Jones Blair

Background and Problem Definition

The Jones Blair Company is a small paint company in Texas State, US. Company wanted to increase its market share in future as this industry is becoming very saturated and Jones Blair is now facing competition from many big paint companies. Company has some options to choose from or make some new strategy for the future course of actions.

Market and Industry Analysis

US paint industry is a $ 16 Billion industry and now considered to be a mature industry. Average annual dollar sales growth rate is also estimated to be low around 2-3 % per year. The US paint market is divided into three segments: architectural coatings (43%), original equipment manufacturing (OEM) coatings (35%) and special purpose coatings (22%).

The Jones Blair company sells top quality architectural paint in over 50 counties in the four southern states in the US. Due to increase in the competition in with the coming of department stores like Sears, K-Mart, and Wal-Mart company is thinking of alternatives to increase its market share and ultimately increase in the profits. Jones Blair has some strengths like high quality product, strong relations with retail stores and sales representatives, in less spending of just 3% of the sales, has a good market share in the area. Company has some weakness also as, less number of sales representatives and very low spending on the advertisements.

If we see the Jones Blair Market Share in Exhibit 1, its 60% revenue comes from Dallas–Fort Worth and 40% from Non Dallas–Fort Worth area.

Evaluation of Alternative Courses of Action

Jones Blair has four alternatives to overcome the company's marketing problem.

a) Spend additional $350,000 on corporate advertising:- Spending this much money will increase the breakeven point a