The Butter Body Products from The Body Shop

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Introduction

The Body Shop International has 2,400 stores in 60 countries, throughout the world making it the world’s second largest cosmetic franchise after  O Boticario of Brazil. This company is however  headquartered in England, and it has been operational for the last three decades under the leadership of its founder the late Dame Anita Roddick. However,  the company is nowadays a part of the L’Oréal corporate group. Depending of the products The Body Shop specialises with it is undoubtedly necessary to consistently undertake an aggressive advertising strategy mainly because  cosmetic products being among the major fast moving goods, advertising therefore constitutes a core marketing strategy (Tellis, 2008). This has been the main reason why  the company has experienced a tremendous growth over the recent past through improving its market competitiveness in the cosmetics industry market.

Advertising is however the key to success of any company. Therefore, it becomes crucial to embrace advertising vas an integral part of the company operations and always adopting the new advertising technologies as soon as they become available which is crucial in giving the company an upper hand in comparison with the competitors (Tellis, 2008). Hence, a varied types of advertising media are usually available through which the company can utilize in marketing its products to the consumers such as the business cards, media  advertising, custom flyers, as well as press releases.

Additionally, the social media advertising is also on the rise nowadays, thereby making it one of the successful internet marketing tool. Thus, any company will also be required to embrace the social media marketing in order to target a wider target. Moreover, in the attempts of  advertising a company’s products the need for the creation of a website for the company becomes inevitable (Tellis, 2008). However, it is important for every company to note that it is rare for a single advertising mode to yield the desired outcome, hence,  a collaborative approach combining various advertising methods becomes crucial since it helps in reaching diverse target groups resulting to greater impacts  and increased sales which leads to market competitiveness.

Budgetary Requirements

 

In order to  carry out an effective advertising of the company products for the purpose of strategic positioning in the market a well laid down plan indicating the expenses that are likely  to be incurred. Hence, it is crucial to establish a convenient advertising budgeting strategy  for  the company (Tellis, 2008). However, due to the involved costs  most companies does not use all the advertising methods available but ensures that it pinpoints the ones envisaged to have greater returns for their money. Therefore, a budgetary requirements for advertising involves  evaluating all the costs involved in carrying out  such advertising activities.

The advertising will involve adding extra staff to perform the extra activities such as the field work and promotion. Moreover, the current staff will also be devoting lesser time to their positions in the time due to their  increased involvement in the marketing push. Therefore, the wages of the increased staff  constitutes the major cost for any company’s advertising budget. However, the specific cost areas involved in the staffing include: wages, benefits and salary sacrifices

The budget for this will involve the $500 monthly wages to be paid to the promotion representatives (1000 in number throughout the world) meaning that it will cost the company a total of $500,000. The benefits and salary sacrifices will  also account for approximately $100,000. Therefore, the total cost that will be involved in the staffing will be $600,000.

Additionally,  the website  will  also be used in the advertising meaning that the internet based marketing will also be involved in the budget requirements. This is  mainly because millions of people are  accessing internet on daily basis with an intent of searching for varied products thereby making it  a crucial advertising media that targets a commendable population. Therefore, the specific cost areas  will involve: web hosting, search engine optimization, consulting & development and ezine development. Therefore, in overall it will cost approximately $50,000.

Direct advertising will also be of inevitable significance since it target a variety of media that reaches  a wide  range of target thereby making it the most important and also the most expensive in terms of expenses. Therefore, the need for ensuring maximum utilisation of the low cost advertising while at  the same time strategically using the high cost ones makes sure that an appropriate amount of money has been used to achieve maximum results. Hence, due  to the availability of the huge number of advertising media,  the choice that a company makes has a huge impact on the advertising campaign outcome. Therefore, this will involve the utilisation of the advertising on the press releases such as newspapers and magazines, radios, televisions and bill boards.

The advertising campaign will involve erecting 50 billboards each at a cost of $2,000 which means that the total cost for billboards will be $100,000. Also, the press releases advertising both in the newspapers  and magazines will involve spending $50,000. In addition, radio and television advertisements will constitute the greatest percentage of the advertising expenses. For instance, the total costs of weekly advertisements on the TV will be $9550 whereas that of the radio advertisements will be $3100 as shown on the table within the advertising time schedule. Therefore, developing an advertising budget is usually the most crucial step towards developing an effective advertising campaign.

Advertising Time Schedule Required

 

            An advertising  time schedule that is properly organised will be required in order to ensure that  there is proper impact created by the  advertising campaign (Tellis, 2008). For instance, the field staff responsible for promotion will be required  to go to the fields for at least two days a week. However, the program may be changed in future after evaluation of its impacts. The billboards will be consistently erected throughout the year ensuring that at least 50 of them are in place. Moreover, there will be at least one advert on every release of popular cosmetics and beauty magazines. In  addition, the radio and TV advertising time schedule will be as follows:

 

The TV Weekly Advertising Schedule on 8 different stations

TV Station	Days	Times	Length	Cost Per Spot	Total Spots/Week	Total Cost/Week
XW1	M-F	1 pm-3 pm	:30	$50	20	$1000
XW2	M-F	2 pm-3 pm	:30	$70	5	$350
XW3	M-F	2 pm-5 pm	:20	$60	20	$1200
XW4	M-F	2 pm-3 pm	:20	$80	10	$800
XW5	M-F	1 pm-2 pm	:30	$60	15	$900
XW6	M-F	3 pm-4 pm	:30	$75	20	$1500
XW7	M-F	2 pm-6 pm	:20	$80	30	$2400
XW8	M-F	2 pm-4 pm	:30	$70	20	$1400
Weekly Total					140	$9550

 

The Radio Weekly Advertising Schedule on 8 different stations

Radio Station	Days	Times	Length	Cost Per Spot	Total Spots/Week	Total Cost/Week
YZ1	M-F	1 pm-2 pm	:15	$20	10	$200
YZ2	M-F	2 pm-5 pm	:10	$30	20	$600
YZ3	M-F	2 pm-6 pm	:10	$15	30	$450
YZ4	M-F	3 pm-5 pm	:15	$30	15	$450
YZ5	M-F	2 pm-3 pm	:15	$30	10	$300
YZ6	M-F	4 pm-6 pm	:10	$20	15	$300
YZ7	M-F	1 pm-5 pm	:10	$10	30	$300
YZ8	M-F	2 pm-4 pm	:15	$25	20	$500
Weekly Total					150	$3100

 

 

Competitor’s Product

 

The butter body products is  an area  that has been heavily invested by most of the cosmetics industries meaning that there are numerous products that compete against the products of The Body Shop. However, The Body Shop consists of numerous number of butter body products such as: Lychee Blossom Body Butter,  Macadamia Body Butter Duo,  Vanilla Body Butter Duo, Satsuma Body Butter, Moringa Body Butter,  Strawberry Body Butter,  Sweet Lemon Body Butter,  Dreams Unlimited Body Butter,   Midnight Bakula Body Butter, Floral Acai Body Butter Duo, Olive Body Butter, Moroccan Rose Body Butter, Pink Grapefruit Body Butter, Coconut Body Butter, and  so on.

On the other hand, there  are also numerous competitor products of The Body Shop’s butter body products including the ones shown below:

 

Lemongrass Deluxe Body Butter                                                                Sun Butter

Sunshine Deluxe Body Butter                                                   Lavender Body Butter

 

 

 

Fragrance Free Body Butter                                                  Peppermint Body Butter

 

Pomegranate Body Butter                                                      Warm Vanilla Sugar Body

 

Why the pursued advertising is better compared to that of competitors

The Body Shop Butter Products advertising	The  competitors

v  The advertising is timely and strategic in specifically identifying its consumer target.

v  The advertising is involving the use of varied modes of advertisement targeting almost all the cosmetics consumer markets.

v  Frequency of advertising on the media such as the press releases, radio and television is high.

v  The advertising cover almost all the brands of the butter body products produced by the company and not only the premium ones.

v  Sometimes they follow what the Body Shop has done.

 

v  Some of the competitors use just one or a few methods of advertising which does not reach the entire consumer markets.

v  The frequency is sometimes low and mostly done during off-peak hours.

v  Most of the competitors often advertise their premium brands only.

 

Conclusion and recommendations

In  conclusion, it is important to note that advertising is very crucial for the success of any company since it creates an awareness to the consumers about existing products thereby strategically positioning the brand in the market which results to market competitiveness. However, it is recommended that for effective advertising the choosing of the right medium is of crucial significance (Tellis, 2008). This is important because a properly chosen medium is likely to reach more people compared to another medium that have just been hastily chosen without succinct consultation and evaluation.

There should also be persistence in advertising, that is, the company is supposed to carry on advertising in the long run since this acts as a constant reminder to the consumers about the products. Moreover, it is also important to keenly consider the timing of the adverts. For instance, radio and TV adverts should be mostly done in the afternoons and the evening when majority of people are listening while other adverts should also be strategically timed. In addition, the timing should also be related with the target consumers and right time to reach them (Tellis, 2008).

 

 

 

Reference

Tellis, G. J. (2008). Effective advertising: Understanding when, how and why advertising works. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

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