Blanco
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Business Description:
Blanco is a premium European brand of kitchen appliances. They have been distributed in Australia since 1980 and under long-term distribution agreement to MEA since 1994. Blanco are world leaders in the manufacture of stainless steel products and have won numerous design awards around the world.
Business Problem:
Blanco's existing market research results showed that within the Australian market demand for European appliances is increasing, the kitchen renovation market is growing and the average dollar value outlay for renovations is growing. The projected signs for a healthy market are evident.
However, Blanco are keenly aware that competition in the appliance industry is fierce with more than 60 brands within the category.
Blanco wanted to take full advantage of the market situation and play a more active role in creating productive relationships with industry professionals who would recommend their products to customers.
Solution:
Glass Onion conducted a research project to solicit the opinions of industry professionals whose job it is to specify brands of kitchen appliances.
The main aims of the project were:
To understand the factors that influence their brand preference;
To determine brand recognition amongst the target market;
Determine the methods by which they want to receive product and service information; How to improve their level of interaction with Blanco;
To create a communications plan that would put into action the recommendations of the research report.
The first challenge for Glass Onion was to isolate each of the target groups of designers and devise a methodology to contact them. Glass Onion proposed a combination of email distribution lists and telemarketing to invite designers to be part of the research process.
Glass Onion's research mechanisms included:
- An online survey;
- Phone interviews; and
- Mediated focus groups.
All feedback was captured on an online database from which demographic and statistical profiles were built of all research participants. At all times, participant confidentiality was preserved to give them confidence in the research process and to maintain anonymity.
Results:
The invitation to participate was extremely successful with a 16.11% participation rate from the HTML email invitation and a 38.78% participation rate from the telemarketing campaign.
The outcomes of this research project for Blanco resulted in a detailed research report that outlined:
- Participant profiles (offline and online)
- Research Methodology
- Validation of objectives
- Validation of success criteria
- Findings
- Recommendations
- Communications Plan
Blanco are now implementing a series of email marketing, search engine optimisation and web development actions as a result of this research project. Blanco are confident that putting these research recommendations into place will result in a more meaningful relationship with industry professionals who specify their products, and ultimately, an increase in the number of industry professionals who will recommend Blanco products to their customers.
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