Brita Case Study for Marketing

Brita case study for marketing

1. What factors were responsible for Brita’s success in the years since its launch to 1999?

The success of Brita in the United States could largely be attributed to the innovative product model as well as the strong marketing support from a well-established manufacturer and marketer, the Clorox Company. Key factors are concluded as following:

• Brita has developed a good value proposition: it provided great tasting water.

• It put large effort in branding. There was actually no major concern to the consumers about filtering the tap water when Brita entered in the market until it became a major issue. It spent large effort to explain to the customer about why it is important and how to use it. People started to felt serious about some health-related accidents and this helped Brita to easily increase their brand awareness to the public and capture a significant market. With continuous effort in branding, by 1999, the brand awareness is 70%, an estimate of 18% of 103 million households were using a Brita’s pitcher. Brita had created a home water purification system worth $350 million at retailer, and held a 71% revenue share.

• Brita products can be easily accessed by the customers thanks to its national available channels: super-mart, drug store, hardware store, outlet and club stores.

• Brita was the first one to enter into the family water purification market. When it entered, there were not so many competitors. As the market grew and the product became popular, a lot of people had already perceived Brita products.

• It had accumulated large loyalty customer population and had a good reputation among customers, which is a big advantage compare to other competitors.

2. Problem identification: what factors are responsible for Brita’s problems and provide evidence. Why didn’t the strategies attempted between 1999 and 2006 work?

Factors those are responsible for Brita’s problems and evidence

1. Competitors emerged along with customers’ sensitivities on water safety and health awareness rising. Competition came mainly from other water filtration brands: Mulligan, Electrolux, Sunbeam, Kenwood, Corning, Melitta, PUR, Rubbermaid, Teledyne, Omni and Mr Coffee

1. New innovation for home filter use rolling out with competition. PUR positioned itself as an expert of removal of impurities by launching a faucet mounted filter (FM) that screwed onto the tap itself, which became the only brand that seemed to gain on Brita.

1. Slower entry into the new market. PUR, in 1999, continued growing and grabbed a double-digit percentage share of the market. While Brita was stilling contemplating whether to roll out an FM product, Procter and Gamble bought the PUR filter company, which was likely to force Brita compete with a more powerful competitor.

1. Market shares lost caused by bottled water market. By 1997, bottled water made up 8% of all liquids that people paid to drink and was the industry’s fastest-growing category.

Why the strategies failed?

In general, Brita’s strategies between 1999 and 2006 had all been short term and ineffective, with result that the management was unhappy.

Apart from the four points listed above, Brita’s strategies encountered problems as below.

1. Management’s insensitiveness to market changes.

Bottled water became popular in 1990s and even the consumer survey indicated that emotional factors were driving the market. However, Brita decided not to pursue the approach.

People demand more conveniences, while the Brita system was considered “inconvenient” to operate. Brita was a follower of PRU in filtration market. When it launched new technology to prevent customers from dropping Brita, everything was late.

1. No clear custom segments led to wrong and confused value proposition

Brita re-positioned its branding by playing on consumer doubt and fears about the impurities in tap water. But after a short time on air, management felt this direction wasn't right for the brand.

1. Weak execution

Apart from lack of long-term marketing strategy with a clear focus on providing specific value propositions to target segmentation, Brita’s management also lacks patient to wait for enough market reflection. They changed marketing strategies frequently, purely based on the short-term result. For example, to compete with bottled water, Brita shifted its positioning to a supplier of great tasting water. The ads were aired, though some management doubted about the effectiveness. When they found the business did not respond after a short time, they terminated the campaign.