In this work, we create an international marketing plan in order to extend the production and distribution of a famous sunglasses brand, Gentle Monster.
Five Essential Tools for International SEO - Natalia Witczyk - SearchNorwich 15
Project - International marketing plan
1. International Marketing Plan:
Asignatura: Plan de Marketing Internacional
Profesores: Alejandro Moreno Mustieles
Christian Jimenez
Realizado por:
Andrés Ballester García
Jaakko Pakonen
Juuso Hyvärinen
Marco Cucco
Vicente Pérez Sánchez
Año académico 2017/2018
2. Index
First phase:
Self-diagnosis and internationalization potential
1. Situation of the company and its environment
2. Strategic analysis of the sector, competition and its position in the market.
3. Definition of the objectives of the company.
4. Diagnosis of the internationalization potential.
Second Phase:
Market Research
1. Analysis of the potential markets.
2. Concentration / diversification strategy.
3. Recommended way of entry and why.
4. Objectives.
Third Phase:
Implementation of the Internationalization
1. Market and promotional actions.
2. Financial viability.
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3. 1. SELF-DIAGNOSIS AND INTERNATIONALIZATION POTENTIAL
1.1. Situation of the company and its environment.
Gentle Monster is a Korean label that operates as a luxury eyewear brand.
It was founded in 2011 by Hankook Kim, the actually chief executive of the company,
that emerged as pop culture global phenomenon in 2012, thanks to the Psy's
“Gangnam Style" video, one of the most ever seen on YouTube.
Nowadays it’s one of the most famous and successful eyewear brand in the world.
The company mission is to present an unique philosophy and a new perspective,
devoted towards a vision of “weird beauty” through “high-end experimentation”.
This aim is reached by an artistic design approach and an elegant and contemporary
style. This mix between fashion and art is also highlighted by various collaborations
with actors, influencers, designers and artists.
Nevertheless, not only the design but also the quality is fundamental.
Indeed Gentle Monster eyewear glasses are done by high-quality components such
as titanium, stainless steel and acetate.
The first target market of the company was a consumer with the desire for something
completely different, in particular interested on the ultra - oversize eyewear.
Then, the target moved from just an Asiatic to a worldwide market, and the user
persona become a customer looking for design, innovation and originality.
They sought opportunity in a very flat and stable market, where eyewear was not
being explored or experimented with excitement and creativity, and now they are
explicitly targeting the "millennials”.
Gentle Monster is a click-and-mortar company, it means that the e-commerce is
important but there are also lot of flagship stores:
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4. - 1 in United States
- 7 in South Korea
- 4 in China
- 1 in Hong Kong
- 1 in Singapore
As well as his own shops, Gentle Monster is trying to expand his distribution not only
by his direct business but also due wholesale partners. More than 450 stores in the
world are selling Gentle Monster sunglasses. The aim of the company is now to
attract new customers and open new store around the world.
1.2 Strategic analysis of the sector, competition and its position in the market
The sector and company’s position:
We are using Porter’s Five Force -model to determine Gentle Monster’s position in
the market and to analyse the sector in which the company operates:
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5. In the case of Gentle Monster:
->Bargaining power of suppliers is moderate
· Products are differentiated from others
· There is lots of alternative products in the market
->Threat of new entrants is moderate
· There is already lots of companies in the industry
· Eyewear companies need to have decent amount of liquid to enter the luxury
sector
->Bargaining power of buyers is high
· Buyers have many alternatives
· Gentle Monster have unique glasses which gives them a competitive advantage
->Threat of substitutes is high
· Lots of other eyewear companies with lower/higher prices
->Industry Rivalry is high
· There are lots of other brands who offer premium/luxury glasses (Warby Parker,
Tom Ford)
· Gentle Monster haves a growing reputation for combining experimental design
with high functionality
Competitors
Eyewear is big business. There are over 880 eyewear companies and thousands of
licensed brands worldwide. Market sources estimate that the global market, which
includes frames, contact lenses and sunglasses, is worth $90 billion, and will reach
$140 billion by 2020. We have analysed Gentle Monster’s main competitors
depending on the country of origin, the costs of products and the warranty time.
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6. Company Country of
origin
Product cost
(€)
Warranty
time
Gentle
Monster
South Korea 170-430 6 months
Warby Parker US 80-260 1 year
Lindberg Denmark 350-1200 3 years
Tom Ford US 50-500 2 years
Ray-Ban US 80-300 2 years
Oakley US 90-450 2 years
Oakley and Ray-Ban are owned by Luxottica and Tom Ford is owned by Marcolin.
1.3. Definition of the objectives of the company:
With the product presented, the main objective persecuted by the company is to
spread the Gentle Monsters image, values and philosophy all around the world.
Moreover, we want to:
➔ Attracting customers all around the world
➔ Differentiating our service from our competitors
➔ Educating our target market
➔ Adapting to the cultural norms of the host country when advertising
➔ Strategically locating our marketing tools into the markets we are interested
in expanding.
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7. 1.4. Diagnosis of the internationalization potential
The initial barriers to overcome in our chosen areas are the following ones:
- Asia: This will be the geographical area with less barriers because it would be an
expansion in the area that we came from. Apart from that, look for a good distributor
channel, for all the entire asian market and fight against all the different political
factors that have in special each asian countries.
- Europe: fight against lots of competitors in the zone
- Oceania: Most far away distribution, little niche market in this zone
How to overcome these initial barriers?
- Asia: We have to concentrate on areas that are politically stable. We already know
well political situation and aspects in China, South-korea, Bangladesh and Hong
Kong. At first it is better to concentrate on just these areas and later try to expand
operations to other asian countries.
- Europe: We have to make sure that our brand and products differ from others. If we
can't stay ahead of fashion we will have a lot more competition.
- Oceania: We have to customise marketing and products especially for this market
niche.
For all these reasons, we have decided that the best option to internationalize is going to
Europe, especially in Italy. In the following chapter, we will explain better why and describe
our international marketing plan.
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8. 2. MARKET RESEARCH
2.1. Analysis of the potential markets.
We will analyze the potential market in Italy, focusing our analysis on: the political and
economic factors, cultural forces in the market, the structure of distribution and the
competitive forces.
Firstly we need to analyze the political factors: the politics of Italy take place in a framework
of a parliamentary, democratic republic, and of a multi-party system. The judiciary is
independent of the executive and the legislative. The President of the Italian Republic is
elected for seven years. Being also one of the most important european countries, makes
Italy being in a very favorable political framework to be able to initiate the process of
internationalization.
Secondly we will analyze the economic factors: Italy has a capitalist economy with high
gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and developed infrastructure.
Italy is the sixth export market in the EU and the first the world's leading exporter of luxury
goods. This means that Italy is very specialized in luxury business, one of the most important
things to consider for our brand.
The cultural forces: Italy is one of the leading countries in fashion design, alongside others
such as France, United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. Fashion has always
been an important part of the country's cultural life and society. It is one of the most
important fashion markets in the world, being in the italian market it’s not only about sells, it
is about image and positioning. In particular, focusing on the sunglasses sector, this market
in Europe is growing of 7%, around €17 billions last year and Italy is the best country, with
an increase of 4.1%. Furthermore, in Milan tooks place the most important European fair
trade, called MIDO with more than 55.000 people attending, 1200 exhibitors, 130 new
companies.
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9. The structure of distribution: we will start the distribution of our brand focusing in the
north-zone of Italy (Milan, Florence, Venice), this zone is also where the luxury and fashion
business is located. Then we will extend the brand towards the rest of the country.
The competitors: There are lots of italian competitors established in the market, such as
Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo, Gianfranco Ferré,
Dolce&Gabbana, Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Carrera, Fendi, Cavalli.
By the way, we will introduce our brand highlighting the identity of our brand, our models of
glasses, our provenance and our disruptive style. We will try to shock the market.
To sum up: SWOT Analysis of the potential market.
Strengths: Favorable political and economic factors, as well as the cultural force of fashion in
the country.
Weakness: It is a mass market with many competitors.
Opportunities: There is a high probability of rapid acceptance that favors internationalization.
Threats: Difficulty to find a good distributor in the zone, where the biggest one’s are working
with others brand right now.
2.2 Concentration/Diversification strategy
For a company to succeed in a concentrated market, it is essential to have a better
marketing program for its target than its competitors. This program must exploit the
weaknesses of the firm's competitors and avoid their strengths, trying to focus on other
points. A company must step away from large segments that have wide competition and
concentrate on finding a profitable segment that has been ignored by other companies.
Concentrated marketing can curve a unique niche for a product, even if it cannot maximize
profits as it is focusing only on one segment.
A company can choose a differentiated marketing strategy to expand its market by targeting
several segments and selling different things. So, the diversification is a viable option for
companies that have different products/service, which appeal to different market segments.
In this case we have chosen the Italian market. We are aware that the competitiveness rate
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10. is almost high, but at the same time we know this is one of the most fashionable country and
so open to new brand and way of life, particularly when we talk about trend and style.
In our situation, we are presenting our current products to a new market, so we are focusing
on the “market development”, rather than on the diversification strategy.
This strategy is also called “duplication”, we will try to propose our business model and our
products to a new market. This does not mean that we will simply copy our marketing plan
but we will try to adapt it to the Italian market, that obviously it is not the same as the Korean
one, for instance.
Our market development strategy consists to present our product to the Italian market as a
new refreshing brand, with different values and principles, based on the concept of “weird
beauty” and a fancy style. Considering that we are operating in the fashion field, the best
way to succeed in a new market and be recognized is to take advantage of some opinion
leader and influencer. This is the strategy called “VIP endorsement”, that means using actors
and famous people as a role model to set our glasses as a new status symbol.
2.3 Recommended way of entry and why
There are a variety of ways in which we could enter Italian market. None of market entry
strategies works for all international markets. There were a number of factors that influenced
our choice of strategy, including tariff rates, the degree of adaptation of our product required,
marketing and transportation costs. While these factors may well increase our costs it is
expected the increase in sales will offset these costs.
We decided to enter to the Italian market by using direct exporting, at least in the first terms.
By using direct exporting we are selling directly into the market we chose using in the first
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11. instance our own resources. When we have established a sales program we can also turn to
agents and/or distributors to represent us further in that market. Agents and distributors work
closely with us in representing our interests. They may become the face of our company and
thus it is important that our choice of agents and distributors is handled in much the same
way we would hire a key staff person.
There are many reasons why direct export was the smartest choice for us:
1. Direct exporting helps to have better knowledge of the market
We have direct contact with the end users and retailers. So, we are in a position to acquire
better knowledge of the requirements of overseas buyers. We can adapt our product to the
changing needs of market.
2. Full control over the product
Direct exporting has the advantage of complete control over the product to be priced in the
foreign market. We can also determine the terms of sale according to the competitive trend
prevailing in the foreign market.
3. Effective after sale service
Customers derive good satisfaction from the products only when effective after sale services
are available in respect of the goods sold to them. By offering efficient after sale service, the
market potential can be fully utilized to the advantage of the exporter in direct exporting
4. Short channel
One of the biggest advantages of direct exporting is only selective middlemen are appointed
in the distribution of goods. Agents, distributors, wholesalers and retailers are involved in the
channel. But in indirect exporting, export houses and buying organizations are involved
additionally. A short channel always avoids the margin taken by unnecessary middlemen. It
leads to a lower price for the ultimate consumers.
2.4. Objectives
Attracting audience in Italy:
One of the most important objectives when entering the Italian market is of course attracting
the most audience as possible towards gentle monster. We know that Italians value a lot
fashion and they do not mind spending a bit more on something that will make them
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12. differentiate from the rest so therefore we already know that our glasses are quite unique so
it will be easier to make then attractive to the Italian citizens.
Some of the methods of advertisement we are going to use to attract audience in Italy is by
using social media influencers, as we all know social media has gained great power within
people that care about fashion. One of the reasons of why we chose Italy was the big social
media power influencers have on people, that makes our marketing campaigns easier and
as a result a mean of marketing that we need to use when entering the market and attracting
audience that at the end of the day it will generate potential customers and sales.
Adapting to the cultural norms of the host country when advertising:
Obviously we are an Asian company so therefore the means of advertisement are quite
different compared to the European ones and more specifically to the Italian ones. It will be
important to apply marketing essentials to our methods when considering how and where to
promote gentle monster in the country. As we know, we are selling expensive/premium
glasses so therefore we should focus our promotion to the big cities such as Florence, Milan,
Venice where the richest people in Italy are placed and are the ones that can definitely afford
our products.
Differentiating our products from competitors:
Taking into account that we are entering a market already quite saturated in terms of
different possibilities for customers, it will be imperative for us to select ways by which we
can show that our products are different and more unique compared to our competitors, and
also that we want to offer better quality. Our marketing strategy will take a crucial role in
selling our brand and our products to our target audience, we don't want to sell just
sunglasses, we want to involve people with the brand and understand our values, at the end
of the day is the only way to create customer loyalty.
Educating our target market:
Although we will not have to educate our target market in terms of fashion, we will need to
educate them about Gentle monster, its origins, its history, our products and our mission.
Through this, we hope that those interested in buying our products feel part of something
bigger not just buying a product and that's it.
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13. 3. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONALIZATION
3.1 Market and promotional actions.
In this section we will finally define and segment the market or target markets and definitely
determine and implement the commercial strategy and promotional actions.
Starting with the segment, we have already said that our target is people that are interested
in fashion, follow trends, appreciate fancy and strange glasses and are willing to spend a
great amount of money. We can try to define better our user persona in this way:
Man or woman, 21 - 50 years old, with a stable and well-paid job or university student with
family money, who like fashion, design and showy party.
Our target personas are used to spend lot of money in clothes and accessories of the best
luxury brand, but they are not “evangelist” or “ambassador”. They like to change brand and
following the latest trends and often go to fashion event like the “Fashion Week” in Milan or
“Pitti Immagine” in Florence, trying to get inspiration. So, we can affirm that our target is
favourably inclined to try something different, especially if it is fancy and baroque.
So, the real point here is not the competition, but be appreciated and noticed by the
customers. In order to identificate and draw up even better the kind of consumer we are
targeting, we have sketched out three possible user persona:
Mario, 48 years old, from Milan, lives in the center of the city, works in a well-known business
company, with a salary of €3000 - 3500/month. With a wife, no child, a quite expensive luxury car.
After work he likes going for happy hour in the city center and sometimes going for shopping with his
wife in the luxury shops in the “fashion roads”.
Sara, 23 years old, studying at Bocconi University (private), she is not working yet but his parents pay
her house rent and give her a monthly pocket money of almost €2000. She doesn’t have a car but use
metro and taxi to move around the city. She likes fashion and really care about her outfits and every
accessories, such as bags, sunglasses, necklaces. She loves going drinking near Navigli, the most
famous and frequented area from students.
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14. Focusing on this segment of consumer, let see which promotions we will put in place.
Offline promotion
Billboards
Our aim is to have a great impact in the market from the very beginning. So, we have a
complete marketing plan, based on both online and offline actions. Talking about the exterior
advertisement, we want to put some billboards in the city center, near the most crowded
places (Piazza Duomo, Navigli, Corso Como) and also in the metro, especially in the biggest
stations (Centrale, Moscova, Sant’Ambrogio, Porta Genova, ecc...). The cost for a package
of 90 medium billboards (140x200) around metro station and street is €34.500 for 14 days.
The cost of the big billboards is €50.000, again for 14 days. The advertisement will have a
“minimal” style, showing just a pair of sunglasses and our brand logo. Simple but effective.
Following two billboard example:
Fashion events
Considering the fact that we are going to promote our sunglasses above all in the richest
and famous city of Italy - Milan, Florence, Venice - we should also participate to the fashion
events that every years take place there. In fact, in Milan are organized the “Fashion
Weeks”, one in February and another one in September. During this week, all the city is full
of models and stylist and they go all around the center showing their new collections. The
same thing happens in Florence, in January and May, during the “Pitti Immagine”. Moreover,
in Milan there is also another event, called Mido, considered the most important European
fair trade dedicated to eyewear. It is called “MIDO” and counts with more than 55.000 people
attending, 1200 exhibitors and 130 new brands every years. Participating to this event as
sellers is free and, without doubts, this is the perfect occasion to promote our product.
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15. Indeed, we will have the opportunity not only to show our glasses, but also to give them for
free to some models, who can become sort of “spontaneous testimonials”.
Pop-up stores
Nevertheless, as well as just showing the sunglasses, it is also important to take advantage
of this occasion to sell our product, so we have planned to open two pop-up stores in the
above-mentioned cities during the fashion events. Indeed, we want to create a long term,
lasting impression with potential customers and setting a pop-up retail is a great way to do
so. A pop-up shop allows to communicate our brand’s promise to the customers through the
use of a unique and engaging physical environment while creating an immersive shopping
experience. Considering that we are selling sunglasses and that - up to now - is really hard
prove them before buying, a pop-up store represents the best solution to try on before
purchasing. It is true that the digital shopping is increasing even more but there is still
something “special” about being able to physically touch a product before you buy.
This makes the shopping experience very enticing for consumers and it is one of the best
ways to engage the customers offline. To further validate the idea, a recent study by
Accenture showed that nowadays 78% of shoppers are “webrooming”. It means that they
browse online, but then purchase in store. The idea that the shop is not going to be around
for long is a huge plus point in getting customers to buy. Scarcity drives action through
customers wanting exclusive, limited edition, and a pop-up shop puts us in a perfect position
to take advantage of these fashion events. Furthermore, considering the competitivity in this
sector, engaging prospective customers offline can be a great solution to reach them. So,
our goals are at the same time to generate revenue, increase the brand awareness and
reach the customer engagement. As long as we are going to sell a new kind of fashion
sunglasses that have not yet broken into the mass consumer subconscious, a pop-up shop
can help the customers to become comfortable and familiar with our products. Considering
we will start by just looking to drive pre-orders before going full throttle on manufacturing,
giving our potential customers a live demo or walking them through our product is a great
way to get through to those early adopters. The investment on these two pop-up shop for
two week each is around €12.000 for both of them.
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16. Online promotion
We consider that we need to focus on both promotion online and offline, for online we
consider the best to do it is focusing on two influencers that have we have already studied
the viability of them, which are Gianluca Vacchi and Chiara Ferragni. As you can see in the
following pictures, they both require a big investment from the brand but they are the exact
target that we want to get from Italy.
As you can see in the image above, both of them are ranked the most influential ones in the
whole of the country in instagram where it is our main focus in terms of promotion. Trends
have changed in the country and now the most used social media account is Instagram
that's why we consider it the most important right now. Most of the followers Gianluca and
Chiara have are in the high end of the Italian market so in other words people that can afford
our glasses, our medium price of glasses is 200 so obviously they are not sunglasses for
everyone. As you will see in the following images:
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17. Both of the influencers will require an investment of 32,000 and 34,000 per post but
obviously it's not enough for us to get a simple sponsored photo in their instagram channels,
we will need to create campaigns of 3 months so we can create enough brand awareness
towards us and people start to know us enough to buy products from Gentle Monster instead
of buying products from other brands by creating campaigns of 3 months the cost per post
will be reduced. Furthermore as you can see in the following images, both of our influencers
are based in one of the cities we wanted to enter which is Milan and it is the most important
city in terms of fashion of the whole country:
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18. Also we will need to open social media accounts in Italy so we can redirect all of the
awareness to it and be closer to the final customer. The cost of having a community
manager in Italy will be around €1200 per month and a total cost of €14.400 per year and it
is a must when entering a new market and creating enough awareness.
The way to track the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns with both influencers will be
by the usage of referral codes that will promote in the photos they upload, in other words so
we can track the number of sales received from their code:
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19. The distribution
As we already said, Gentle Monster is a click-and-mortar company, it means that the
e-commerce is important but there are also lot of flagship stores in USA, South Korea, China
and Asia. Furthermore, the company expands his distribution also due wholesale partners.
More than 450 stores in the world are selling Gentle Monster sunglasses. Now, going to
Italy, the aim of the company is to attract new customers and open new store also in Europe.
So, after the opening of the above-mentioned pop-up store, we will open also a flagship in
the center of Milan that will be the sales point of reference in the country. We think to start
selling 50% of the whole collection in this shop, around 25 sunglasses, in order to evaluate
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20. the success of the operation. In the first period, we will proceed with monthly expeditions
from South Korea. Then, we would consider in long terms to open a factory also in Europe.
3.2 Financial viability and information of GM
● Marketing costs: 1m
○ Facebook Ads: 50k
○ Instagram Ads: 50k
○ Pinterest Ads: 50k
○ Google Adwords: 100k
○ Influencer Marketing: 100k
○ Video editing: 200k
○ Photoshoots: 200k
○ Tradeshows: 50k
○ PR events: 200k
Marketing is by far the most important element for us when launching a new business in
such a fashionable country as Italy. We will also use loads of money on it. We will do a lot of
advertising in social media and google. Those ways of advertising are not that expensive but
as nowadays so many people use social media it can bring us a lot of new customers. We
will also invest an enormous amount of money on advertising where we use celebrities. In
Italy people are often following famous people, what they represent and do. We also host
tradeshows and PR events to get our brand more well-known and increase our visibility in
our new market.
Website maintenance: 1000€/month
Operating expenses
Rent of the actual store: 56k/month
Our office is located in the main fashion street in Milano, Italy. That is why our monthly rent is
very high. Rents in that area are always extremely high but that is due to rich people living in
the area and famous name of the street.
Employment expenses
Salaries of the employees: 1,2k/month
At the early stages of the launchment we will hire two people with salaries of 1 200
euros/month. In the summer we will hire summer helper for 3 months. The salary of the
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21. helper is 600 euros/month. If she/he is proven to be a good employee, we will hire him/her
as a full-time employee. In October we will consider hiring fourth person to our sale team
with a full-time job and a normal salary of 1 200 euros/month. In the firth four quarters we will
use 40 700 euros for salaries only.
General & administrative expenses:
credit card commission:
2,5% of the sales
We have to pay 2,5% of our sales for bank because they allow us to use credit card devices.
Eventually this commission is not that high and we have to have credit card devices anyway
to fulfil customers requirements.
Consultant fees:
Agency costs: 3 000 * 2 = 6 000€/month
We are planning to hire two agents to improve our sales. Basically in the first month they find
out how competitors in same area do certain things and that way we can make our business
better.
Office Supplies:
first month 10 000€ after that 500€/month
Costs for office supplies are pretty low because we only have small office and few
employees. In the first month costs are remarkably higher because obviously we have to
purchase some equipment at first. Costs in the first month will mostly consist of computers
and other electronic devices. After that costs are lower and they consist of maintenance of
our devices and furniture. Also some commodities for our staff are included.
Business insurance:
5000€/month (includes all the insurances of the company’s business)
As a very big company proper insurances are really important for us. Because of that we
wanted to have insurance that covers basically everything. It obviously covers if employees
have accidents or get sick and if some damage happens to our office. But as the most
important thing, our insurances cover all the loss of incomes if we have to stop running our
business temporary because of some accident.
Opening stock: 50 000€
Purchased stock: 10 000-25000€/month
Less closing stock 50 000€
Our opening stock is 50 000€ and we believe that it is going to be enough to cover all the
sales at the beginning. Opening stock must obviously be higher than it is later because we
don’t have any products yet. After opening month we estimated that we have to order new
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22. glasses approximately worth of 10 000-25000€/month of course depending on our sales. We
counted that each unit we will order to our store will cost us distribution included 50€.
Sales:
Online (Establishing new business in Italy; increased online sales per month): 100 000
€, 250 000€, 300 000€, 350 000€, 400 000€, 500 000€, 480 000€, 400 000€, 300 000€, 250
000€, 250 000€, 250 000€ = 3 830 000€/year
Shop: 75 000€, 262 500€, 150 000€, 150 000€, 150 000€, 175 000€, 175 000€, 150 000€,
150 000€, 150 000€, 150 000€, 150 000€ = 1 887 500€/year
Total sales: 175, 512,5, 450, 500, 550, 675, 655, 550, 450, 400, 400, 400 = 5 717 500€
When estimating our sales we counted in our huge marketing at first and also different
seasons of the year. In our opening month our sales will probably be a little bit lower
because we haven’t gained that many clients and we are mostly trying to bring our brand to
new market. After the first month our sales will first decrease a lot and after that it will
increase all the way until the end of the summer. After summer there is not anymore that
good season for selling sunglasses so our sales will decrease but it will anyway stay in
decent level because of constant sunshine in Italy.
Tax rate 22%
The corporate tax rate in Italy is 22% which is little bit over the EU average 21,51%.
However this is not too bad percent because Italy and Milano are one of the most
fashionable and trendy places in the European area.
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