Final Marketing Plan

Marketing Mix

Product

"New product ideas come from many sources, including customers, employees, distributors, competitors, vendors, research and development"MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 147

St. Nick's Spirits vodkas aren't just tasty beverages to enjoy after a hard day of work. They're the stuff of holiday memories. They're that time you went to -5 Degrees and hula hooped for an hour straight beating everyone winning a St. Nick's parks. They're that couple of martinis before New Year's on the strip.

Distribution
St. Nick's Spirits brand of vodkas will be available wherever liquor is sold. There's are also plans in place for clubs across the strip to carry the vodka. Initial launch will be exclusive to the Las Vegas market and only for the holiday season. Our exclusivity will lead to profit for National launch.

Promotion

St. Nicks will be heavily promoted throughout the holiday season. During the off-season, there are plans to maintain the company blog, website, myspace and Twitter to continue making contact with potential customers, get ideas for expansion and more.





"An integral part of any package is its label."MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 135
St. Nick's Spirits vodka doesn't look like any other vodka bottle out there. It has a kitschy look reminiscent of the 1950's. When consumers see the "sparkly diamonds", they should immediately think St. Nick's.




Price
St. Nick's Spirits is on the level with Skyy Vodka, Stoli and the like. The appeal of St. Nick's line of fine vodkas lies in the uniqueness of the line as well as the idea that good times should be spent with friends during the holiday season and St. Nick's seeks to develop a relationship with the customers, a friendship. Friends don't fleece friends, in fact, sometimes, they give them gifts and although St. Nick's will never be on sale, you can bet money that they'll give you a gift with purchase.



"Status quo pricing has the major advantage of requiring little planning". MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel pg.264

Final Marketing Plan

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Everyone loves Santa, he's the perfect spokesperson.
Vegas is a party town, plenty of venues that can carry the line.
One-of-a kind product.

Weaknesses
New kid in town, people may not be responsive.
Must be heavily marketed and advertised.



"People don't know what they want-they only want what they know". MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 10

As a rule, we tend to seek out products we are familiar with. As consumers, we stick to certain brands, not necessarily out of a sense of loyalty to the brand, but usually because we haven't taken the time to see what else is out there. We're drawn to a specific alcoholic beverage because it's what we've become familiar with, this is most certainly the case with St. Nick's Spirits, it's something people want, they just don't know it yet.

Opportunity
There are plenty of clubs to have a product launch party or simply host a private party in one of the club's VIP lounge.

Threat
There are 25 other vodkas being launched in Vegas!

Marketing Strategy

"When consumers search extensively for a particular item and are very reluctant to accept substitutes, that item is a specialty product." MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 132

During the holiday season, consumers will accept no substitute for the delicious seasonal flavors of St. Nick's Spirits.

St. Nick's will have billboards, taxicab boards, magazine ads and in-store promotions and giveaways in order to bring about awareness of the brand.


There are plans to have a few seasonal launch parties in the hottest clubs across Las Vegas.

St. Nick's Spirits, Final Marketing Plan

Mission Statement

Our goal is to reach a 10% return on investment for initial launch (holidays 2009) with at least a 60% of customers from 2010 being return customers.

Objectives

St. Nick's Spirits wants to be right there with you and yours during the holidays as you shake presents when no one's looking, attend "white elephant" parties and wrap those special presents at the last minute in newspaper funnies. St. Nick's will be there lubricating your senses as you watch in horror as your parents barrage your fiance with anecdotes of Christmases past complete with pictures of you in your Underoos unwrapping presents. St. Nick's Spirits will become the beverage of the holiday season.

"The best companies view new customer attraction as the launching point for developing and enhancing a long-term relationship. " MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg.7


St. Nick's will also be there when you throw that shindig of your own, whipping up specialty martinis like a pro. St. Nick's makes it easy because they care.

Wk 10 EOC

I'm loyal to Starbucks

I've been a coffee drinker for most of my life. I have frequented Starbucks for years, not because their coffee is the best around, but because of the convenience, some stores are open 24/7. As a freelance web designer and student, my hours are erratic, to say the very least.

Usually, I make coffee in my french press at home. It's quick, convenient and much cheaper than buying a cup of joe Starbucks style. Here's the thing, though, sometimes, I need outta my house in a bad way. A trip to the Eastern/Pebble Starbucks can be just the thing to snap me out of a creative funk sometimes.

I think that at this point in the game, I'm well-beyond coffee having much of an effect on my physiology, I think I might drink too much of it, but it isn't just about the coffee. For me, it's the much needed time away from my computer's glowing face, the drive and ultimately, that hot cup of comfort, albeit brief.

Starbucks is a socially responsible company and they make no bones about marketing those facts. I've known quite a few Starbucks employees in my time and they know how to treat their own. They offer competitive wages, opportunities to grow with the company and a pretty nice work environment, so I feel good about supporting my neighborhood Starbucks!

Latest design additions to St Nick's Spirits

It was very important to me to get the branding down, so when consumers see the 50s style diamonds or Santa silhouette, their first thought will be St. Nick's Spirits. "Branding allows marketers to distinguish their products from all others". MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 135.

So, here we are week 10. I've been designing like crazy!The latest are a twitter page (http://twitter.com/stnickspirits), recipe cards to be distributed at point of purchase, and a billboard.













"When consumers search extensively for a particular item and are very reluctant to accept substitutes, that item is a specialty item." MKTG, Lamb Hair McDaniel, pg. 132.

St. Nick's Spirits line of seasonal vodkas are a specialty item in every sense. They're the first seasonal vodkas to come from Las Vegas and are available exclusively during the holiday season. Despite the limited availability of the item, I see no reason to ravage consumer's pockets. The pricing for a bottle of St. Nick's Vodkas are a competitive $16.95 per 750 ml bottle. There will be no price slashing so as not to cheapen the brand, but I am working on a "gift with purchase" idea. More on that soon!

St. Nick's Spirits a Holiday Sensation!

Three months ago, the world was rocked when old St. Nick announced he was getting out of what he referred to as the "Claus" business. His reasons were understandable, after all, he'd been in service to kids worldwide for centuries. When asked why he'd given up on the children, he replied "In my hundreds of years in this business, children have never been so demanding. Those who once left milk and cookies have long ago grown up and been replaced with precocious little brats who never tire of asking for electronic this and cellphone that."

While, it's no secret that children have become more fascinated with electronic gadgets, the world was nevertheless rocked by the Big Man's revelation. Ryan Silva from Charleston News asked who would deliver presents to the children and Santa's response was he had outsourced both the manufacturing and December 25th delivery of said electronics. Santa then, took off his spectacles and looked into the faces of those present and confided that he had not been on a vacation since he and Mrs. Claus had visited Berlin some 200 years ago. "Two hundred years is a long time", he said. The Clauses, whom children and adults alike had taken for granted for so many years had never enjoyed a buffet meal in a casino nor had they ever seen Better Middler live. Las Vegas was their vacation destination and with that, the press conference was over and the Clauses were ushered out by their security team of Special Service Elves.

Refreshed and relaxed from the 3 month vacation, St. Nick, "as he would prefer to be called henceforth", announced plans to move to sunny Las Vegas where it's not so cold and the buffet lines run for miles. During his second press conference, this time held from Mayor Goodman's office, the ex-Claus told the world he was going into the vodka business. Las Vegas would now also be known as the birthplace of St. Nick's Spirits.

St. Nick's Spirits is the taste of the season. "Too long have the holidays come and gone with no true Christmas beverage", said the new vodka mogul. "The holidays are a time for enjoyment, a time to be among friends, merrily sipping Christmas martinis and trimming trees."Below is a sneak peek at some of the advertising. Enjoy!

wk 9 EOC When I'll Pay More

It happens to all of us, we end up paying more for something knowing full well we can pick it up elsewhere for much cheaper. I had a situation at the very beginning of the quarter where I really needed to upgrade to a new hard drive, but I really didn’t have the cash to make it happen. In fact, I believe Fry’s had terabyte drives for $150 or maybe even less, unfortunately, I just didn’t have it.

Granted, there were other viable options, I could have burned all my files to DVD and thrown them in an album, and I have done this in the past, in fact, when I started school and all I had were 1 or 2 gig thumb drives, I did precisely that. The work from those quarters is safely tucked away into an album and the duplicates are at my best friend’s home, just in case.

This, however, was a special situation and a 1 or 2 gig hard drive just wasn’t going to cut it and I really didn’t want to go through the hassle of burning about 150G of work onto DVD, at around 7 G a pop, it can really add up, not to mention be incredibly time consuming. I’m a woman on the go, no time for that kind time-wasting! Not to mention, my 300G portable was beginning to show its age, at times, it would take a full five minutes to even show up on a computer. No, this was no time for cutting corners.

So, what did I do? I did what most broke students do, I went to the Supply Store on campus and paid $300 on my student account. My new hard drive is a beast with 500G of memory and it even requires its own power source. This was a superior machine! With interest, I’ll be paying dearly for this hard drive for quite some time, but sometimes, it’s what you have to do.