Luke Atkins Case Study

Introduction:

This case is about a man named Luke Atkins, from Richard Ivey School at the University of Western Ontario. Luke is a person interested in making calendars and raising money for a charitable fund. He wants to feature both men and women in his calendar. He has previous experience with fund raising with calendars when he previously created a calendar featuring Western rugby players to raise money for the team. He now wants to focus on charities like Breast Cancer Society (for women) and Jesse's Journey Foundation (for men) for patients with neuromuscular disease. He wants his calendar to feature seductive pictures of 12 men and 12 women.

Luke has contacted several local businesses about sponsorships in his calendars, but his primary focus is on the students on campus. Luke knows there are many other calendars out there available to students, such as free one's given away by the school to first-year students, as well as some competitor's calendars which sell for $13.00. Luke is considering selling his calendars for $10.00-12.00. He has to analyze the cost of production, hiring 12 models for each calendar type, their salary based on sales, photography, and the costs of post production works. He has two formats in mind, a 16-page calendar that would include 12 pages for the months, 1 cover page, 1 back page, and 2 extra pages that would feature the central picture. The other format is a 28-page format that would have 2 pages for every month. In order to do these calendars for charities, he also has to approach the charity; therefore he needs to create a marketing plan for raising funds to help achieve his goal.

Analysis:

An analysis of this case provides the following information:

If Luke focuses on selling to students, then he stands a chance of targeting their extended family also like their relatives and friends.

Advertisement on the calendars regarding charity will attract customers who are willing to help the needy.

Luke has previous experience with producing calendars. This may come in handy if he can call in some favors from previous sources.

Luke has a hard competition with other calendars, such as the one's given away for free, the London firefighters, and any other company who issues calendars in the area.

How seductive are the pictures is he talking about? Are these really appropriate for a college based area?

He does not have enough manpower right now, and has little time to recruit them.

Luke has a big decision to make based on the format of the calendars. The 28-page layout costs twice what the 16-page one does, but would it have better revenue?

Problem Statement

Which format should Luke use for his calendars? I think this is a major concern because, regardless of all the other costs involved, this will create the biggest money issues. There are two formats he has for a choice, one costing twice as much as the other. What if the more expensive of the two generates the most revenue?

Alternative Courses:

Alternative 1: Black & White WBOY & WGIRL calendar

The quality of the pictures in this calendar wouldn't have to be as good as they would in a color calendar. This calendar can be produced quickly and cheaper.

Strengths to Alternative 1:

The cost of production is not as high as the colored calendars.

Price of calendars can be less because of less production costs; this would bring in more revenue if more calendars sold at a cheaper price.

Production