Question

Harvard Business Review case study "Slanket: Responding to Snuggie's Market Entry"

After you read this case, please answer the following questions:

Question 1: What came to your mind when you saw the name “Snuggie”? What came to your mind when you saw the name “Slanket”? Please use 5 words for each. What do you think your answers with the 5 words for each name indicate to you?

Question 2: Among Slanket and Snuggie, which was the pioneer in the market? Which was the challenger? What resources did the challenger have? What challenges did the pioneer meet?

Question 3: For each of Slanket and Snuggie, how did each implement its marketing strategies? How did each go to market?

Question 4: What did Slanket plan to do? How do you think Slanket should do?

Question 5: What in general have you learned from this case?

Answer 1

1. Slanket : Original fleece blanket with sleeves.

Snuggie: The official blanket with sleeves.

The name clearly indicates that these are different companies with the same need.

2. Slanket was the pioneer in the market. It came in the year 1997 by Gary Clegg in the university of maine dorm room. It came into market in 2007 two years before Snuggie. They were selling well on QVC through online.

The challenger was Snuggie. Snuggie copied their idea and started its TV sales market by displaying the ads on TV commercials. They invested a lot into its advertisement and became popular among pop television. They took youtube, oprah shows as a medium to their advertising campaign. Slanket could not have developed a  patent to their idea.

Snuggie had large investments to promote their product.

Pioneers continued their online business of selling the slanket by discounting. And they also started into inventing their new product.

3.Slanket started selling online on QVC. They were trying to raise thier markets slowly. Slanket was trying to keep discounts high to promote the product.

Snuggie tried to capture the markets through investing into promotional activities. Snuggie aired the product into TV commercials. Snuggie held a huge promotion campaign through Youtube, Pop television shows, etc. This is how they could capture large markets. They even enhanced their distribution networks.

4.Slanket planned to provide discounts and expand the distribution network. Slanket could not issue a patent to their idea. But slanket continued their market and tried to diverse their product distribution by inventing new product.

Slanket should have a check on their threats of new entrant, they should limit down the bargaining power of the suppliers, and limit the bargaining power of the buyers. They can play in the market through thier goodwill too and can advertise thier product through repositioning inorder to hold the previous customers.

5. This case clearly says that we should do a deep porter analysis of our company while we are into market. A company should be clearly aware of all the threats and weaknesses of its own.

And we should have a good marketing plan inorder to keep the product sustainable in the market. There should be regular innovations in response to the competitors to hold up and enhance the market.