LotsOfEssays.com

EMPLOYING THE IDEALBRAND MODEL TO DEVELOP

APPROPRIATE INFORMATION FOR USE IN THE

CREATION OF A MARKETING STRATEGY FOR "TOM'S OF MAINE NATURAL TOOTH PASTE"

"Tom's Natural Tooth Paste" is a dentifrice that contains no artificial sweeteners, no preservatives, no dyes, and non animal ingredients. Additionally, the product is tested for safety without the use of animals, and is, therefore, rated as a "cruelty free" product. The idealbrand model is used in this research to develop appropriate information relative to consumer perceptions of the product that may, in turn, be used by the producer, Tom's of Maine, Inc., to develop a marketing strategy for the product.

A preliminary review of dentifrice market data and product characteristics identified a total of 10 factors that consumers might reasonably be expected to use in evaluating "Tom's of Maine Natural Tooth Paste." These 10 factors are as follows:

2. Fresh feeling in the mouth immediately after use.

3. Fresh feeling in mouth onehour after use.

5. Teeth look cleanwhitening effect.

6. Only natural ingredients used in producing the dentifrice.

7. No animal products used in producing the dentifrice.

8. No refined sugars used in producing the dentifrice.

9. No animals used in the testing of the dentifrice.

Consumers would evaluate competing brands of tooth paste on the basis of the 10 factors listed above. For purposes of this research, only those consumers who prefer as paste dentifrice over a powder (the great majority) are considered. Different consumers may be expected to assign a differ degree of importance to each of the 10 factors. The findings of a sampling of 20 paste dentifrice users to determine the relative significance of the 10 evaluative factors are summarized in Table 1, which may be found on the following page.

The findings presented in Table 1 reveal that the members of the research sample may be classified into th...