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he explained. You need to have a villain to be up against, and for us, thats Scotts. Although the fight is over now (in September 2007 TerraCycle reached a settlement with Scotts and has agreed to change its packaging and its advertising claims), in its time, www.suedbyscotts.com gained massive media attention, leading major newspapers and magazines to cover the story, and hundreds of bloggers to defend TerraCycles cause. Online donations actually totaled less than $1,000; however, overall company sales surged 122 percent within weeks of the blogs launch. And traffic at TerraCycles main Web site, which averaged about 1,000 visitors a day, spiked to as high as 13,000 visitors a day.
Questions
1. What type of consumer product is TerraCycles plant food: convenience, shopping, specialty, or unsought? Why?
3. Do you think that product line extension or product line contraction would make more sense for TerraCycle at this stage of the companys growth? Why?
4. How well do TerraCycles bottles perform the four packaging functions discussed in this chapter? Compare TerraCycles products to Miracle-Gros (www.scotts.com). Do you think TerraCycles package design distinguishes their products well enough from those of the industry giant, or are they similar enough to cause customer confusion?
2. Go to www.terracycle.net and look at the types of products the company sells. Describe their product mix. How wide is it? Which basic product lines does it sell? How long are they?
SOURCES: Jack Ne, When the Worm Poop Hits the Fan, Market It, Advertising Age, April 23, 2007; Adam Aston, Now Thats Really a Turf War, BusinessWeek, April 23, 2007; Angus Loten, After a Good Fight, David Forced to Settle with Goliath, www.inc.com, September 24, 2007.
CASE STUDIES