Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is a British multinational consumer

Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. It is the world’s largest producer of household cleaning products and a major producer of consumer healthcare and personal products. It was formed in 1999 by the merger of the UK-based Reckitt & Colman and the Netherlands based Benckiser NV.

RB’s brands include Dettol (the world’s largest-selling antiseptic), Strepsils (the world’s largest-selling sore throat medicine), Veet (the world’s largest-selling depilatory brand), Air Wick (the world’s second largest selling air freshener), Calgon, Clearasil, Durex, Vanish and Harpic. It has operations in around 60 countries and its products are sold in over 180 countries.

Launched in England in the 1920s, Harpic toilet bowl cleaner has been successfully developed and is now in 47 countries. However, in recent times, intense competition, a lack of innovation and lacklustre marketing communications has led to a decline in sales for the key category of toilet bowl cleaners. Harpic Australia also has a rich communications heritage, and to this day many people still remember its many iconic campaigns of the past. These campaigns strongly resonated with target audiences, but were now more than two decades old. More recently, its marketing communications have become fragmented and increasingly product focused.

As part of RMIT’s LinkedIn involvement, Harpic Australia became aware of the significant positive impact that Marketing Communication students were having on the product development and marketing communication environment in Australia, and were impressed by your resume. Congratulations, you are the newly appointed “Marketing Communications Manager” of Harpic in Australia.

After undertaking a thorough analysis of the situation, you discover two key insights:

• First, women still remain responsible for and undertake most household toilet cleaning duties. In the words of one respondent – “men make the mess and we women are left to clean it up”.
• The second key insight centred around “lost time”; in that it takes too long to clean & disinfect toilets using current toilet cleaning products (including Harpic’s own ‘Active Cleaning Gel’).

In addition, you also discover that independent studies have shown that Active Cleaning Gel was equally the best toilet cleaner available (both cleaning & disinfecting), but very few consumers could be moved to care. With this in mind, you ask your product development team to create a new toilet cleaner; one that performs (cleaning & disinfecting) to the same standard as Active Cleaning Gel (and its competitors), but in less time.    

Within a few months of your request, your product development team sends you a new brand item (Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel). Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel is able to clean & disinfect toilet bowl surfaces in 60% of the time, when compared to Harpic’s old product (and its competitors); saving valuable time for the household toilet cleaner. To take advantage of this important break-through, you plan to launch Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel in late 2020 with the assistance of a yet to be selected full-service agency.

With this in mind, you begin the process of briefing a panel of respected full-service agencies with the intent of selecting the agency that both assists you formalize the appropriate campaign strategy and integrated campaign idea. As part of this process, you must clarify a range of thinking that will form the foundation of the work. It is especially important to you that the successful agency fully understands integrated marketing communication and the myriad of tools (communication touch points) available.

SECTION A:

PRACTICE QUESTION

You understand the importance of breaking through the clutter and clearly communicating the major proposition of Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel to the campaign target audience. You also appreciate the power of proactive marketing public relations (MPR) and the value of earned publicity.

a). With this in mind, suggest a possible creative idea for the upcoming campaign using any approach outlined in your marketing communication studies. In doing so, clearly explain how your creative idea will break through the clutter, communicate the key benefit claim and gain media attention (publicity) for Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel.

As part of your marketing communication studies, you showed a particular interest in media strategy and have become known in the industry as a media expert. Several of your Harpic team members struggle with media strategy and you decide to run a question and answer (Q&A) session.

b). As part of this session, you explained the three-exposure hypothesis and discussed its pros and cons in practice. Clearly demonstrate your understanding of the three-exposure hypothesis by including reference to relevant media objectives and the Harpic case in your response.

c). In addition, you also explained that reach and frequency were interrelated, and that some campaigns required reach to be prioritised over frequency (and vice versa). Explain why this is the case and justify your preferred approach for the upcoming Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel campaign.

SECTION B

PRACTICE QUESTION

You recognise that articulating clear communication objectives as part of an agency brief is going to be critical for campaign success.

a). Explain which two communication objectives you would recommend Harpic strategically focus on as part of its upcoming Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel campaign and why? Make sure you explain your reasoning.

As an advocate of integrated marketing communication (IMC) you understand the importance of integrating a mix of relevant and integrated communication elements (traditional media, new media and other IMC activities) in your upcoming Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel campaign.

You also understand that major differences exist between direct communication and indirect communication techniques and the importance of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different communication approaches, and how they can be best integrated for achieving outstanding campaign results.

b). As the new marketing communications manager of Harpic in Australia, clearly explain the major differences between direct communication and indirect communication. In doing so, describe situations where direct communication activities (techniques / brand touchpoints) would be appropriate and situations where indirect communication activities would be suitable. Make sure you relate your response back to your upcoming Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel campaign.

c). In addition, recommend one direct activity and one indirect activity that would be suitable at launch for Super Quick Active Cleaning Gel campaign. Make sure you explain your reasoning.