Acqualisa Marketing Management

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   INDIVIDUAL CASE WRITE UP

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SECTION 1 – LAERTE PONSEGGI

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Situation Analysis

Context

In 2000, the U.K. shower market was characterized by “Victorian era” plumbing with only 60% of U.K. homes equipped with a shower. In addition, systems installed were old, having often problems of fluctuation in temperature, low pressure and poor flow and other minor issues like hard to turn valves, leaky seals and worn-out showers.

Competition

The market was characterized by a concentrated competition, 3 main players representing 70% of total unit sales and low brand awareness. The products offered could be divided in 3 main categories: Electric showers, Mixer showers and Power shower. Each of the categories had pros and cons and different price positioning for the client (Appendix 1).

Customers

Customers tended to fall into 3 main segments driven by installation method (Appendix 2 for details):

• Traditional in house installation: the customers can be divided into 3 main sub-segments determined by price and different needs (Premium, Standard and Value)
• Do It Yourself installation: customers shop at large retail outlets and have interest in cheap easy to install models
• Property Developers installation: developers, focused on new houses, don’t have pressure problems and are interested in reliable and not expansive nice-looking products. They commit plumbers for final installation.

In addition to the final users, plumbers could be considered as one of the main customer for the shower market, in fact they were involved as expert advisors in the shower selection final decision in 73% of the cases. Moreover, once products were decided, plumbers conducted 54% of the total installation. (Appendix 3). 

Company

Acqualisa was the third company in sales in the UK shower market (18% market share according to Appendix1) and recognized as a company with high quality products. The company covered all the customer segments (Premium, Standard, Value, DIY and Developers) with 3 brands: Aqualisa, Gainsborough and ShowerMax (Addressed to developers). The three brands were introduced and used to penetrate multiple specialized markets targeting different customers needs and different price points as shown in Appendix 4. This strategy has a double effect: while boosting sales and penetrating better markets, on the other hand, it requires more investment in branding and in product management.