Rohm & Haas – New Product Marketing Strategy

Problem Statement:

Joan Macey is concerned about the Kathon MWX’s marketing strategy and its impact on sales.

Analysis:

Joan Macey only 5 months after the launch of Kathon MWX is only 13% of projection which for good reason has her concerned about her current marketing strategy and what action she needs to take. These actions will come in the form of recommendations based on a critique or her existing marketing strategy and potential solutions for each of the four P’s, promotion, product, price, and placement.

Promotion

1. Joan’s promotion strategy was to have a press release in 40 metal working industry journals, full paged ads, free samples for offered to those that filled out a reader service coupon, resulting in 200 inquiries, which Rohm and Haas then followed up with an information pack, where 20% remembered receiving the pack, and the distributors were “expected” to follow-up

a. Critique

i. With the fact that only 20% remembered even receiving a pack, means they are far from making a process change. At this point in the strategy they have invested in the advertising, free samples, packets, and distributor follow-up and to only get 200 inquires in which 20% remember getting the information that is going to make them switch is far from effective.

ii. Only getting 200 inquiries is very small compared to the 150,000 potential customers of Kathon MWX alone.

iii. Macey admitted that “…many small users are either unaware or don’t see the need for biocides…”. With this said traditional mass marketing with little education or blanketed education in the form of paper is not the best promotion solution.

iv. 50% of the surveyed users used home remedy type solutions that were proven not to be effective. This shows that they were not only uneducated to the ineffectiveness, but also were unaware of the various options to treat the problem.

v. Dermatitis was one of the primary causes of discarding the fluid, with dermatitis being a symptom of skin...