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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Herbalife Spencer Wichert, Benny Baiocco, John Siciliano High Point University
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Table of Contents
1. Campaign Strategy
(pg. 3-10)
2. Agency Information
(pg. 11-13)
3. Alternate Advertisement
(pg. 14)
4. Print Advertisement
(pg. 15)
5. Deliverable 1
(pg. 16)
6. Deliverable 2
(pg. 17)
7. Deliverable 3
(pg. 18)
8. Media Plan
(pg. 19-21)
9. References
(pg. 22)
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Description of client (services, products, history, reputation) Herbalife is a global nutrition company that has been changing people’s lives with great products since 1980 (Herbalife). Herbalife provides a variety of weight supplements that help people with their current health situations. These include such things as protein powders, supplement pills, and recipes for healthy meals. Herbalife is known for their clean and more natural products. Mark Hughes founded Herbalife in 1980; Hughes had a vision of wanting to bring people good nutrition along with a great business opportunity. The extraordinary vision and commitment that inspired Mark Hughes to found Herbalife began when he was a young man. In 1980, Mark launched Herbalife by working as the first Member selling the nutritional products (Herbalife). As years passed people were trying and liking the results of the product. Which led Mark to be able to create a network of people who believed in his vision. Mark was able to make people believe that they could improve their life physically and professionally through Herbalife. Herbalife is available in over 90 countries. They support the Herbalife Family Foundation (HFF) and its Casa Herbalife programs to help bring good nutrition to children in need. We also sponsor more than 250 world-class athletes, teams and events around the globe, including Cristiano Ronaldo, the LA Galaxy and champions in many other sports (Herbalife). Herbalife is a direct selling company meaning their products can only be purchased from one of their independent distributors. Herbalife is starting to focus more on their image to help pull products through these independent distributors which are made up mostly by individuals out selling the product from their home (Wellness-toWealth, 2013).
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Herbalife is part of the 1 trillion dollar “wellness� industry. The wellness industry is capitalizing on the awareness of all nations on the challenges of being overweight and the rising number of overweigh individuals. In addition, the wellness industry also capitalizes on the concern of other environmental stressors such as pollusion and how healthy products can offset these challenges (Wellness-to-Wealth, 2013).
Product or Service We are happy to announce that Herbalife will be coming out with the new supplement protein powder that increases the users strength by 90%. The name of the new product is called QuickFix. Scientist working for Herbalife were able to extract a new chemical from bananas, in which, that if you take triple the normal daily intake it allows your muscles to grow rapidly. The protein powder will be sold in three different flavors, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry-banana.
Competitors (how are they different from your client) Herbalife has many competitors when it comes to the field of weight supplement products. Some of their main competitors include companies such as Slim Fast and Muscle Milk. The main differences between each company are how they go about promoting their products. Slim Fast brings more focus on how their product will help you lose weight fast. They tend to focus their advertising on women more for their target audience. Muscle Milk promotes their product by showing how it will make you stronger. Muscle Milk is more leaned towards men when it comes to their target audience. They do not promote how the product can help with weight loss; rather they promote how their
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
product can make you stronger. Herbalife promotes their products on being more natural and healthy for you. They use nothing but natural ingredients in their product, which allows them to advertise their health benefits.
Market Segment The market segment we will be focusing on will be athletes. We will mainly focus on high school and college male athletes. In this day in age sports are becoming more and more competitive and people are looking for any edge they can get. This is why we are focusing on this specific audience in hopes that we can persuade them to believe that our product will be able to help them reach the next level of their game.
Client’s Brand Image As a direct selling company with many independent distributors, most of which have their own website, Herbalife has struggled keeping a consistent brand image. Herbalife is putting in more controls to manage and create this image (Wellness-to-Wealth, 2013) Herbalife’s branding budget is invested mostly in their sponsorship of sports. Herbalife focuses on global sports such as soccer and tennis and has contracted many of the best athletes in these sports. Herbalife focuses branding on mixing of natural vitamins and other elements with protein mixes. The name itself goes to the branding with “herb” denoting the natural aspects of the brand and “life” going toward these products making for a better more healthy life. Herbalife avoids making claims for curing problems, but focuses on being a nutrition company. The claim centers around eating their complete nutrition products that
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will make you healthy, keep you hunger in control and help you lose weight. In short, Herbalife’s advertising strategy relates to others in that it promotes physical improvement in which the customer is looking for and differentiates by being natural and more complete.
Challenges (regulatory, societal, competitive, etc.)? The key challenge for Herbalife has is keeping a consistent message and brand image as a result of their marketing strategy of using independent distributors. These distributors are generally people that use the product and start selling the product. The system is based on new reps getting discounts and these product discounts grow based on the amount sold and more importantly getting new people to start selling “underneath you” for which you start sharing in their profits. This mechanism creates pressure for sales and bringing more people into the fold and results in many different messages in the market. This puts at risk someone being off message and making promises or claims of the product than can cause legal issues. While the FDA does not regulate these products it doesn’t meant they are automatically safe and it does limit the type of claims you can make to stay outside of regulation. Related to consistent messaging, but in a different area, Herbalife has lately been battling off criticisms of being called a “pyramid scheme.” According to one article in Latino Fox News “Data provided by the company to prospective distributors, in 2013, only 2,551 of the company’s 525,251 U.S. members earned more than $25,000. That is just under one-half of 1 percent (Vourvoulias & Finn, 2014).” Rumors are leaking that Herbalife is just a short sell investment for most people. People are wondering does
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Herbalife make billions because it sells a lot of its product or because distributors rope in a lot of new vendors that all buy inventory that they may not ever sell (Vourvoulias & Finn, 2014).
Client’s Needs for Competitiveness Herbalife needs a consistent message and consistent claims. There are two main ways to achieve this result. The first is training. Training starts with a program for all new recruits, the independent distributors that sell product. This training should include training on how to brand the company, how to brand themselves and their “distributorship”. This training should then include how to sell each product with core talking points and values. Herbalife also needs more advertising. I believe that they rely on word of mouth too much to get their product out to people. While the idea of having people get into the business and advocate for the product is great. It is just not enough to allow these independent distributors to compete with larger name brands. These distributors need the support of the company brand and awareness of this brand so that potential customers have a first impression of the company and the product being reputable and successful. I believe increasing their sponsorship of elite athletes would be a great start in the right direction for this company. Professional athletes in any sense are the pinnacle of fitness and health. There is not one person on this earth who wouldn’t want the same fitness and ability as today’s top athletes. While Herbalife sponsors some of the top soccer players in Europe such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo; they need to expand their market to the United States (Herbalife). Along with sponsoring professional athletes to promote their product, Herbalife
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
needs more advertising in general. They need to find more outlets such as radio, Internet ads, and TV ads to promote their products. Herbalife needs to start straying away from being a cult and start becoming a well-known product. This advertising should focus on awareness, but also bring in some to the science and nature to add credibility to the company and the brand. Lastly advertising should go beyond mass media and enable their distributors to connect directly with customs. Creating adverting materials that can be quickly personalized and used by distributors can do this. It should also include blogs and other email communications that can be personalized to the customer and the products they purchase.
Client’s Strengths One of the biggest strengths is the market itself. The market has grown from an estimated two hundred million dollars in 2005 to more than a trillion dollars today. This rapidly expanding market helps drive interest and success on which Herbalife can capitalize. Herbalife also has a lot of strengths when it comes to their weight supplement products. We are living in an age where losing weight has become a concern for most citizens. According to a poll done by GallUp.com fifty-one percent of Americans want to lose weight (Brown, 2013). There is no better time to be in this market as Americans try to continue to better themselves. Herbalife’s biggest strength would be that the products are all natural and they are focusing on using this differentiation to separate themselves from their competitors. This
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
message allows them to talk about how the incorporate more complete nutrition in their supplements than companies like Muscle Milk that are focused more on increasing performance.
Customers The target customers are health conscious and want to lose weight. The lose weight is likely the most important aspect of this target. These individuals can be found in the gym, using or buying diet related items or in health food stores. Health conscious individuals will fall into further sub segments. The first is Herbalife’s main target audience which is mainly middle aged men and women who are primarily looking to lose weight and be healthier. These individuals are thirty to fifty years old. These middle aged customers are looking for anything that can help them lose weight and if they find something that works will become advocates. As such, the products will be important, but the service will be as if not more important. The service is based on the one-to-one connection the independent distribution model creates with their customer base. This allows for Herbalife to support the emotional and support aspects needed for customers to have success with the products. This creates a unique opportunity for marketing material that can be used by distributors. This marketing material will also need to come with training. This training can be marketed in itself if done with examples as provided on video accessible by the Internet or an easy to us distributor app.
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Campaign Goals The goal for the campaign is to become the number 1 seller in the high school to college age range.
Campaign Summary Our campaign is going to focus on the target market of high school and college athletes. This market has not been tapped into yet when it comes to this type of market. With the campaign we will run we have a chance of making Herbalife the most elite in this category. The sports sponsor ship should be used to raise awareness of the brand by 15 points by December 31, 2016. In addition the sponsorship of sports and athletes should be us raise the credibility of Herbalife’s products. To raise the credibility it should show success examples and provide an insight into the science of how and why products work. The goal should be to increase people willing to try Herbalife products by 10 points by December 31, 2016.
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Agency Name and Philosophy [Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables]
Reasoning Our team decided on Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables. We chose this title for our agency thanks to a website that assisted us in generating agency names. Specifically, we chose to go with The Hipster approach. This direction consisted four words, first of which being shirt color, second is name of first childhood pet, and third is attaching two marketing buzzwords from a preselected list of adjectives and nouns, in that exact order.
Philosophy The philosophy of Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables is based on 5 things: efficient productivity, innovation, commitment, credibility and dependability. These are the 5 pillars in which our agency was created. Our daily goals are to change the game in which we strive to move our clients’ line of work forward by building memorable brand recognition starting from the ground up. As a client you can expect the highest quality of work attributed to the constant innovative marketing team. We pride ourselves on producing nothing less of what our clients ask of us while always working with the utmost passion to impress and inspire. Whatever it is your business needs, we have the designs, execution and results to be your perfect business partner.
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Biographies John is a straight shooter in a conference room, one of the best innovative thinkers around. John’s burning desire to build up never heard before brands into global enterprises is both his passion as well as his gift. John has spent most of his career building Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables from the ground up. Since the beginning, John has been a wearer of many hats ranging from graphic assistant to copyrighter to networker of social media to now Founder, President & CEO of the Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables agency. Outside of the multi-tasking and accomplishments, John has a philosophy where he strongly believes in making a positive difference in the lives of others.
“If you’re going to be thinking, you may as well think big.” Spencer almost redefines the meaning of hard work. He is one of the best in the business strictly due to his drive and will to get the job done right. Spencer was asked to join Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables 5 years ago to come on as Vice President. John saw the same burning passion in Spencer when he decided to ask him to join the agency. John states, “There is no cutting corners with this guy, if he is going to do it he is going to do it right.” Spencer focuses on mainly the marketing aspect in Blue Simon Next- Gen Deliverables. Spencer graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor in Business Marketing with a minor in accounting. Along with marketing for the company Spencer has one belief that rings true to who he is, “Moderation is for cowards.”
“If you’re going to do it, then do it right.”
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Benny is the individual that can turn a no name product into a worldwide name brand. With having years of experience in the creative department of Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables he has created some of the most impressive Ads that were shown worldwide. He generates creative ideas to represent the advertisements or campaigns key messages. With being head of the Creative Department at Blue Simon Next-Gen Deliverables Benny goes into work every day with a powerful quote… “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” -Benny Baiocco
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Alternative Ad. Herbalife Radio Ad Michael Jordan’s Success 60 seconds *The announcer that is talking sounds like one from a Hall of Fame ceremony. It sounds as if he is also speaking into a microphone. *Very subtle dramatic music playing during the whole ad
Announcer- He was a 6-time NBA champion, 6 time NBA finals MVP.
Michael Jordan- Some ask how I was able to do it.
Announcer- 5 time NBA MVP, 10 time NBA leading point scorer. Michael Jordan- I tell them it was easy…
Announcer- 11 time NBA all selection, and he is probably the best to have done it! I welcome up Michael Jordan.
(Cheers roar from the crowd) Michael Jordan- All I had to use was Herbalife’s “QuickFix. It allowed to me sustain my excellence night in and night out.
(The announcer below is a normal announcer)
Announcer- Herbalife’s QuickFix allows athletes to train at their peak levels day in and day out. Stop by your local GNC to get a bottle today.
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Print Ad
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Deliverable 1
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Deliverable 2
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Deliverable 3
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
Media Plan Radio - We chose to utilize radio advertising because of two reasons: cost effectiveness, and time efficiency. The costs for this medium are greatly lower than other forms of media were decided to use. The lead-time with radio is incredibly short, allowing for a creative radio message to be produced quicker than anything else. Below are radio outlets we feel will best deliver our message to the masses. Each outlet has a massive audience that can relate to either fitness or sport, which is key to why we chose them.
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NPR ESPN Radio XM Radio Sirius Radio
TV - We chose to utilize TV advertising because of two reasons: reach, and multi-sensory appeal. A huge advantage we found with TV advertising was the power of reaching a huge audience. Secondly, according to Small Business , “TV has always been able to appeal to multiple senses through its combination of text, images, sound and motion.” (Richards, 2014) The value of this characteristic is monumental for our campaign because we want to not only reach a large audience, but also motivate them to act. In our case, acting is buying our new product.
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NBC Sports CBS Sports Network ESPN ESPN2 Fox Sports 1 NFL Network MLB Network Universal Sports
MASN Social Media [Twitter, Facebook, Instagram (paid), Snapchat (paid)] - We chose to utilize social media advertising because of four reasons: More Opportunities to Convert, Better Search Engine
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Rankings, Increased Inbound Traffic, and Improved Brand Loyalty. (DeMers, 2014) All posts via social media have the chance to be picked up and shared, liked, retweeted, re-gramed, etc. This overflow of content leads to consumers, new and old, visiting your site, and then a conversion. Click through rates are analyzed in this case and significance is determined. Search engine optimization is extremely important when advertising through social media. Although costly, this outlet can strengthen our company’s brand presence. Social media platforms increase inbound traffic and familiarize potential consumers with your brand through frequency. Loyalty is strongly valued in our agency, and so should it be with Herbal Life’s consumer base. “According to a report published by Texas Tech University, brands who engage on social media channels enjoy higher loyalty from their customers.” (DeMers, 2014) In conclusion to the report, “Companies should take advantage of the tools social media gives them when it comes to connecting with their audience.” (DeMers, 2014) For these specific reasons we chose to take advantage of social media as one of our distribution outlets.
Magazine - We chose to utilize magazines because of two reasons: geography and time frame. (Huebsch, 2014) Geographically, no matter the size of a business, magazines can distribute on a large scale. We decided to exploit the magazines below because of their consumer base is similar to our target audience and also because of their presence in the magazine medium vertical. Additionally, “Magazine are typically kept for a longer period of time than newspapers because of their higher printing quality.” The longer our advertisements are in the hands of our targeted consumers, the better chance we have of obtaining new consumers.
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Men’s Health Men’s Fitness FLEX Hardgainer Iron Man Muscle & Fitness
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
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Shape WomenSports Muscle and Fitness Hers Health & Fitness Sports Magazine
2015 Promotional Calendar
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Herbalife 2015 Campaign
References
Brown, A. (2013, November 29). GallUp . Retrieved from GallUp.com: http://www.gallup.com/poll/166082/americans-desire-shed-poundsoutweighs-effort.aspx DeMers, J. (2014). The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10benefits-of-social-media-marketing/ Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pyramid+scheme Herbalife. (n.d.). Retrieved from Herbalife.com: http://company.herbalife.com Hoppe, M. (2013, October 21). HubSpot Blogs. Retrieved from blog.hubspot.com: http://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/how-to-name-your-inboundmarketing-agency Huebsch, R. (2014.) What Are the Benefit of Magazine Advertising? Retrieved http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-magazine-advertising-3586.html Richards, L. (2014). What Are the Advantages of Advertising on TV? Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-advertising-tv-3385.html Vourvoulias, B., & Finn, M. (2014, May 14). Fox News Latino . Retrieved from latino.foxnews.com: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2014/05/14/battleover-herbalife-plays-out-in-latino-homes-across-country/ Wellness-to-Wealth. (2013). Herbalife Branding. Retrieved from Wellness-to-Wealth.com: http://wellness-to-wealth.com/herbalife-branding