In this case, Ron Birch, product manager for the new pasteurized king crab of Phillips Foods, needs to make a decision for the phase II of launch of king crab. He planned to continue the magazine strategy used in phase I, but Cherry Stockworth, vice-president of marketing of Phillips Foods, recommended him to use the budget to support half of cost of International Boston Seafood Show. According to the information given in this case, I don’t think this is an either-or choice, and my recommendation for Ron Birch is to decrease the cost of ads in trade magazines, change the content of ads in magazines before and after the IBSS, and support the IBSS in March
SWOT Analysis of King Crab of Phillips related to Trade Show
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Trade show strategy
Pros: During the trade show, Phillips could have chance to show how fantastic the king crab is. Obviously, looking at the huge legs and crab and tasting the king crab would be more persuasive than seeing the image on industry magazines. After trying this new product, the power of word-of-mouth is immeasurable. Compared to managers seeing ads on magazines, attendances who are interested in king crab could immediately gain more information from the sales person and discuss about the deal, which could lessen time to close the deal with a lower unit sales cost. By the way, time is money too.
Cons: Spend a large amount of money in a 3 days trade show is risky. IBSS is a large scale trade show which would attracts more than 800 exhibitors, so the competition during the trade show would be very fierce. Return on investment would be a concern of managers in Phillips.
Recommendation and Reasoning
According to the SWOT analysis, king crab is a great product with high quality, safety, good taste, long shelf time and big market potential. Thus, if there is a chance to introduce this product to a potential customer, making a deal is not so difficult. Therefore, the core problem becomes how can Phillips reach as many as potential customers.
Based on alternatives evaluation, if Phillips ended the ads on industry magazines to support IBSS, the exposure of Phillips would decrease rapidly. Managers may not even know that Phillips is an exhibitors in IBSS, which