Marketing Plan for Graco Travel Buddy

Marketing Plan for Graco Travel Buddy

MKT/421

Marketing plan for Graco Travel Buddy

Parenthood is one of the most rewarding and challenging relationships any individual or individuals will experience in their lifetime. From the time they are brought home from the hospital to the time you wave them off to college, children provide an endless amount of joy, love, memories, and frustration.  Throughout this parenthood journey, while the children are experiencing incredible growth, parents are wondering how to keep their child or children safe, and how to ensure they grow into smart, active, happy young boys and girls. Part of the answer to this question is learning to trust that they will make the best decisions for their children, but the other part is learning that there is a company out there that they can trust to aid them in their journey of parenthood.  Graco can help parents provide the care, safety, and protection their children need as well as helping them with those teachable moments.  

Strategy and Positioning Plan

Graco and the Travel Buddy

Graco Inc. is a long running company that specializes in meeting children’s needs from the early learning phase to the toddler stage. Graco has become one of the largest manufacturers that handle a variety of products with new and innovative technology.  Grace Inc. started out in 1926 as a family owned business called Gray Company, Inc.   The company sold air pressure guns for the automobile market, ad as the years passed, the company pioneered new technology and equipment used in a broad range of fluid handling applications.  In 1958, Gray Company, Inc. expanded its market and changed its name to Graco Inc.  The basic mission of the company is “Service to people through profitable growth”.  These days, Graco Inc. makes a different variety of products.  They specialize in ensuring the safety of children from their infancy through their toddler stage.  Their goal is also to assist in making the process easier for new parents, so they can feel comfortable adapting to the new and beautiful life of parenthood (Graco History, 2015).

As many different companies are looking for new and innovative products,  Graco Inc. is preparing to launch a product that will change the life of parents who travel, commute or are just running across town.  Parents of toddlers that are in various stages of potty training know how frustrating it is when the little one has to use the restroom and the only one available is between 20 miles or more away from the where they are.  That is why Graco is preparing to create and introduce a portable potty that will be able to go everywhere you go.  This will alleviate the worries of trying to find the next available restroom when you are on an extended trip, commuting or going to Grandma’s house.  This new product will help ease the worries of traveling with young children and interrupting their training while enabling the family to spend their quality time together in a more enjoyable manner without stopping at every rest stop.

Graco is designing a car seat that can transform into a portable potty to help parents avoid frequent stops on road trips, and with spill proof and smell lock features to make a the trip a little more comfortable for parents. Designing and manufacturing the product required a thorough investigation into the cost, and requisite test market trials before its marketing and introduction to the public.  Possible features considered include automatic disposal and remote power to make it easier to use. Prior to establishing a marketing mix, Graco will identify the particular market to test the product in order to show and prove the benefits this type of portable potty offers adults with small children.  The challenge is determining the most effective marketing mix to ensure the product reaches all consumers who will appreciate its benefits, and that guarantees the success of this line for the company.

Investigating and testing in different marketing will include geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors that will help obtain adequate information about how the public can engage in and utilize the idea of having a product that allows children to go on the run before it is launched.  Obtaining the information from the results of testing and proving can help Graco on the marketing and introduction of the new product.

SWOT Analysis of Graco

Strengths

Graco is well known in child products manufacturing.  They are known for the constant innovation efforts, and as a large company, they have access to many suppliers to keep our product costs down and keep our pricing attractive to our target market.  People in the market consider this company as a “make life easier for parents Company”.  The brand recognition of this company will give our product an edge in the market.  The name will give our product the ability to set the standard in this market.  The corporation is healthy and should not be affected severely financially if this product does poorly in the market.

Weaknesses

        We are entering the market with no product testing or market testing.  We are rushing to market without analyzing the product or the target market that we intend to serve.  We run the risk of people looking at our product as a fad or craze as we have no previous like products to give us feedback on how to present this to the market.  We could potentially lose in this market without offering a quality product.  Improper marketing of this product could break this products future.

Opportunities

Our greatest opportunity is the fact that this is a product that the market has yet to see.  This could create a new market trend and would further the company’s reputation for being an innovator in this particular market.  If we create a trend, the opportunities for sales are endless as there are almost 4 million babies born each year, making this a steadily growing market.  We can use the brand to continuously improve the product and stay ahead of evolving technology and government policy on this type of product.  This product will change the time it takes to travel on both a large and a small scale.  It will make every trip faster and easier for our parents. We could create buzz for this by attending the many conventions and events designed for children.  

Threats

The threats to our market are pretty straight forward.  We have no customer feedback or surveys to determine the segment of this market that we should be targeting.  We have no competition for our product in which to draw information from at this time.  The standards and specifications are always changing in this market, can we keep up with it?  Technology is a constant factor in our target market, can we stay ahead of it with this particular product release?  This product could hurt the brand if we do not present quality and safety to our parents.