Question 4.

4. Using the marketing mix (5Ps) elements to describe how Trap Ease competes in the market. Do you see any problems with how she is currently marketing? (6pts) COMPANY CASE Trap-Ease America: The Big Cheese of Mousetraps Conventional Wisdom 1-12 inches in diameter. The tube bends in the middle at a One April morning, Martha House, president of Trap-Ease 30-degree angle, so that when the front part of the tube America, entered her office in Costa Mesa, California. She rests on a flat surface the other end is elevated. The paused for a moment to contemplate the Ralph Waldo elevated end holds a removable cap into which the user Emerson quote that she had framed and hung near her desic places balt (cheese, dog food, or some other aromatic tidbit). The front end of the tube has a hinged door If a man can make a better mousetrap than his When the trap is open this door rests on two narrow neighbour ... the world will make a beaten path to "stilts attached to the two bottom corners of the door see his door Exhibit 1). Perhaps, she mused, Emerson knew something that she The simple trap works very efficiently. A mouse didn't. She had the better mousetrap-Trap-Ease-but the smelling the balt, enters the tube through the open end. As world didn't seem all that excited about it. it walks up the angled bottom toward the balt, its weight makes the elevated end of the trap drop downward. This action elevates the open end, allowing the hinged door to The National Hardware Show swing closed, trapping the mouse. Small teeth on the ends Martha had just returned from the National Hardware of the stilts catch in a groove on the bottom of the trap Show in Chicago. Standing in the trade show display booth locking the door dosed. The user can then dispose of the for long hours and answering the same questions hundreds mouse while it is still alive or leave it alone for a few hours of times had been tiring. Yet all the hard work had paid off. to suffocate in the trap Each year, National Hardware Show officials held a contest Martha believes the trap has many advantages for the to select the best new product introduced at that year's consumer when compared with traditional spring-loaded show. The Trap-Ease had won the contest this year, beating traps or poisons. Consumers can use it safely and easily with out over 300 new products. no risk of catching their fingers while loading it. It poses no Such notoriety was not new for the Trap-Ease mouse injury or poisoning threat to children or pets. Furthermore, trap, however. People magazine had run a feature article on with Trap Ease, consumers avoided the unpleasant mess the trap, and the trap had been the subject of numerous talk they often encounter with the violent spring-loaded traps. shows and articles in various popular press and trade The Trap-Ease creates no "clean-up problem. Finally, the publications. user can reuse the trap or simply throw it away Despite all of this attention, however, the expected Martha's early research suggested that women were demand for the trap had not materialized. Martha hoped the best target market for the Trap-Ease. Men, it seemed, that this award might stimulate increased interest and sales. were more willing to buy and use the traditional spring- loaded trap. The targeted women, however, did not like the Background traditional trap. These women often stayed at home and A group of investors had formed Trap-Ease America in Janus took care of their children. Thus, they wanted a means of ary after it had obtained worldwide rights to market the dealing with a mouse problem that avoided the unpleasant- innovative mousetrap. In return for marketing rights, the ness and risks that the standard trap created in the home group agreed to pay the inventor and patent holder, a To reach this target market, Martha decided to distrib retired rancher, a royalty fee for each trap sold. The group ute Trap-Ease through national grocery hardware, and then hired Martha to serve as president and to develop and drugstore chains. She sold the trap directly to these large manage the Trap-Ease America organization, retailers, avoiding any wholesalers or other middiemen Trap-Ease America contracted with plastics The traps sell in packages of two, with a suggested manufacturing firm to produce the traps. The trap consists retail price of US$2.9. Although this price makes the Trap Ease of a square, plastic tube measuring about 6 Inches long and about five to ten times more expensive than smaller, standard IT HEAVEN TRAP TrapEase Chapter 2 Company and Marketing Strategy Partnering to Build Customer Relationships traps, consumers appeared to offer little initial price resist very demanding. For exam ance. The manufacturing cost for the Trap-Ease, including ple, one national retailer freight and packaging costs, is about 31 cents per unit. The had placed a large order company pays an additional 8.2 cents per unit in royalty with instructions that Trap fees. Martha priced the traps to retailers at 99 cents per unit Ease America was to deliver w Mice (two units to a package) and estimated that after sales and the order to the loading EASE Eestly volume discounts, Trap-Ease would produce net revenue dock at one of the retailer's from retailers of 75 cents per unit warehouses between 1:00 To promote the product, Martha had budgeted approx and 3.00p.m. on a specified doan Safe Easy to use imately $60 000 for the first year. She planned to use day. When the truck delly $50 000 of this amount for travel costs to visit trade shows ering the order arrived and to make sales calls on retailers. She planned to use the after 300 pm, the retaller remaining 510 000 for advertising. So far, however, because had refused to accept the Nevrsne or touch a dead mouse the mousetrap had generated so much publicity, she had shipment. The retailer had not felt that she needed to do much advertising. Still, she told Martha it would be a had placed ads in Good Housekeeping (after all, the trap year before she got another had earned the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval) and chance in other "home and shelter magazines, Martha is the com As Martha sat down pany's only salesperson, but she intends to hire more sales at her desk, she realized people soon. she needed to rethink her Martha had initially forecasted Trap Ease's first year marketing strategy. Perhaps sales at 5 million units. Through April, however, the com she had missed something or made some mistake that was pany had only sold several hundred thousand units, Martha causing sales to be so slow. Glancing at the quotation wondered if most new products got off to such a slow start again, she thought that perhaps she should send the picky or if she was doing something wrong. She had detected retailer and other customers a copy of Emerson's famous some problems, although none seemed overly serious. For quote one, there has not been enough repeat buying. For another she had noted that many of the retailers upon whom she called kept their sample mousetraps on their desks as con versation pieces she wanted the traps to be used and demonstrated. Martha wondered if consumers were also buying the traps as novelties rather than as solutions to their mouse problems Martha knew that the investor group believed that Trap-Ease America had a "once-in-a-lifetime chance with its innovative mousetrap, and she sensed the group's impa tience with the company's progress so far. She had bud- geted approximately $250 000 in administrative and fixed costs for the first year (not including marketing costs). To keep the investors happy, the company needed to sell enough traps to cover those costs and make a reasonable profit Back to the Drawing Board In these first few months, Martha had learned that marketing a new product was not an easy task. Some customers were