IMC and Promotion

IMC marketing consists of Advertising, Sales Promotion, Events and Experiences. Public Relations and Publicity,Direct Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Word of mouth marketing and personal selling.

Classmate IMC marketing mix.

Advertisement link:

http://www.afaqs.com/advertising/creative_showcase/index.html?id=36228&media=TV&type=Indian

 

I.T.C. also sponsors for events in different events. Depending on the event and the place where it is sponsoring, I.T.C. makes sure that the concerned products are present on the banners there.

 I.T.C sponsored Inter-bang event in SIBM and made sure that classmate appeared on the banners.

Distribution

Classmate's main manufacturing unit is at Bhadrachalam , Andhra Pradesh. After it is manufactured it is dispatched to various places to make it available for the customers. This is done by intermediaries i.e. distribution channels.

• At the time of launch, classmate hired agents to distribute the notebooks in the villages. A district was assigned to an agent and he distributed the books to school children. 
• After make a mark , Classmate's agents to distribute to the mom and pop stationery stores.
• Now classmate has many agents and many distribution channels. 

The transportation channel carries the goods carries from main manufacturing to regional and from regional to state warehouses. Here the agent or a jobber is hired to personally go to prescribed locations to deliver the books and transactions are done through the jobber. The jobber gets certain commission from the company. 

Classmate is in the maturity stage of the ILC and hence it tries to increase its coverage area by reaching to more people.
During the intro stage it focused on the rural area schools and then to the metro cities.
During growth stage it increased it reach in all possible dimensions.
Now being in the maturity phase classmate tries to maximise the revenue.

In PUNE, Pradeep book depot at Hadapsar, Bharat depot at Pimpri are the whoslesale dealers for classmates. And in India there 75000 stationery outlets.

Price

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Company follows the mentioned steps in pricing a product:
1) Selecting Pricing objective : Classmate objective is to maximize market share
2)Determines the demand
3)Estimating cost
4) Analyzing Competitor Cost
5)Selecting a pricing method:  Classmate adopts perceived value pricing
6)Selecting the final price

Product

Product Levels

(Transformations are the multi purpose books etc)

Product Differentiation:

Durability,conformance quality, reliability,repair ability, style, performance quality differentiate a product 

Classmate is a non-durable product. The style, brand image,the cover design, trivia and the quality of paper and also the C.S.R. activity differentiate classmate from its competitors. Customers also take into account of the conformance quality which means the degree to which all produced units are identical. 

Services Differentiation::

Ordering ease, delivery, installation,customer training,customer consulting, maintenance repair and returns differentiate services

Classmate is available at all the mom and pop stationery stores and also kirana stores hence it is easily accessible and the returning of it is also easily if in case of any damage. 

Design Differentiation:

Classmate has very good cover design that differentiates it from its competitors. The customers register the design at the first look and hence prefer classmate over others.

Product Hierarchy

Linking this to the 3C model

Linking it to the life cycle concepts, 

Development stage consists of need family, and item. If an established brand introduces a new variant  then product line is also included.

Introduction stage consists of the item that is launched in the market

Growth stage consists of the competitors i.e product line and product class.

Maturity stage consists of the product type, different types of variants. 

Marketing mix classmate

Marketing mix is a tool that marketers use to determine what the business is offering the customers and how it is bring the product and services to them. It basically involves 4P s. Product, price, place and promotion .

Life Cycle

Any product has five stages in the life cycle. Development, Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. The typical life cycle of a product can be shown by this diagram.

The  percentage of customers in each stage caan be described by the normal curve given by Evrett Rogers

Classmate is in its maturity stage.

Competition and Industry

• Classmate offers products in the stationery industry. The categories are notebooks,geometry boxes, pencils, pens , etc. 
• Classmate was a pioneer in the field of brand notebooks but there were entrants into the market which identified themselves as competitors to classmate. 
• The local notebooks were always a competition to classmate. But the customer value of classmate weighed higher than that of local notebooks. 
• There were other brand notebooks that entered the industry. One such example is Navneet. Being in the field of publication and binding since long time, 
• Navneet has made a mark and this helped them in raising their value compared to local ones. Navneet was priced lower than classmate. It also offered some extra information and the cover was also good. But this did not take away the numero uno status of classmate. 
• Classmate's image benefit and satisfactory individual psychological benefit helped it maintain the top slot. T
• he promotions, advertisements, competitions also made classmate a stand out player in the industry with around 20% market share. 

       As a customer,a person has lot of choices on which notebook one must buy. The competitors in the industry become the choices for the customers. The sales of the company depend on the customer decision making which in turn is dependent on the customer value that is being offered. Classmate with its strong customer value and also promotion tactics, is the top player where it sells thrice more than its immediate competitor i.e. Navneet.  There are other competitors like Solo, Boss, Built etc.

NavNeet and Bilt are the main competitors of Classmate.               

The others are different unrecognized local note books of different companies. Classmate has overtaken them in notebooks and multi subject note books.