Odi Case Write Up

Executive summary: In 1974, Daniel Garrison, the CEO of Optical Distortion, Inc.(ODI) requested his marketing vice president Ronald Olson to formulate a marketing program for ODI’s new and only product—a contact lens for chickens. The product was invented to partially blind chickens and reduce the cannibalism among chickens. Although facing challenges with limited managerial and financial resources, ODI’s goal was to achieve 50% penetration of farms with over 10,000 chickens within five years and eventually to become a national-wide multiproduct and multimarket company. Considering ODI's product advantages, available resources, competitors and its potential customers with various scales and geographical distributions, we recommend that DIO should target large farms with over 50,000 chickens with a high price in short term, utilize the first mover advantage and B2B marketing strategy to start its business first in California and then gradually expand to large farms over 50,000 birds in other regions with dense chicken population, such as West South Central and South Atlantic, and eventually penetrate the national market.

Analysis

Company: Established in 1965, ODI invented the contact lens for chickens by accident when a farmer found that chickens affected with cataract ate less and were easier to handle. Building on the findings, ODI invented the special contact lens to reduce chickens’ visual acuity and the cannibalism issues, leading more efficient egg production and lower costs for farms. After conquering the technical problems of retention and chicken irritation, ODI succeeded in obtaining the license for the exclusive use of hydrophilic polymer for nonhuman applications from New World as well as raising $200,000 venture capital, both of which enabled ODI to launch their product to the market of poultry and egg production industry in the U.S.

Customer: In identifying the customer base of ODI, from a descriptive perspective, chicken farms using henhouse model who wanted to reduce the cannibalism and improve egg production were all potential customers of ODI. However, Daniel Garrisons classified the chicken farms based on various sizes: small farms with less than 10,000 birds, medium farm with 10,000-50,000 birds and large farms with over 50,000 birds. The three differently-sized farms had different distribution model for egg selling as well as different financial strengths. ODI believed that only medium and large farms with over 10,000 birds could have sold profitably.

Competition: ODI was the first mover in the market with a technological advantage to reduce the cannibalism without traumatization. Furthermore, ODI possessed the three years’ patent protection period, the exclusive use of hydrophilic polymer technology and the exclusive relationship with its supplier New World, which could help ODI hold off competition with strong market forces in short term by the late