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Powerhouse Marketing Plans(c) 14 Outstanding Real-Life Plans and What You Can Learn from Them to Supercharge [... ]aigns Authors: Johnson W. Published year: 2006 Pages: 123-125/172 |
The market research, together with scores of unsolicited comments from people asking about a combined device, clearly indicated that there was an opportunity for a multifunction communication device. Many of the users of existing mobile phones, mobile Internet devices, and organizers expressed an unfulfilled need for such a device. Many of those who were shown the prototype combined device expressed a strong purchase intent. It was obvious that a percentage of people wanted to add a mobile phone to their organizer, or to add an organizer to their mobile phone. Many more wanted to add e-mail capability. Handspring firmly believed that it had identified a new niche.
Handspring reasoned that there were two large consumer segments in which this opportunity existed. The first was the fifteen to twenty million users of Palm organizers. Based on its research, Handspring believed that a percentage of these people would want to replace their organizer with a device that included a mobile phone. The second was the huge number of highend mobile phone users. The research indicated that a percentage of these people currently felt a need for an organizer, but did not want to carry another device. Handspring believed that a merged device would appeal to many of these people. Given the size of these two segments, Handspring believed that there was a sizable opportunity.
Handsprings objective was to create a device that would be the only thing a user would have to carry. This one device would be an excellent mobile phone, a great organizer, and a very effective Internet device. There were other combined products on the market, but none of them did everything well. There were mobile phones with large screens that could handle data, but they were not also organizers. The Blackberry 6720 was an Internet device that had phone capability, but it was not a great phone. Many users found that they also had to carry a separate mobile phone.
The objective was that when customers bought this new device, they would get rid of their present organizer and get rid of their present mobile phone. There would simply be no reason for them to have another phone or organizer, or an Internet device such as the Blackberry. By doing customer surveys after the product was introduced, Handspring found that it had achieved this objective. Over 90 percent of the people who bought a Treo stopped using one or more of their other communication devices.
The name Treo came from the idea that the product replaced three things: the phone, the organizer, and the wireless e-mail or Internet device. Research showed that most people liked the name because it was short and easy to remember. Handspring liked the name because it communicated the three different uses of the device. The company even went a step further and created model numbers that were all divisible by three: the Treo 90, Treo 180, Treo 270, and Treo 300.
Naming the Treo was not an easy task. Many alternative names were created, and Handspring had to get everybody inside the company to agree on which name to use. This turned out to be harder than originally thought, and Handspring quickly discovered that naming is very controversial . To further complicate the problem, after everyone had finally agreed on certain names, those names had to be submitted to a legal search to see if they were clearand many were not. Even Treo was not totally free of conflict. A Scandinavian pharmaceutical company had a trademark on the name Treo, which meant something in that language. Handspring decided to take the risk and attempt to register the name anyway. Fortunately, it worked out.
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Powerhouse Marketing Plans(c) 14 Outstanding Real-Life Plans and What You Can Learn from Them to Supercharge [... ]aigns Authors: Johnson W. Published year: 2006 Pages: 123-125/172 |