PLEASE SOLVE THIS CASE STUDY

Case Study: Warby Parker In 2010, classmates at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt, David Gilboa, and Jeffrey Raider, were dissatisfied with the options available for individuals in need of prescription eyeglasses. Costs of lenses and frames were high; eye doctors require advance appointments; and travel to showrooms to try on frames can be far, especially for rural consumers. The traditional way of doing business was not working for everyone in the marketplace. While it can be difficult to change the behavior of customers who are used to purchasing a certain way, the classmates decided to try to disrupt the market with an innovative strategy. Through a small $2500 program seed investment, the classmates launched Warby Parker, a new brand and way of selling prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses(Warby Parker, 2015). Warby Parker is not like other eyeglass retailers. Their business model focuses on online distribution, rather than showrooms that sell outside manufacturer merchandise. By designing glasses in-house, and selling only directly to consumers, the company is able to drastically lower the purchasing cost of glasses. This alternative way of buying and selling eyeglasses was new to the marketplace, and initially audiences may have felt great dissonance. They may have believed that eyeglasses were too important a purchase to make online, or that the cost of frames was so low because the quality wasn't great. The company was able to effectively utilize social media to communicate with customers, change these narratives, reduce the dissonance, and eventually capture their loyalty. Today, Warby Parker has shipped more than 500,000 pairs of glasses in and employs over 100 people. Individuals may have been concerned with purchasing eyeglasses through an online distribution because they would not be able to walk into a showroom and try on frames as at a traditional retailer. To mitigate these concerns, Warby Parker developed a "Home Try-On Campaign where consumers are able to order five pairs of glasses online, which are shipped to the customer's home to try on at no charge. Consumers are then able to pick the pair that best suits them and return the remaining pairs at no charge. Beyond this remote business transaction, Warby Parker uses technology to engage the customers to make this exchange feel like a more personalizedexperience. Warby Parker encourages transactional communication by consistently communicating with, and responding to, customer comments on their social media platforms. They regularly prompt customers to participate with user-generated content by asking them to post pictures of themselves wearing the glasses on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The Home Try-On Campaign encourages customers to share the purchase with their personal social networks. This communication with individuals that consumers already know and trust likely helps to reduce customer dissonance with the new product. In fact, customers who post photos of themselves in frames are buying at twice the rate of those who don't (Shandrow, 2013). The company also uses social media to provide information that consumers are searching. In addition to the Home Try-On Campaign, social media is used to offer expert advice on eyeglasses. The company creates informative YouTube videos and asks fans to do the same (Tobin, 2013). Rather than just creating media messages based on the goals and objectives of selling eyeglasses, the company has directed attention towards the challenges consumers have with the traditional eyeglass market. This direct communication creates meaningful and personalized transactional communication that leads to brand loyalty (Shandrow, 2013). Furthermore, Warby Parker has included marketing for social good in their business strategy. By teaming up with the company Vision Spring, the company is able to provide a pair of eyeglasses for a person in need for every pair of Warby Parker glasses that a consumer purchases. To date, Warby Parker has given away 500,000 pairs of glasses. This socially conscious business strategy makes people feel good about changing their purchasing habits. It has proven a mutually beneficial strategy for the Warby Parker business, its audiences in need of eyeglasses, and the globalized world alike. Here you see how social media provides an opportunity for businesses to reach out to potential customers and provide an alternative narrative for reducing dissonance. Even if a new customer is skeptical about the business model, the free shipping and Home Try-On Campaign limits the risk. Social media is also used to prompt users to share their positive experiences with friends. Not only does this become a part of their new schemata of interpretation, it allows new customers to hear about the product through an already trusted source, rather than through a business's self- promotion. Discussion questions 1. How does social media technology aid Warby Parker's alternative business model for selling prescription eyeglasses? What challenges would the company have faced in a traditional media environment? 2. How is Warby Parker using social media to promote transactional communication with customers, rather than more linear advertising? What role does user-generated content play in this process? 3. What elements of Warby Parker's social media marketing strategy help reduce dissonance for consumers that are considering switching eyeglass brands? Howdoes the socially conscious business strategy help provide an alternative narrative that they can share with their social network