Pocari Sweat Essay

This assignment deals with advertising and it’s concepts. So to start off we’d like to explain certain terms: Advertising is more than just a means of disseminating product information. It is a primary communication tool of our economic system and our culture. In other words it could be defined as † a purposive communication to a target market, which assists in selling by drawing attention to the characteristics of a product which will appeal to the buying motives of customers in the target segment of the market†. Advertising is mainly used for the following purposes: To support sales increase; To encourage trial; To create awareness; To inform about a feature or benefit; To create an image; To modify attitudes; To gain trade and sales staff support. There are three different kinds of advertisements: (1) Informative advertisement: This advertisement conveys information and raises consumer awareness of the product. These are common in early stages of the product life cycle. (2) Persuasive advertising: This advertisement is concerned with creating a desire for the product and stimulating actual purchase. This is mostly used for well-established products, which are in growth/maturity stages of the  product life cycle. (3) Reminding advertising: It is to remind consumers about the product or organization, or the benefits they (consumers) are receiving from buying the product. Advertising has an ethical and moral responsibility to deal honestly with its portrayal of society. Individual companies are judged by their own advertising, and the effectiveness of advertising is dependent on the overall attitude of customers towards advertising generally. (Q) What does advertising do for consumers? One of the most important roles of advertising is showing people how to solve problems. Effective advertising must start from premises, â€Å"Does my product help people?† The major trend in modern advertising is making the consumer the focus of the marketing process. Organizations find that starting with the consumer creates a relationship in which products are designed for the consumers rather than having to convince consumers that a preexisting product is the one they want. (Q) What does advertising does for business? Without advertising, businesses would not be able to bring new products to the attention of enough consumers fast enough to make the enormous cost of creating, developing, manufacturing, and distributing the products practical. In other words, advertising is both a tool and requirement of an abundant economy. (Q) What does advertising does for society? Advertising has both intended and unintended results. Obviously, the intended result of most advertising is to contribute to the profitable sales of product. In addition to its economic role, advertising revenues support a diverse and independent press system protected from government and special  interest control. As a key communication link in the process, it also is a major stimulant to vigorous economic growth and stability. However, there is a growing awareness that advertising must move beyond single-minded concerns with profitability. There is increasing agreement that advertising must be created in an atmosphere that considers a number of ethical factors. A recent survey of advertising agency executives found that they faced six major ethical considerations in conducting business: 1. Treating clients fairly; 2. Creating honest, no misleading, socially desirable ads; 3. Representing unhealthy, useless, or unethical products; 4. Representing clients whose products/services are unhealthy and unneeded; 5. Treating suppliers, vendors, and media fairly; 6. Treating other agencies fairly. It is to the benefit of advertising and society in general that ethical issues are in the forefront of discussion concerning the practice of advertising. Now that we have seen what advertising is and how it deals with various people and organizations it is easy to set the objectives of advertising. These are likely to be the following: To communicate certain information about a product. This is perhaps the most important objective. To highlight specific features of a product which make it different from the  competitors. The concept of the unique selling proposition (USP) is that by emphasizing a unique feature, which appeals to a customer need. To build up a brand or company image through corporate advertising. To reinforce customer behavior. Influencing dealers and resellers to stock the items (on as much shelf-space as possible). In case of government advertising. To achieve a policy objective. A successful ad: The content of an advertisement is determined largely by the objective of the advertising and the motivation of the potential customer. An advertisement should present information, which leads to a greater awareness of the product. It should be an attention-getter and may excite amusement or emotions such as fear, but inciting these feelings should not be allowed to be the only effect of the advertisement. Advertising will be most successful if the following conditions apply: a) The product should have characteristics, which lend themselves to advertising. 1. It should be distinctive and identifiable. 2. It should stimulate emotional buying. 3. If at point of sale a customer can refute an advertisement claim simply by inspecting the product, advertising will achieve no sales at all. b) There should be consistency throughout the sales operation. Advertising, the activities of salesperson and dealers, branding, packaging and pricing should all promote the same product image. c) There should be co-operation between advertising staff and all other  activities in the company. Product design, production, distribution, selling and financial operations should all combine to achieve customer orientation and maximum selling efficiency. After all the facts now let’s move on to our product and its advertisement. We have chosen POCARI SWEAT as our product. A Japanese company known as Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. launched Pocari Sweat in 1980. Under the company philosophy, â€Å"Otsuka – meaning – people creating new products for better health worldwide†, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. is an R&D-oriented corporation with a central focus on pharmaceuticals and consumer products. Through innovative products, OPC hopes to make a difference in curing illnesses and maintaining people’s everyday health. The name POCARI SWEAT is a JAPLISH word (Japanese & English). ‘POCARI’ sounds relaxing, easeful, and light to Japanese people. It doesn’t mean any English word. We know that ‘SWEAT’ has dirty image in English. Then why did the company use such a word?† Actually ‘SWEAT’ has meanings of diligence, efforts, and refreshing ness in Japan, which shows their importance to work, their culture and belief. So that’s how the word came – POCARI SWEAT! Most of Japanese people call POCARI SWEAT as â€Å"POCARI.† We rarely call its full name. We suppose that people have western-like image to â€Å"sweat† especially; Since, POCARI SWEAT has been a very famous and popular name, they (the company) cannot change its name. This company also manufactures various other products like: Ornamin-C (Energy Drink), Calorie Meter (Diet Drink), Energen and Fast Break (energy drinks). Company Name Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Head Office 2-9 Kanda Tsukasa-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8535, Japan Phone: +81-3-3292-0021 Date Established August 10, 1964 President Tatsuo Higuchi Capital 6 billion yen Employees 5,224 (As of April 1, 2002) Business Description Manufacturing, Distributing, Exporting, Importing of pharmaceuticals, Clinical testing equipment, Medical equipment, and Food products. Domestic Establishments 17 branch offices/50 district offices 16 research institutions 2 clinical research laboratory 6 factories POCARI SWEAT A WORLDWIDE BRAND! DID YOU KNOW The human body has a very high water content: 60% for the average adult, and approximately 70% for a child. This water component is known as body fluid, and contains electrolytes such as sodium and potassium ions. WATER content in a child and adult body. The composition of POCARI SWEAT is similar to that of our own body fluids. It contains just the right amount of those electrolytes – such as sodium and potassium ions – that our body loses when it loses water. It’s also gentler on our body and more easily absorbed than ordinary water. And it doesn’t  harm the important balance of body fluids. CONTENTS OF POCARI SWEAT Pocari Sweat plays a vital role in human body after consuming it. Every day we loose about 2.5 liters of water through urinating, sweating and breathing, while we intake approximately the same amount through food and drink. Body fluids automatically regulate this loss and intake of water: balancing the two is vital to the maintenance of a healthy body. Pocari does just that after playing sports, working out in a gym, practicing yoga or long tiring dances lessons. This will be clear from the following diagram: Graph showing daily loss and intake of water in a human body Now that we have seen various graphs that how dangerous can it be if we loose water in plenty. Well now that OPC (the company) has launched Pocari Sweat there is no fear of loosing excess water. Consuming Pocari not only gives a refreshing feeling but also prevents loss of fluid from our body. It will be clear from another graph, which follows: Comparison of how Pocari Sweat prevents the loss of body fluids The composition of POCARI SWEAT is similar to that of our own body fluids. It contains just the right amount of electrolytes – such as sodium and potassium ions – that your body loses when it loses water. It’s also gentler on our body and more easily absorbed than ordinary water. And it doesn’t harm the important balance of body fluids. This graph shows clearly the performance of POCARI SWEAT. POCARI SWEAT COMPETITION By now you’d wonder that who are competitors of POCARI SWEAT? Well the real answer according to Otsuka Pharmaceuticals is that POCARI SWEAT  real competitor is PLAIN WATER and not energy drinks! Many would disagree to it but it’s the truth. People would say that Pocari faces a huge competition with the energy drinks available in the U.A.E like the Red-Bull, Isostar, Blue Ox, Flying Horse etc. Well according the product agencies in the U.A.E. they mention that Pocari is not an energy drink but it’s a REHYDRATION DRINK. The product (Pocari Sweat) agents in U.A.E are AL MAYA LAL’S LLC. To prove the above statement that Pocari Sweat is a rehydration drink the following picture of Pocari’s can, which clearly shows it: In reality, Pocari Sweat is a rehydration drink, which is very similar to baby rehydration fluid. The label on the bottle clarifies: This close up is taken from the can Past advertisements Pocari Sweat had made many ads in Japan, which is shown mainly in other Eastern Asian countries, they were a huge hit there but the company have failed to make an impact with them in the Western countries, that is why the product is not much known and the popularity is not much as it have in Japan and other neighboring countries. The companies previous ads were focused mainly on sports, they had many famous celebrities, models and artists in their ads, some of them are: Cindy Crawford (model), Nancy Adrew (stunt actress and model), Tikeshi (model), and Myo Chin Haut (model) etc. The concepts, which the company wanted to show people through its ad, were amazing and very creative, shot very beautifully under water. The first which showed two men playing tennis under water; the second big ad was during the Football World Cup held in Japan, which obviously had to be a soccer ad. Lately, the company has shot an ad keeping in mind how trendy and energetic are today’s teenagers; they have a skate boarder skating (which are attached with color cans), as he goes two and fro on the ramp it creates  graffiti. (This ad is not available on the net; the concept was taken from the following link: http://spotlight.iridas.com/200303/colorado) this site also contains previous football ads made by the company. In-short after our research we feel that the company and the agents of POCARI SWEAT in the U.A.E and the Middle East should emphasize more on advertising. The product is doing fine as we can see that most of our samples drink it after some activity, with 1-2 cans at a time, they find it really refreshing and energetic, and end up with the results as â€Å"good overall performance†. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Newspapers/Magazines: Gulf News, Khaleej Times, Fortune 500, Forbes. Text Books: Advertising and Sales Promotion Techniques by Gerard J. Tellis Advertising Procedure by J. Thomas Russell, W. Ronald, 14th Edition Marketing Management by Philip Kotler 11th Edition Marketing HND/HNC Edexcel textbook, BPP Publishing Websites: http://www.google.com http://www.yahoo.com http://www.ask.com http://www.otsuka.co.jp/pocari_e/pocari1.htm http://spotlight.iridas.com/200303/colorado www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/?link=top http://www.oranda.or.jp/index/english/embassy/agriculture/PDF/productmakerhit.htm http://www.videor.co.jp/eng/jdata/market/99tvcmtr.html