Custom «Consumer Analysis » Essay Paper Sample

Old Spice is a product originally produced by Shulton Company which was founded by William Lightfoot Schultz in 1934. The first Old Price product was known as American Old Spice meant for women then followed by Old Spice for men. Old Spice has three main lines of products which each of them featuring a variety of scents and products. There is High endurance, Red Zone and Classic. Old spice is a masculine blend that is refreshing and leaves men feeling invigorated. Old spice deodorant comes in a variety of scents which include orange, lemon, sage, vanilla and so on. Old Spice is among the most profitable personal care product mainly because consumers are very loyal with their deodorant products and therefore deodorant companies do not really have much problems with it. However the greatest problem is attracting ne customers. It should however understand that the journey to success has not been that easy. Old Spice came with a negative connotation of being an after shave for men. According to Capon (2009), the main cause of this is because it had been in existence for quite sometime starting as a catalog business (p. 23). Moreover it had many brands of products but really got popular during the war. Most of the people who used this product were of 50 years and above and that's why it was associated with the old.

The product has however been transformed to target even the young generation. The main target has therefore become the young men who want to feel energetic and masculine. This is both a short term and long term strategy considering that the young men grow into old people at a time and still feel comfortable with the product. The pricing strategy of Old spice is such that it is affordable to most people. More over, there is a variety of products with each selling at a different price which makes it easy for consumers to choose the product the product that fits their budget. For instance, you can own Old Spice high endurance, invisible at $ 1.89 while Old Spice high endurance, anti-perspirant goes for $55.99. According to Burrow & Bosiljevac (2008), this therefore means that if you can't afford the high price products, you can still go for the low priced ones and feel comfortable (p. 59). Considering that this product could be found at a low price, this has become a functional benefit to the consumers. For a consumer to purchase a product, he first evaluates the alternatives that might occur mainly in reference to price and quality. With Old Spice, you do not have to compare prices with other product since the same product comes in various kinds which means you only chose the product that fits your needs. Its quality is also high because the company works with the strategy of giving consumers full worth of their money and therefore the consumer does not have to worry about quality issues.

The marketing strategy used for the product is also very advantageous for it. The internet has become one of the greatest forms of promotion and this makes quite a large population to find out more about the product via the internet. With the increase in technology, people prefer to do their shopping online since they can access many products at once and compare prices. This has helped the product reach many people who can still order for the product on line. For instance on July 14, 2010, there was an online viral video campaign launched by Old Spice and this managed to gather about 6.7 million views within the first 24 hours. This just goes to tell how many people access the internet (Burrow & Bosiljevac, 2008, p. 66).

Another every important marketing strategy that the company employs is the use of prominent personalities or the so called celebrities to attract more people. For instance, actor Bruce Campbell has been used severally in commercial of the product. Another actor Neil Patrick Harrid has also appeared severally in TV commercial. As Evans (2010) puts it, these are people adored or loved by their funs and once these funs perceive them to be using the product, they are also long to use the product which increases sales (p. 51). Old Spice's agency also created a bathroom set that was located in Portland and had one of their commercial stars by the name Isaiah Mustafa replies to views from customers from social sites like face book, twitter, YouTube and many others. This campaign saw a considerable increase in sales within three days. The product is also packed in containers that are mainly red in color and therefore conspicuous from a distance. Red is a bright color and therefore could be seen from far. This is somehow an advantage to the product because consumers can be attracted to the product by merely looking at the container and at least a percentage of them will buy the product for the first time and may be comeback for more. The beauty of the product is therefore a psychological benefit to the consumers (Evans, 2010, p. 61).

Old Spice has also been the main sponsor of Tony Stewart of Stewart-Haas Racing team for a whole 11 years. The company which is a division of Procter & Gamble has been the main sponsor until 2010 when the contract expires. Considering that NASCAR racing is a sport that has a considerable number of followers, most people who associate themselves with the sport use the product in solidarity with their sponsor. More over, by sponsoring such a game, the product is marketed to many people who watch the sport (Burrow & Bosiljevac, 2008, p. 79). Creation of awareness is a very difficult step in business and by doing so it helps make everyone watching the sport either on TV or live or reading trough the newspaper informed about the existence of a product known as Old Spice.

Considering that a customer goes to the shop fully aware of the use of a deodorant, you need not teach him what it will do and therefore it saves him the problems of the first stage of decision making known as need recognition. This is also beneficial to the company because it saves the company time to teach the public about the product.