns, and coupon offerings are just some of the ways Brita uses to advertise to its consumers. Overall, the company has been attempting to appeal to a younger, hipper audience by sponsoring events like the Sundance film festival. At this event the company gave out complimentary water bottles and encouraged party goers to refill their new bottles with filtered water. In addition, Brita advertises Brita advertises on TV with short commercials. The commercials currently being advertised are part of the filter for good campaign. The main message of these commercials also focuses on environmental benefits of product use. Although they use a different creative style, the main message is in line with its Filter for Good campaign. Budgets

IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Because Brita is owned by Clorox, no sales figures about its Brita brand are released. Exact promotional and advertising figures are therefore unknown and inaccessible. Conversely, one advantage of Brita being owned by Clorox is that it gains access to a large amount of available advertising dollars. According to Belch and Belch (2004), there are many theoretical approaches to creating a promotional budget. Further, one of the most commonly used methods is called percentage-of-sales. With this method, an advertising budget is established based on sales of the product. With one variation, sales figures for the coming year are projected, and the budget is created via these sales estimates. The benefit of this method is that, The resulting budget is more likely to reflect current conditions and be more appropriate. (Belch & Belch 2004, p. 218) Due to the high volatility of the bottled water market today, it would highly benefit Brita to use percentage-of-sales budgeting approach based on future sales projections. Overall the company should focus on increasing advertising expenditure on: Celebrity product endorsements TV advertisement of online Filter for Good campaign Advertisement of customizable water bottles Grass-roots marketing efforts Relationship management marketing tactics Contest and event sponsorship Evaluation process It is important to evaluate the success of advertisements before and after they are implemented. (Belch & Belch 2004) Avoiding costly mistakes, evaluating alternative strategies, increasing efficiency, and determining if objectives are realized are just some of the advantages of implementing an evaluation plan. In order to test new marketing ideas such as the customized

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IMC Marketing Plan: Brita water bottles, Brita should use concept testing. This will enable Brita to test the concept on a small group before expending a large piece of the budget on a full-blown campaign. In order to evaluate the success of the IMC marketing plan, financial goals should be analyzed and compared to actual results to see if significant progress was made. (Kerin et al. 2009) By identifying causes of deviations, Brita will be better prepared to make adjustments. An evaluation of financial success in new markets should be conducted throughout the entire IMC marketing plan implementation process. Success of advertising campaigns should be compared with the success of competing companies such as Pur and Culligan. Recommendations Overall, Brita needs to create a more integrated marketing plan. The companys Filter for Good campaign is gaining momentum and receiving customer support. By using grassroots efforts to gain strong community support, the company and its marketing campaign could be organically adopted with strong genuine support from consumers. Unfortunately, the companys currently featured TV commercials do not use the same creative aspects or mood to get the companys message to its consumers; its filter for good campaign which primarily uses the interactive and internet marketing mix factor, and its TV commercials from the advertising marketing mix factor use different message appeals. While its TV commercials use fear appeals to evoke an emotional response so consumers feel obliged to make a difference, the filter for good campaign appeals to another kind of emotion entirely. The rather sad and depressed TV commercials should be changed and integrated to support the Filter for Good campaign. Considering the previously mentioned consumer trends, it may be beneficial for Brita to also sponsor local community events. Partnering with other well known environmental organizations will also increase the perceived reliability of the companys messages. Although

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IMC Marketing Plan: Brita the company has already begun using this form of direct marketing, a larger amount of advertising expenditure should be used. In order to keep up with competitors in the market, Brita should focus on innovation and creative marketing techniques. Although it is doing well by using a variety of marketing mix tools, and using creative and cutting edge marketing techniques to reach its target market, the company needs to stay ahead of the curve and anticipate consumer trends. For instance, the company could offer a new interactive online marketing campaign. Customers would be able to, via the company website, create customized refillable water bottle designs. See Figure 1 for an example of how a customized water bottle would look like. Hopes are that the bottles would become an infectious marketing technique and increase exposure of the product. This campaign would also appeal to younger audiences. Conclusions In conclusion, Brita has proved it is willing to step up advertising expenditure on its products. By focusing on creative and cutting edge marketing tactics to appeal to consumers who are environmentally aware, Brita may be able to hold onto a piece of previous bottled-water purchasers. Sponsoring environmental events, using celebrity endorsement, employing direct marketing techniques to contact target consumers, and using a creative advertising campaign are tactics this company should use in its IMC plan. Brita should also concentrate on communicating the other benefits of its product: health and savings. Although it is focusing primarily on communicating the environmental benefits of its product usage, these additional benefits should receive greater focus.

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IMC Marketing Plan: Brita References Blech, G. E., Blech, M. A. (2004). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. New York, NY. Carr, C. (2010). Pouring it on. Time. Retrieved February 9th from www.time.com Corso, R. (2010). The Harris Poll #139. Harris Interactive. Retrieved from the Gale Online Database. Dai, R. (2010). Bottled up: Rising demand from beverage producers will moderately boost revenue. IBISWorld Industry Report 32616. Plastic Bottle & Container Manufacturing in the US. Retrieved from the Gale Online Database. Kaczanowska, A. (2010). Dry spell over: Greener practices and rising consumer sentiment drive industry growth. IBISWolrd Industry Report 31211b. Bottled Water Production in the US. Retrieved from the Gale Online Database. Kerin, A., Hartley, S., & Rudelius, W. (2009). Marketing. New York, NY: Mc Graw-Hill Irwin. Lawes, R. (2009). Consumer behavior: Look to the future. Marketing Week. Retrieved January 18, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1660152361). Marketwire. (2010). The Brita Filter for Good Film Project takes over the silver screen. Comtex. Retrieved from the Gale Online Database. PR ewswire (2010). Survey: More cities cut bottled water spending. Retrieved from the Gale Online Database. Schnurr, L. (2011). U.S. growth, inflation seen strengthening in 20011: Reuters poll. Reuters. Retrieved February 12th from: www.chicagotribune.com.

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IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Table 1 SWOT Analysis Strengths Highly recognized and established brand Strength from partnership with Clorox First mover advantage Opportunities Growing green consumer market Current reduced consumer spending Consumer health trend Threats Increasing bottled water spending Increasing disposable income Competitors such as Pur, Culligan Weaknesses Non-integrated marketing plan Conflicting creative styles

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IMC Marketing Plan: Brita Figure 1

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