Sof-A-Logue

MKT650 Scenario

1

You really enjoy your job as the director of marketing at Sof-A-Logue.com, a

personal e-communications company that is celebrating its 10-year anniversary

this year. The anniversary of this social media communications company is so

important that the executive management team has requested that you lead

the marketing strategy portion of the strategic business plan this year, and

include some celebratory branding elements to help continue to push Sof-A-

Logue.com into the marketplace as an innovative, low-cost, quality service

leader in communication technology.

The name Sof-A-Logue evolved from the various personal communication

applications that allow family and friends to stay connected from their home.

The idea is essentially “dialoguing from your sofa,” in the comfort of your

home.

The company grew quickly through strategic acquisitions during the past five

years. This rapid growth also led to an image problem in the marketplace. A

recent survey showed that although the company is successful, most

prospective and current customers do not know the brand. Though the software

is often located on their cell phones, computers, and other communication

devices, they are unfamiliar with the brand name.

Your company is now at a place where it needs to concentrate on organic

growth to continue to build the brand and grow revenue. Organic growth

means that a company builds its revenues by creating new products, increasing

productivity, and growing sales. Therefore, organic growth will be the number-

one business objective during the next five years, and brand recognition and

awareness will be a number-one priority for the company and its new products.

New Product Launches to Celebrate Sof-A-Logue’s 10th Anniversary

Aligned with the organic growth plan, the company is expanding its services to

include three low-cost, personalized, downloadable software applications (apps)

known as custom-logues. The three custom-logue apps that you will help

market and launch this year include:

Book-logues. This is a free e-book application that can be downloaded to

an electronic reading device, cell phone, or computer with a low-cost annual

subscription rate and has a full customized e-book library of classics, best-

sellers, and newly released books.

Read-a-logue. This is a free downloadable audio app; it is a cutting-edge

technology that is downloadable to a car’s computer system, eliminating the

hassle of checking out audio books at a library or purchasing them. A low-

MKT650 Scenario

2

cost annual subscription fee entitles the user to a universal library of

current and classic books in all genres. The secondary target market for this

product is children’s stories, designed for parents to download to a personal

media device allowing children to listen to stories while viewing pictures.

Coupon-a-logue. This is a low-cost coupon scanning program app that

allows the user to download coupons from anywhere into a cell phone. It

“dialogues” with merchant computers to add discounts to a special “free

money” coupon savings account, which can eventually be automatically

transferred to bank accounts.

You have been with Sof-A-Logue.com since its inception, so you are attuned to

the many changes that have taken place over a very exciting decade, and you

are looking forward to the future. Today, you jotted down where the company

stands and will use this information as a guide for starting to develop the

marketing plan. You decide to use the company’s public relations boilerplate

that is printed on all of its news releases as a starting point. You check out the

company’s Web site under the tab “About Us: Sof-A-Logue.com At-a-

Glance,” which reads:

Sof-A-Logue.com is a premier social media company dedicated to

enhancing the way customers converse in today’s wireless world

and the virtual realities of staying in touch with friends and

family by voice, text, picture, and e-mail.

Sof-A-Logue.com has 5,000 employees worldwide and a regional

headquarters center-of-excellence office in four global regions

including the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

With revenues approaching $5 billion, Sof-A-Logue.com continues to expand

with a futuristic vision of personal and customized communications systems

through strategic acquisition management and organic growth.

The company growth slated for this year is centered in the Americas as

changing technology offers new and cost-effective ways to reach more markets

and customers. Your responsibility for this project is going to include the

following:

Building the Sof-A-Logue.com brand with a clear market value proposition

Creating the plan’s product strategy

Using customer segmentation systems to develop product customer profiles

Developing hybrid marketing campaigns to position Sof-A-Logue.com as the

number-one personal communications company

MKT650 Scenario

3

Designing specific marketing programs for the three new custom-logue

product launches this year