Persuasive Portfolio of Godiva and Lady Dior Bag
Abstract
All companies whether large or small, public, private, commercial, charities or even
governmental have a need to communicate with various stakeholders in the business. Marketing
communication provides a basic medium where all the interested parties are able to understand
the intentions and needs of the others and also to be able to appreciate the services or goods
being offered. Marketing communication basically is made up of sales promotion, advertising
personal selling, direct marketing and public relations. Beside these basic activities, there is the
media in which the marketing time and space have to be paid for in order to pass the messages to
the rightful audiences. An appropriate mix of these strategies and the choice of the right media
has to be carefully done or the whole exercise would be ineffective. This paper looks at the
marketing communication techniques and the applicable strategies and concepts.
Introduction
The sale of designer clothing has been one of the most competitive businesses in most cities in
the world. The brand name sells more than actually the quality of the products. Customer
loyalty plays a big role in marketing communication strategies (Smith & Taylor, 2004)
Godiva line of designer clothing is a business that seeks to promote its designer clothes to the
market. Godiva is a brand name that is globally known as a quality brand and its products are
highly on demand. Godiva brand of cloths is not very affordable to the lower and middle
income class of the population hence its marketing strategies targets the high income class of
the population (Kotler, Keller, Brady, Goodman & Hansen, 2012).
To market the Godiva brand, competitive marketing strategies have to be adopted. Promotional
strategies have to be applied. This function refers to informing, influencing and persuading the
potential decisions of the customer. The major objective of promotional strategy is to initiate,
develop and promote the primary demand of the product. Various companies may have
different promotional strategies and whose objective may vary; some may target expansion of
business while others may target selected markets. But the major objective of promotional
strategy is to provide the necessary basic information about the existence of the product and
also to differentiate the product in order to attract more sales and value besides stabilizing its
market (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010).
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b) To promote Godiva brand of clothes, the business must provide all the information about the
products on the market by providing posters or advertising through the media on the range of
products it’s selling. The picture below portrays some of the clothes that may persuade the
clients to make purchases from the Godiva designer shops.
The company must design a communication strategy that’s effective and which will make
critical decisions on who the customers are, the kind of message of message to be
communicated and how they can be contacted. For example, particular sports apparel will
target distinct groups based on their taste and messages to be conveyed, customers who are
going for sporting events or holidays may prefer messages with celebrity sports stars dressed in
particular sports jerseys or jackets. This process is known as market segmentation and it
involves dividing the market and selected groups into distinct clusters that are different from
each other. In one of promotional attires, Godiva branded apparels may used to target the youth
while referring to or playing basketball or super ball (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010).
The major objective of market segmentation is that it literally increases efficiency marketing
communication by narrowing the selected market particularly toward the defined and
designated segment while attracting the characteristics of the segment.
Finally, market segmentation mostly leads to differentiation of the product in each segment
while also at the same time intangibly differentiates from the company’s rival products. The
branded products from Godiva will eventually create a defined market for its line of clothing
and customer loyalty will certainly develop as a result of the brand name. The combination of
different marketing elements creates a marketing mix that’s unique to the industry and which
only relates to the Godiva brand of apparels (Wood, 2003). The company can also decide
whether to adopt the pulling or the pushing strategy when implementing its marketing
Persuasive Portfolio of Godiva and Lady Dior Bag
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strategies. The pulling strategy is more suited to products whose needs for personal selling is
not critical but they can be sold in popular supermarkets. Designer clothes are rarely sold in
common shops but mostly in selected shops only.
The branded Lady Dior Bag is a product that seeks to attract the attention of the market by its
differentiated product which attempts persuade the in an effort to boosts its sales. Branding is a
communication strategy that persuades and reinforces the importance of a particular product.
The branded product has been positioned as an image of quality from the company. Branded
products explain the general uniqueness of the products from the ones that are available from
the shelf. It’s a tool that’s applied to position a company’s product by literally designing its
exteriors and packaging in a way that distinguishes it from the competitor’s products in the
market. For effective communication, customers must generally envisage the company’s
branded products as a mark of quality and excellence. The mental picture that forms in the
minds of the clients when the particular brand is mention must be a perception of value and
which ultimately influences the rate or price that the customers would be willing to pay to
obtain the product. Brand equity occurs eventually when the customers are generally willing to
pay much more just for the reason of a products position in the market.
Part 2
Lady Dior Bags may also be manufactured for both the high and middle level earners hence the
advertisement must also target both groups. The use of posters and sales promotional items
may be utilized (Kotler, Keller, Brady, Goodman & Hansen, 2012).
b) To develop a persuasive portfolio for Lady Dior Bag then the company has to develop a
persuasive advertisement that has an attractive picture of the product together with a selling
slogan like “Mark of Quality” The following is one of the pictures that is applicable to Lady
Dior Bags.
Persuasive Portfolio of Godiva and Lady Dior Bag
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A well branded message, that’s very distinctive and creative, can generate very good results
that would propel the sales to very high rates of profitability. The application of Persuasive
advertising to promote and popularize Lady Dior Bags can achieve tremendous success if it’s
implemented after the informative strategy has been fully implemented. Informative advertising
is use to build and create the initial primary demand of a product mostly during the introductory
stages of the product in to the market while persuasive advertising is applicable at the later
stages of a products life cycle. For the promotional strategy to be successful, product
positioning has to be efficient and the differentiation of the product has also to be competitive
to rival the competitor’s products in the market.
To create an effective portfolio for Lady Dior Bags, sales promotion has to be introduced in
order to increase the sales other than depending on advertisement and public relations only.
Sales promotion has traditionally been used as a supplement to advertisement but it has now
evolved through promotional mix to be part of strategic marketing communication skills for
most companies globally.
Lady Dior Bags may involve the use of direct selling of the bags through offers to selected
media or sports personalities in order to improve its sales and popularity. This approach will
also attract both advertising as well as personal selling. However, this strategy will require the
determination of the level of public relations, the expenditures and sales promotion techniques
before any particular strategy is adopted. For example, the high prized bags may require bigger
budgets as the clients for such bags may be located in expensive clubs and hotels (Kotler &
Armstrong, 2010)
The decision adopt a particular promotional mix may be related directly to the promotional
strategy that the organization wishes to adopt in an effort to promote its services or products.
Persuasive Portfolio of Godiva and Lady Dior Bag
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Lady Dior Bag’s business has two options to choose from. The company can adopt either the
pushing strategy where the concept is sales oriented and the product is basically earmarked for
distribution for by the retailers or the wholesalers. The company can then concentrate of
advertisement while the sales can be handled by the distribution channels. These method is
convenient and more attractive as it involves less expenditures in the form of sales personnel
however the products are relatively expensive and most designer products are custom made
hence it may not be applicable to the Lady Dior Bags. However, depending on the promotional
mix available, some products may be sold on selected supermarkets especially the ones that
target the middle level income earners while the others can be distributed through direct selling
to potential customers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010).
The other form is the pulling strategy where the consumer demand is created through marketing
appeals like sales promotion and advertisement. The major objective is to create primary
demand for the product who eventually will be attracted by the service and the quality of its
branded products. The marketers generally believe that through the strong demand created, the
items will pull the customers to the product by compelling the competitive marketing
intermediaries to eventually accommodate the product mostly through the existing marketing
channels. The type of strategies used depend on the nature of the product that’s being promoted
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References
Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G., 2010, Principles of Marketing, 13th edition, London: Pearson
Education Ltd.
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Brady, M., Goodman, M. & Hansen, T., 2012, Marketing Management,
2nd edition, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Smith, P.R. & Taylor, J., 2004, Marketing communications: An integrated approach, 4th edition.
London: Kogan Page Limited.
Wood, M., 2003, The Marketing Plan: A Handbook. New Jersey: Pearson Education
