Business Marketing

Business Marketing is a crucial part for the income of Essie. Throughout the world salons everywhere are always updating their Essie collection with the newest line of colors. Of course Essie is sold in many places where the consumer buys it for their own personal use, however salons are the main source f income for Essie.

Business to business electronic commerce is often used while purchasing Essie. consumer's can find various Essie products over the internet and order them for business or personal use. Essie uses the internet to facilitate almost all of its selling. of course many consumers buy the products from their local Duane Reade, but those buys are often what is known as "unsought products" and consumers would only buy one or possibly two colors. however, while shopping online consumer will often buy a full line of colors, usually consisting of 6 colors, at 8 dollars a bottle, giving Essie a nice profit. also, Essie uses various social networking sites to advertise their product. Essie has a Facebook page with all the latest lines, and twitter to let all its followers know what are the hottest new colors and whose wearing them. advertising through social networking is great for Essie because it is a free way to let all its fans know which products are out. 

Segmenting and Target Marketing

It is very obvious to all those in marketing that to create a product, one must have a specific target market in mind. while creating the large company Essie the marketers were segmenting people around the world to see who exactly would fit into the category of those who would want to buy Essie products, therefore Essie can properly market to them. the target market of Essie are women ages 17-34. now withing this target market, each line of colors are more closely marketed to a certain market. when Essie comes out with her bridal collection, she is marketing to those women on there wedding day hoping they will choose a beautiful Essie color for their special day.

 also, when marketing her new summer 2012 line, Essie is marketing  bright vibrant colors for those not afraid to shine. Women who want classy colors for the work place, or fun bright colors for a night out, all these options are available in the Essie collection. Essie knows very well that depending on the climate, that is what colors will be in season. therefore, when Essie markets to country's which are usually hotter in weather, is advertises light oranges, yellows, and reds. however, when marketing to country's with cooler weather, Essie markets darker colors, like the famous "wicked".

 Essie sells its products in places where they know their target market are bound to be found. these places are stores lik Duane Reade, and CVS. also, they are sold at salons, and department stores such as Macys. Essie consumers know that Essie always has the new in style colors, and shades for every possible occasion. for this reason Essie is such a successful company.

Developing and Managing Products

The Essie products are not products that are modified often, if ever. Essie carries various types of nail care but what Essie is most famous for is their nail polish. the polish is sold in a glass bottle, with a white handle, the bottle is glass with the Essie label fused in it so nothing will get in the way of seeing the color. The polish has looked like this since the beginning of the company, and the only part of the product that is ever modified are the colors.

Essie knows just what its customers want. the newest fashionable colors, and that is just what Essie gives them. Essie gets tips on what the next seasons colors should be from many places such as magazines, internet, competitors, and research and development. Essies new summer line consists of the fabulous Braziliant, Meet me at sunset, and Super bass nova. these colors match all the styles in the magazines which is why they are doing so well. Essie continues to create more and more fascinating colors keep the consumers coming back for more.

Integrated Marketing Communication

We already know the various ways that Essie promotes itself from a previous post. some of these ways of mass communication include weekly magazine adds, and billboards. Essie always makes sure to have a full page add in magazines, and the full billboard so that no other "noise" will distract the consumer. But one special thing about Essie is its competitive advantage, Essie is known for its seasonal line which is something no other polish company does giving it the advantage. On Essie.com there are many different options of things to do such as new colors, whose wearing what, but the smartest thing the website has is a feedback section. Consumers can go on the website and express any questions, comments, or problems they may have with the products. Essie always does its job of informing the consumer of the upcoming lines, and just from that the consumers are persuaded, that is why so many women choose Essie as their brand of polish. Essie knows exactly what its target market it, women ages 17-34, and Essie advertisers know exactly what it takes to draw them in. By constantly showing fun exciting colors that remain classy, consumers cannot help but buy the products.

A- Essie gets the consumers interest by advertising in places that the target market will definately not miss it,(magazines and billboards).

I-Essie has its nail polish in all the latest fashion shows, letting everyone know just how much the colors can enhance your wardrobe.

D-To take Essie above the other polish brands they have celebrity's wearing the colors with the hottest new outfits. 

A-Essie continues advertising and sales are made. 

Product Concepts

All the products in the Essie line are tangible items. these items range from a range of fabulous nail colors, to many nails care kits. The products are both business products, which the salons and retail stores buy to either sell to customers or perform manicures and pedicures. The products are also used as consumer products, where the consumer will buy it for their own personal wants. The Essie company does not have a very large product mix width, meaning they do sell a lot of nail care products but not an extremely large amount, however, the products line depth is very large. Essie's line of nail polish colors currently include over 250 colors and grows larger with each mew season. Each bottle of polish is made of glass, and has the brand Essie on it so everyone will know what company made the amazing color. some say that the bottle is boring however i believe that the bottle is simple and classy, and is not to showy, therefore the consumer can just focus on the amazing color inside the bottle. as stated in a previous post, Essie does not change its packaging or brand name from country to country, the products are standardized. The only thing that the company changes with each country is the colors in their advertisements. Essie definitely has a high amount of brand equity. Many women in the target market range, and even those not have hear of the brand and are well aware of Essie's quality, and many consumers of Essie most often always use it.

Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Although it is not very often that you will find an Essie coupon, or voucher for a free sample, on some occasions the company does surprise us by giving out dollar off coupons. Essie is sold at 8 dollars a bottle, however, if you are willing to go onto websites such as Ebay, and Amazon, you can find the products significantly cheaper. The reason Essie rarely has coupons is simply because the company is aware that consumers will still purchase the products. One main consumer of the Essie products are salons, if these salons do not have the latest Essie colors, many people will not go back so they must keep the seasonal colors in store. One free offer recently given out was the "one day without blues" polish, which is for the Tom's shoes and Essie polish one day without shoes campaign, ( for more details check out the one day without shoes page.) for this campaign Essie gave out 5,000 free bottles of this polish. 

 Essie has a facebook page at, facebook.com/essie where you can go on to see pictures, videos, all the colors, and who is wearing them! This is how Essie advertises all their new products, because we all know how popular facebook is! The page has over 384,982 likes, with 15,530 "people talking about this."

By "liking" the page Essie will send you exclusives on the latest lines, and which colors are in style!

Advertising and Public Relations

As we all know, advertising is a major part of every company. The way a company markets its products to the customers, will result in the amount of profit made. Essie polish spent an estimate of $150 million in advertising in 2011. Essie company has specific areas in which they advertise. Essie has a continuous media schedule with Seventeen Magazine, each week when a new magazine comes out Essie has one full page add featuring a product from their new line. While advertising, the adds are attempting to build a mood and image for its consumers. Each Essie add consists of a fabulous color dripping onto an object, highlighting the beauty of each color:  if you want your hands to be beautiful, you must buy the Essie polish. Along with the Magazine another common way Essie advertises their products in through Outdoor Media. Essie has images on billboards, mini billboards in malls, and on the top on taxis.

Essie keeps up with their consumers needs by creating seasonal line. continuing on, Essie keeps its companies names circulating with the concept of "name dropping". The company's names being mentioned by famous artists, in games shows, and more. one example is in 1983 when Joan Rivers announces that she is wearing Essie  Jelly Apple polish, or when in 1989 when Queen Elizabeth hair dresser sends Essie a request for her color Ballet Slippers, saying that is the only color Her Majesty would wear, that year the Ballet Slippers colors sold over 25,000 bottles in 2 months. The name dropping continues when "Essie" is the answer to a question on the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."

Essie uses its company website, Essie.com, for most of its advertising. on the website includes the new collection for that season, all colors ever created in Essie, Editorials, a timeline of the companies journey, nail care, where is find Essie products, and so much more. 

Essie uses advertising appeal to reach out to its consumers. It makes the consumers realize the gorgeous colors Essie has and makes them want to have them. 

Retailing

Although Essie is sold in thousands of salons, department stores, and pharmacy's there is no actual retail store for the products other then the companies website Essie.com. Because of this i decided to go into one of my favorite stores "J Crew", and see the different aspects of the retail store. Another reason i chose J crew is because Essie colors are very often sold in the J Crew retail stores, Essie's seasonal collections match with J Crews seasonal apparel, and to compliment both the outfit as well as the polish they are modeled together, and therefore sold in the same store.

 J Crew offers the highest quality women's and men's clothing as well as children's, including cashmere, sweaters, womens dresses and shoes, mens shirts and ties, accessories, and much more. J Crew is a chain store which means it is owned and operated as a group by a single organization. J Crew is known as more of a high end store and therefore offers a high level of service. A personal shopper is available upon request, of course at a costly price; and gift wrapping, delivery, consulting, are available as well as alterations on very special occasions. Seeing as J Crew considers itself a high end store, the prices tend to be a bit higher then the average store, how ever nothing near to designer store prices. When ever a new collection is brought in to the store the prices are always near the 100 mark line for a casual sweater. However, within the next 2 moths, the prices of those items drop significantly. Upon walking into the store i find them to have a very intelligent way of greeting the customers. The security guard or a different employee stands at the store and as a customer walks in says hello how are you. I find that to be refreshing because when going into certain stores, the moment you walk in their are 5 employees bombarding you asking you if you need help. that always turns me off, so i find the simple greeting of hello to be a refreshing change. J Crew defines themselves as having classy, elegant, sophisticated clothing. Their product offering are regular items in their collection which often include cashmere sweaters, button down shirts, suit pants and jackets for both males and females, ballet flats, pearl jewelry, and pencil skirts. For their promotion strategy when ever the company advertising, it is always men and women who look classy while remaining trendy. Clean cut, ironed clothing, subtle make up, and so forth,(unless it is a swim suit line).

J crew has thousands of proper locations across the world. The company is flexible and therefore are able to have stores in various places. either having their regular stores in the average mall, or turning themselves into a factory outlet store when placed in an outlet mall. 

The atmosphere of the store reflect the kinds of clothing placed into it. The store is neat and organized, never loud music playing, the racks are not over crowded, the accessories are often displayed in glass cases, and the store always smell clean and fresh.

J Crew has many, but not to many employees around to help you with your every need, leaving each customer satisfied, and ready to come back again.

     

Consumer Decision Making

A consumer who would chose to buy Essie as their brand of polish would generally be a women of class, sophisticated, looking for a fresh look, and cares about her appearance. The consumer has a want, she wants to show elegance and class and therefore wants to paint her nails a dashing color. The external stimulus of the Essie brand makes it very hard to resist, many women who want to look nice and elegant have painted nails, the fashion forward colors that Essie has in their collection line make Essie the number one brand of polish to buy.

 Once the consumer decides that she wants to have her nails painted, often a internal information search is then played out, in which the consumer thinks back to all the advertisements, and photos of celebrity's in Essie colors and then searches out to buy the product. Luckily, for Essie consumers there does not have to be much involvement. one the decision is made to buy, the polish is available on over 150 websites on the internet, and in thousands of salons and retail stores across the world. The decision to buy Essie is often made when the consumer has an important event coming up, perhaps a date, or if she knows sh is a girl who like to go out and loves looking stylish. Essie persuades their customers to buy their products by giving off the impression that they are a brand about other polishes, and that someone who wears the polish will look classy, chic, and sophisticated.

Developing a Global Vision

Although Essie polish started off in Las Vegas as just 12 colors, Essie brand polish is now sold in over 250,000 European, Far East, North and South American, African, Middle Eastern and Australian beauty salons and stores, across 95 countries. The polish is advertised globally as sophisticated and edgy. It is available online, and can be shipped worldwide to any salon, spa, or household; or around the world it is sold in various drugstores, department stores, and spas. Yes the classy brand is popular everywhere, it is most popular in the United States, Canada, Australia, and South America. Global sales of the polish were about $358 million in 2011, and will increase 0.9% at the end of 2012. 

       In order to adapt to the culture of each country, Essie Company does research and surveys to find which countries should be marketed to certain colors. While marketing to South America, Essie advertises her many different shades of red, because the surveys proved that more people in those countries prefer red shades polish to any others. When marketing to Australia, Essie makes sure to advertise her oranges, and pinks, seeing as those are the colors of preference for that particular country. 

            Essie brand polish does not sell as well globally as it does in the United States. Reason being perhaps is because Essie Company shows particular interest in the changing seasons and trends of the U.S. and not nearly as much to the trends of the other countries. Essie bring in majority of its revenue from the United States.

The Marketing Environment

         Although Essie products are desirable by women of all ages, the true target market of the company are women ages 17-34. As well as the age, Essie is also targeting to women who are fashion and health conscious, and women who are well educated working professionals. Their signature for the target market, is that they are a classy and sophisticated, while still maintaining that bold sexy look when needed. I am included in the target market that Essie is marketing towards, and from my choice of nail polish brands, i know they have the right strategy. When i walk into a salon the Essie polish always catches my eye. Either if i need a bold color such as my favorite deep dark sinister red, "Wicked", for a fun week end with friends, or a classy color such as the pale pink "Ballet Slippers", for a sophisticated event, Essie has the color I need. The quality of the polish is excellent, and remains unchipped for about a week, which is just what a girl my age needs for my hectic lifestyle. The target market Essie is selling to is the perfect one, because all women aged 17-34 also will either need a bold or classy color of a polish of excellent quality.

         Environmental management is a very important concept to Essie. in a social aspect, the colors that are in style are constantly changing, and Essie prepares itself for that by creating a new line of colors, with every new season.

 However, one factor that Essie does not factor in as much is the economic factor. Essie polish, priced at eight dollars a bottle, may be expensive to some consumers in the lower class. It is possible to find the products a bit cheaper, but only if you are willing to go to whole sale stores, or already used polish bottles. Many consumers such as myself believe that eight dollars for a bottle of fashion forward polish is a good investment, however when in the store buying polish, some people may rather pick up the bottle that is two dollars, rather than eight.

          Essie constantly wants to know the changing tastes of its consumers to be able to make the best products. Essie sends out various surveys, has many in depth interviews, as well as holds focus groups with the consumers.

         To keep up with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Essies products are tested over a dozen times before being placed on the market. In 2010 Essie was sold to the company L'oreal, who now tests the products on animals. 

Ethics and Social Responsibilty

What makes a company moral? are there certain guidlines that each company must follow in order to be considered "ethical"? A code of ethics, which is a guideline for each company to follow in order to help them make better decisions. Essies code of ethics includes many different aspects. One of their many is have a concern for the environment. The company is aware that nail polish is not something that is easily able to make environmental freindly. As many of us know, the global warming scare has become an over whelming concern the past couple of years. None of us want to harm the environment, and it is a concern that needs to be shared even more across the wolrd. Because of this, Essie came out with a color nail polish in honor of the "Go Green" movement. "Going Incognito", is a green shade of polish which is meant to be specifically for the environment. 10% of each bottle bought goes directly to the organization Our Earth, in the hopes to bettering our environment. Also, each Essie customer is encouraged to recycle the glass bottles that the polish is sold in. With these small efforts, hopefully our environment will become a safe and clean place soon enough.

Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

               When walking into a salon, what is it that will make the consumer choose the Essie brand of nail polish over its many competitors such as O.P.I., and China Glaze? Each season as we all know, the magazines come out with some new hip trend and/or style; and so does Essie. Inspired by different fashion trends at the time, each and every season Essie comes out with a new color line, all called fun quirky names such as "Cocktail Bling," "French Affair," and even "Its in the Bag." With these funky names, as well as colors that match the latest trends, who wouldn't want to choose an Essie color? 

              Essie has created itself to be an authentic brand, while still keeping their products affordable. Not only does Essie sell over 200 different colors of polish, the brand has expanded to sell their own company polish remover, nail accessories, nail treatments, spa products, and even lip gloss.  

             Not only does Essie give its polish the funky names that gets customers excited, while flipping through the pages of magazines such as Seventeen, and InStyle,often you will find bright colorful adds, with exciting catch phrases on it, making the Essie company stick in your mind even once the magazine is closed. 

Consumers have reported that the Essie advertisements have given the company the reputation of having individuality, confidence, and sophistication. 

                         

                                "Essie is a luxury brand that blends the fashionable with the functional"

The History of Essie

         Sephora, Macy's, Target, and Rite Aid are all carriers of the number one nail polish company across the world known as "Essie." The Essie manicure is now capital in over 250,000 European, Far East, North and South American, African, Middle Eastern and Australian salons and stores, beyond 95 countries. Although extremely successful now, each company has its beginning. And just how did this company begin? was it all a plan for making money? was it the want for fame and honor? Yes those reason do seem plausible, but in truth it was all stemmed from a woman's frustration with the lack of color in beauty salons.

        Essie began by creating a 12 color collection. Once created, she brought her new line to salons in Las Vegas, and there it became a wild success. Through out the next few days Essie had received dozens of phone calls from salons who were impressed by her ability to create classy, yet fashionable shades, to meet the needs of the glamorous working women. The yield was so abundant for these 12 shades, Essie almost had no other choice but to extend her pallet. Thus creating the complete Essie line today which includes over 200 colors, making her yearly estimated sales at 3.5 billion.

         The key to success in Essie's understanding is the knowledge that women have two separate needs when it comes to their nail color-"there are times in every woman's activity for elegance, and times for added daring, fun colors."