Shampoo Marketing and Promotion Strategy

Brand Promotion Promotion The promotion for Johnson's Baby Shampoo will be extensive. The company traditionally advertises via a number of different media forms and this promotion will be no different. At the heart of the campaign will be a number of television spots. Typically, these will feature celebrities who are endorsing the product. Celebrity endorsement is a critical component of the promotional campaign for two reasons. First, celebrities raise the profile of the brand, and second their endorsement reflects positively through the power of association.

Raising the profile is necessary -- while this is a widely known brand this campaign is about giving the brand a much higher profile among the target market of adults. The spots will feature celebrity endorsement, combined with a message reflecting the high quality of the shampoo. The tagline "baby yourself, baby your hair" conveys the affordable luxury message, that this product is gentle on one's hair but delivers a quality shampoo.

Conveying this message is important because it seeks to differentiate the product from the many other shampoos that are in the market. Creating differentiation, in terms of the positive effect this product has on one's hair, is one of the objectives of the campaign. In reality, there is little to choose from in mainstream shampoos, but it is essential that the marketing for this shampoo differentiates it somewhat from its competitors in order to convince consumers to switch. The three points of differentiation are quality, gentleness and luxury.

The message will be conveyed through the use of celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement is effective because the power of the celebrity's brand is used to create positive brand associations with the product. Some celebrities that can be hired for the campaign would include those who are famous for their hair (Sofia Vergara, Fabio, etc.) but also athletes. Part of the campaign will be to associate the product with sports, so the use of an athlete or two as a major endorser will be valuable to convey this association.

The association with sports may seem unconventional, but it serves a couple of key purposes. First, this association allows the product to reach the male component of the target market. Remember that this campaign serves to target both adult males and adult females. The use of a male and a female athlete will help to reach the sport fan market. This is a large, captive market.

With athlete endorsements to tie into some of the sports endorsements that the company plans as part of the campaign, the power of those tie-ins and sponsorships will be amplified. A good opportunity for value for money athlete endorsements will come with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. During the Olympics there are many American athletes who become instant celebrities as a result of winning gold medals.

Competitors who compete in multiple events and therefore have an opportunity to stretch their exposure (swimmers, track, and team sport athletes) would be very good candidates. The company will need to determine if it is better to promote a single high profile athlete that will cost more money (such as a Serena Williams) or several athletes who have equally good chances at a gold medal but who are not currently household names.

Such athletes, when they compete at high-profile sports like gymnastics, could represent a genuinely low cost / high reward opportunity. The campaign is seeking a broad-based target market of both males and females aged 18-65. This means that the advertising should be focused on events and programs that capture a fairly broad audience. One idea that was floated was the Super Bowl, which attracts a very broad cross-section of the American public.

The sports that are used as the focal points for the campaign should be ones that have this sort of broad audience appeal. The sports tie-in will also feature the placement of spots on ESPN, or Sports Illustrated. The sports tie-in will aim to be broad, but will generally seek to appeal to the segment of the target market that is under the age of 35, but could be either male or female. This segment is attractive because they have not set their consumption patterns yet.

The evidence shows that the older people get, the more stuck in their ways that they are. As such, it is better to try to convert younger customers rather than older ones. Thus, the use of sports is a means by which this younger demographic can be reached. Athletes tend to have broad appeal, to both genders, which makes the use of sports a good bet.

Further, athletic activity makes one sweat, which necessitates the use of shampoo, so there is a direct connection between athletic endeavor and the Johnson's Baby product.