WEAKNESSES & THREATS
_______________________ SIZE & STYLE OF DRINK SAFE 1. “The business offers one generic size of glass covers to illuminate drink spiking but what about those drinking from pint glasses and wine glasses or punch bowls at parties?” 2. Local pubs, bars and nightclubs would not increase their expenses further to accommodate for this product. They incur enormous amounts of costs and bring in revenue. If they were to purchase the lids, they would need to purchase cups and glasses to accommodate the lids increasing their spending’s even more. 3. I believe more thought is required into the design of their product and whom they are targeting. Silicon covers in theory are a good idea, but how will they fit all cups and how do they really differ from silicon lids of coffee cups? ______________________________ PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN 1. The promotional campaign was ok but has been used a few times before and could sometimes miss their target audience as its not encouraging them to use the device. 2. A let down for me though was the promotional campaign, it was lacking in so much potential information which I am sure you all know about, but it just didn’t show in the presentation. 3. I felt the promotional campaign was weak and very unclear as to what product it was promoting. 4. There is very limited disclosure on who the target market is and whether it is to encourage safe consumption of alcohol, coffee or whether to prevent harming others. 5. The promotional campaign seems undeveloped however it indicates clear target market association. 6. The promotional campaign needs to be a lot more expansive. Posters will not solely suffice for something that is trying to create an awareness for a cause, especially amungst a younger audience. ______________________________ LOCATION 1. Why limit the product to only online, look to get the product into supermarkets, bottle shops and vending machines in bars, for such a small product there is not a lot of incentive to keep it online, the benefits to marketing elsewhere would out way the savings of continuing an online only business. COMPETITION 1. The other issues that would need to be watched are that there is already competition with other products on the market already, Alcotop, Drink Safe Coaster and Drink Guard. 2. I had seen similar things to this being given out for free outside pubs and clubs. COSTS 1. And you would still need to budget for a location, if only as a warehouse to keep stock. ______________________________ TARGET MARKET 1. I believe that the target audience should not be focused on people who are under 18. Yes it is true that teenagers drink under age and that drink spiking can happen outside of a club setting, there should not be validation to justify underage drinking. 2. The target marker for this business is predominately Generation Y and school aged teenagers. A lot of the target market may not be too concerned about their own safety and may be difficult to convince them to spend money. 3. Who would buy their product? Their target market is a fail. No young teen, especially a girl will use this product whilst drinking. It is not “cool”. Most teens buy alcohol in bottles and drink out of bottles. All pre-mixed drinks come pre-packaged which is convenient for them and for parents as they can moderate and allocate how much they drink. 4. Group six presented a business plan that looked a little to out of their target market range. Whilst their idea was clever, majority of the target audience wouldn’t see the need for it as the mindset of “it wouldn’t happen to me” strongly dominates. 5. It may work better by looking at aiming it towards parents to protect their children or aim the advert at people protecting each other and not straight at the individual, get brothers to buy them for sisters, fathers for daughters, friends for friends. Include stories about victims, what happens to their families, to their lives and market within magazines that your group reads, such as Cosmopolitan etc. ______________________________ COST OF IMPORTING & DELIVERY FROM OVERSEAS: 1. Drink Safe identified two threats to their business in which I thought could be mitigated quite easily. They were; the costs of importing from overseas and the delays with importing from overseas. ______________________________ RESEARCH & ANALYSIS 1. I would invest in this business pending the results of surveys to the public’s response to this product. Potentially this could be a huge money 2. With new products that do not already have a market, it is difficult to judge or analyse their likely success, making it crucial that as much research and surveys are completed by both. |
STRENGTHS & OPPORTUNITIES
______________________________ SIZE & STYLE OF DRINK SAFE 1. To help prevent drink spiking and increase business, the idea of looking at all different sizes, especially for house parties, will illuminate other possible drink spiking opportunities and increase sales from ‘worried’ parents. ______________________________ PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN 2. I love the concept and how you will be getting the awareness by advertising it through social media 3. The idea to promote safe drinking is certainly a concept that will appeal to a lot of schools, government departments and community organisations and is very timely considering the amount alcohol fueled violence that is talked about in the media. 4. It is good that this has been thought of by considering developing partnerships with Government and Community Organisations. 5. I think this business would be successful if it was able to develop these partnerships, which would mean that the product would be bought in large amounts that can then be used in education programs at schools. I think it would be quite difficult to sell this product directly to the consumer. 6. More mainstream methods like social media (Facebook pages) and internet/late night TV adverts would really create more of an awareness. 7. As it is aimed at drinking safe and preventing others spiking drinks, it is likely to get a positive response. 8. To enhance their promotional campaign they could organise school talks, a cost effective way to get students at the ‘right’ age. This will help minimise the threat of the product being seen as uncool from others therefore not being used when in public. It can also help ensure of a buddy system to be in place to make sure the product is at hand when out and not forgotten about after a ‘few-to-many’. ______________________________ COST OF IMPORTING & DELIVERY FROM OVERSEAS: 9. So to mitigate both of these threats, shouldn’t they produce their products in Australia? That would therefore decrease both the higher costs, and the delays they would experience from importing their products. ______________________________ |
ACTIONS TO TAKE
______________________________ SIZE & STYLE OF DRINK SAFE 1.Consider producing different size covers that fit different size glasses to be sold separately or produce and sell ‘packs’ of 4 individual covers to fit a standard size Wine Glass, Pint Glass, Bottle & Standard glass. 2. Design a similar product for beer bottles and alcopop bottles. ______________________________ PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN 3. We need to review the Promotional Campaign to ensure that the messaging and tools are appropriate for the specified target market. It seems that the promotional campaign confused the audience as to who our target market is. Some more appropriate and useful example of promotional tools as suggested by the ‘potential investors’ should be developed: ads on Facebook pages and the internet, TV adverts and magazines (Cosmopolitan). Although considering the high price of TV advertising and advertising in magazines we should produce an example of a Facebook advertisement and ensure that the messaging is clear and consistent with the product and business objectives (e.g. to prevent drink spiking, rather than preventing a hangover). 4.Adjust business proposal to include wholesale of product direct to supermarkets, shops and bars. 5. Alcotop & Drink Guard does exist which means we do have competition. Please check out the following links for further info: http://www.drinkspikedetector.com/alcotop.htm http://www.engadget.com/2004/07/03/the-drink-guard/ http://www.drinksafetech.com/ These products are available online, but don’t seem to be stocked in shops or pubs in Australia, therefore we should consider taking our product to other market locations as suggested in the previous section. We also need to consider how we set our product apart from the others. What is our competitive advantage? http://www.drinkspikedetector.com/package.htm ______________________________ LOCATION 6. We need to add costs associated with storage of the product. Even if we hypothetically stock the goods at home in a storeroom, we still need to consider costs of containers ‘etc’ to keep the stock protected. ______________________________ TARGET MARKET 7. It seems to be unclear to the audiences who our target market is. I think we all agree that this product cannot be targeted to anyone under the age of 18. I think improvements to our promotional campaign will better reflect our market and product/business intent. 8. Investigate whether the product can be produced in Australia and conduct a cost comparison of development costs overseas compared to in Australia. Determine whether it is appropriate for the business to take the risk or mitigate against the risk at the potential chance of paying higher product develop costs. ______________________________ COST OF IMPORTING & DELIVERY FROM OVERSEAS: 9. We have already identified a need for a feasibility study and market research to be conducted to determine the potential market response. ______________________________ |
RATIONAL FOR CHOSEN ACTION
_______________________ SIZE & STYLE OF DRINK SAFE As per the comments received, the Drink Safe Cover was proposed to only come in one size which won’t accommodate a large number of people who may drink from different sized cups, glasses or bottles; therefore it is recommended that the consideration be made to producing different sized covers. Sourced complimentary product Beer Savers. ______________________________ PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN The promotional campaign is vital to the success of the business. If the promotional campaign is not appropriate and isn’t clear in its messaging then it will not appeal to the target market which will affect the businesses ability to sell the product. Making the product more readily available for purchase to consumers will enhance the chances of sales and increase potential income. Making our product easily available to a separate market will enhance our ability to contend for business against other competitors. All costs need to be considered when developing a business’s proposal. The costs of storage /product location could potentially increase depending on the future scale of the business and the need for larger amounts of stock to be ordered in and made readily available. The promotional campaign needs to be improved to actually reflect our business/product intent and to attract the right target market. ______________________________ TARGET MARKET It is not appropriate for this product to be targeted to anyone under the age of 18, therefore our target market will remain the same (females aged 18 – 35). ______________________________ COST OF IMPORTING & DELIVERY FROM OVERSEAS: Investigate costs and benefits of producing product in Australia. ______________________________ RESEARCH & ANALYSIS It is important to conduct an analysis of both the potential risks and potential costs to determine which option is the best to take. Conducting a feasibility study and market research is very important to ascertain whether the business venture will make profit and be a beneficial business and investment opportunity. |