Martha Case

1: Martha and the Trap‐Ease America investors feel that they face a once‐in‐a‐life‐time opportunity. What information do they need to evaluate this opportunity? How do you think the group would write its mission statement? How would you write it?

Once in a lifetime opportunity because it’s a unique, outstanding product and if they fail now it will be hard to reposition the brand in the consumers mind and build a good consumer relationship so they would buy again or buy more. Also they only have this opportunity if there is no other product already existent on the market. They need information on the market (e.g. which other products already exist, are there other micetraps that offer a fast and uncomplicated way to get rid of mice,…) and the consumers’ needs, the market situation, they need to figure out if they can find a way to make the consumer accept the higher price and they need to evaluate their unique selling point and how to use this to their advantage in order to single themselves out from the competition. Also they need to look at what else the competitors are offering and at which prices they sell.

Companies mission statement: Trapease offers its customer the newes and most innovative mousetrap that was ever existent

Mission Statement Suggestion: While maintaining the highest quality possible, we offer our customer the opportunity to get rid of mice not only in an animal friendly but also in a clean, safe, more efficient and sustainable way.

2:Has Martha identified the best target market for TrapEase? What other market segments might the firm target?

Martha identified women as Trapease target customer but does not specify this. Which age group, social status, etc? Apart from that women might be a good target as they might have more problems with using conventional traps respectively getting rid of the trap after a mouse walked in there. But if this remains the target group, Trapease should rethink their way of selling in homeware markets as mostly men frequent this kind of stores.

As the context talked about how much safer trapease is for pets and young children I think Trapease should target families or single parents , both men and women or petlovers/environmentalists as you do not necessarily kill the mouse plus you can use on trap a couple of times.

3: How had the company positioned The TrapEase relative to the chosen market? Could it position the product in other ways?

Trapease is positions as a trap that does not cause any mess and is also not as dangerous for the children and pets as no poison or dangerous spring mechanisms are used. Also they position themselves as the most innovative product that can’t be reached by competition. I think the positioning is well chosen but they could point out a couple of other factors like: