Problem Statement:
From a product manager’s perspective perform a critical analysis of Gillette’s 1983 Right Guard restage and 1985 White Rain product launches.
Introduction
The case discusses and evaluates the planning and control activities defined as the planning and control system, undertaken by the management at Gillette specifically during the period between the late 1970s and 1980s. The formal and informal measures that were undertaken to develop marketing programs that formed the centerpiece of PCD’s business.
The case starts by discussing the hierarchy established within Gillette. The product managers reported to the marketing managers, who in turn reported to the Vice President of marketing, Robert Forman who reported to the President William Ryan. The VP of marketing along with other VPs from domains such as Personnel, Market Research, R&D, Sales, Manufacturing and Controller and the president formed the operating committee
Recommendations
In my recommendation this level of management is less flexible as the product managers were reporting to the marketing managers. Once developing new products or ideas, product managers are central to the plan though the way that marketing managers at Gillette carried out the market research through the market research division called the MRD and presented the financial statements was impressive.
The planning activity comprised of creation of sales and marketing summary created by the director of sales which was incorporated into the brand fact books. These fact books used for information sources such as sales/marketing meeting, MRD, outside market research, and brand management. These books provided historical data, competitor profiles, actions in advertising, pricing, promotion, product, and most importantly quantitative analysis.
In my recommendation this is a very exhaustive and extensive technique as it established general strategic direction and specific marketing programs for the coming year. It also allowed to evaluate the current portfolio of products and considerate profit-and-loss statements for financial planning.
One of the steps that the company undertook was to segregate the product brand into four categories: Build, Hold, Harvest and Withdraw. Each serving a different purpose as the name suggests.
In my recommendation as Bill Ryan suggested that labelling your brands under these conventions is of limited utility and is not a strong approach as business conditions change regularly and so does the market.
As for control related activities, the main analysis reports included of chart showing actual division sales in dollars versus scheduled, the monthly sales forecast, major brand sales versus scheduled sales for the month to date, internal generated research reports, monthly updates, the annual national consumer study but the main attraction was the Management Action charts on different product categories provided to product managers.
In my recommendation, this helped to quite an extent as these reports became a major part of the next year’s brand fact book and marketing plans. MRD also helped keep extensive records on program results from past years.
Moving on to the 1983 Right Guard Restage, it was one of Gillette’s flagship products with approx. 15% of the company’s division sales and 25% of the division operating profit. The brand was rebuilt to improve its overall status. It was relaunched with two new chemical formulations and a new fragrance. New graphics were also launched through the product.
In my recommendation, when relaunching a product to improve brand image, advertising is a key component as we have seen through Markstrat. The mistake for the stagnant growth of this product even after introducing so many features and being one of the most established products in the market is less focus on advertising.
The 1985 White Rain Launch was a particularly interesting case. The company wanted to establish a price-value brand in the market. White Rain hair spray was already well established in the Southern and Central states and was being well circulated. The White Rain brand group saw this as an opportunity to do a dry run of the shampoo and mousse to be launched as a package with the hair spray. The interesting thing to note was there was no advertising done for the product and the company followed an unconventional development approach comprising of no documentation on any front to track how the product was being developed and will be marketed. The added products did very well nationally.
In my recommendation, the missing step in which the MRD used to conduct consumer-use test was skipped which basically assessed the consumer attitudes towards the product was a great initiative as this was a test case scenario in which there was nothing to lose for the company.
Conclusion:Overall, this case makes a compelling case that through planning and control paradigm, a lot can be achieved through proper marketing breakdown, sales collaboration, and preplanned resources. There is a time to stick to the system and a time to explore the unconventional as shown by Gillette through two of its product launches.
Comments