Essay Sample on Marketing Plans: Strategies for Effective Customer Outreach

Introduction

Businesses employ various tactics to reach out to customers in a bid to boost their market presence. The core of these strategies is to improve profits for the companies. For effective customer outreach, companies require elaborate communication strategies. Effective communication of products and services to attract a broader customer base constitutes a marketing plan (Hanus, 2019, p. 74). As the name suggests, a marketing plan strives to widen the market for a particular product.

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Additionally, effective marketing enables a company to retain its existing customer base by instilling customer loyalty. Marketing strategies include brand promotions, event and sports sponsorships, community outreach, and charity, as well as company and brand advertisements. Advertisements play a significant role in cementing a company's marketing strategy to popularize companies or products to increase profits. Advertisements take various forms and use different channels of communication (Hanus, 2019, p. 74). The types of ads include single adverts and ad campaigns. The most common channels used to convey advertisements include television and radio, print media, digital broadcasting platforms such as YouTube and Motion pictures, and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. An advertising campaign refers to a series of advertisements that convey the same message and goal or objective for a given company or product. Ad campaigns are useful since they help create a lasting impression in customers by emphasizing the repetition of a message (Hanus, 2019, p. 79). This paper seeks to critically analyze the impacts of an advertising campaign on a company or product and the general society. To achieve this, the article will rely on Always's Like a Girl campaign.

Always is a brand of an array of feminine sanitary wares, including sanitary pads, panty liners, tampons, and cleansing wipes. Still is owned by Proctor & Gamble. The history of Always can be traced back to 1983 when Proctor & Gamble introduced the line of products to the U.S test market. In May 1984, Always was launched internationally parts of Europe, North America, and Africa. Always was the first product of Proctor & Gamble to be sold and marketed across all the continents (CampaignLlive, 2015). According to various studies, Always is the world's most popular and widely used menstrual hygiene brand. In most of the global markets, Always sells under its original name, Always. The brand also sells under different names in various countries such as Whispers in Japan and Hong Kong, Ausonia in Portugal, Lines in Italy, Evax in Spain, and Orkid in Turkey.

The resilience of Always as a global brand is primarily attributed to the brand's passionate appeal to its target customers-women and girls, especially those at the age of puberty(between 14 to 26 years). Always markets itself as a brand that is not only concerned about making sales and improving profit but rather as a brand keen on promoting the welfare of girls and women (CampaignLlive, 2015). This appeal Always endears to a broad customer base that has remained loyal to the brand. One of the most outstanding advertising campaigns to be mounted by Always was the 2014 Like a Girl Campaign. This period saw the mushrooming of rival brands all over the world. Always sought to approach product advertising from a different perspective (CampaignLlive, 2015). The brand sought to reverse the long-standing societal perception of female as the weaker gender through its Like a Girl Campaign. This campaign was produced in June 2014. The Like a Girl Campaign features a video compelling two groups of people to do things such as running, jumping, and playing a sport, like a girl. The first group asked to imitate a girl includes boys and older women. The second group features young girls. The boys and women cast acted out 'weakly' by hair flipping, wrist flopping, and anemic running patterns. This was a propagation of the stereotype of girls as being weaker than boys (CampaignLlive, 2015). On the other hand, the young girls acted with full energy, enthusiasm, and athleticism.

Later, the older female participants and the boys view the video of the young girls play out the cast. The participants then engage in a brief dialogue of what it means, and what it should say, to do things like a girl (CampaignLlive, 2015). At the end of the video, all the participants agree that society has stereotyped doing something like a girl negatively and that the phrase 'like a girl should not be misconstrued for weakness and vanity. This ad campaign sparks a social debate that leads to a clarion call to empower girls, especially during puberty. Studies before the advert uncovered that self-esteem and self-confidence levels in girls take a drastic dip during adolescence due to stigma. These studies also confirmed that over 70% of girls do not regain their pre-puberty self-confidence once they lose it (CampaignLlive, 2015). The packaging of this advert displayed a deep sense of creativity by turning a critical social issue into a working marketing strategy. This ad shifted focus from the product to the welfare of the customer. In return, customers are bound to stay loyal to a brand that shows concern for their plights (CampaignLlive, 2015). Always effectively exploited this concept to attract a broader customer base while retaining its existing customers.Always used various media platforms to popularize the Like a Girl Campaign. The campaign was aired print, broadcast, and digital media platforms. The brand also used social media to further the Like a Girl campaign. The three-minute video has had more than 60 million views on YouTube (CampaignLlive, 2015). The video also received positive feedback on social media, with millions of Facebook shares and Twitter retweets. The hashtag #LikeAGirl became one of the most trending hashtags following the advert (CampaignLlive, 2015). The campaign dominated print and broadcasting media outlets, including Time Magazine. The video was aired during the Super Bowl 49 in 2015, making it the ultimate home run.

The Like a Girl Campaign set out to achieve significant objectives; to empower the girls and women, and to market Always as a brand. The campaign effectively achieved and surpassed its goal by sparking an enduring social debate and cementing Always's place as the world's number one menstrual hygiene brand. According to various social researchers, over 90% of those who have interacted with the video agree that the Like a Girl Campaign has encouraged girls to be more confident during and post-puberty. Also, 76% of the girls have reported a positive association with the phrase 'like a girl' following the campaign (CampaignLlive, 2015). The campaign also encouraged more girls to engage in sports and other endeavors traditionally stereotyped as being for the boy, such as studying the sciences. The advert also changed the negative perceptions of many men about the phrase 'like a girl.' The campaign also created a considerable boost to the market performance of Always as a brand. As a result of this advertising campaign, the brand showed a double-digit growth in profit margins (CampaignLlive, 2015). The campaign considerably lifted Always' brand preference, with over 53% growth in claimed purchase intent.

From the Like a Girl Campaign, it is evident that advertising should not only be about improving sales and profits. Suitable adverts should spark change in society as part of a company's corporate social responsibility (Hanus, 2019, p. 77). By promoting a better community for its customers, a company or brand endears itself to the clients thus boosting market performance.

References

CampaignLlive. (2015, October 12). Case study: Always #LikeAGirl. Retrieved from https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/case-study-always-likeagirl/1366870

Hanus, M. D. (2019). Distinguishing User Experience When Customizing in a User-Generated Content Advertising Campaign and Subsequent Effects on Product Attitudes, Reactance, and Source Credibility. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19(1), 74-85. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15252019.2018.1548316