Q1
a. What is Click Frenzy?
Click Frenzy was an online shopping event that was organized by clickfrenzy.com.au. It was supposed to last for 24 hours. This event wanted to bring together more than one hundred online retailers. Customers were to access amazing offers from these consumers. It planned to conduct its first real sale on November 20, 2012. This date was chosen since it was two weeks after Melbourne Cup Race. Marketers were projecting that this event would make Australia to have its biggest digital sales ever. However, on the day of the launch of this event, its virtual doors failed to open. This event crashed before it began. The cause for the crash of this website was serious technical issues that made the website go to a meltdown (Wells 2012). Although information technology experts predicted that this website would handle traffic of about one million web shoppers, the number of web shoppers was higher than this.
b. How and why did this idea originate?
This idea originated from the Cyber Monday that was launched on November 28, 2006 in the United States. This event was arranged to take place on Black Friday, which is the first Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States. After this event, major retailers in the United States stated that their sales increased by about 77 percent. In 2007, the sales of Cyber Monday increased by 20 percent (Michael, Porter 2013). In 2008, the sales increased by 16 percent. Click Frenzy saw the success of online sales on Cyber Monday and that is why they wanted to introduce this event in Australia. Online newspapers and media in Australia supported this idea. Leading global retailers also supported this idea. Grant Arnott, the co-founder of Click Frenzy, assured all people that this idea would succeed. He termed the sale as "the sale that stops the nation" projecting that Australia would record its biggest online sales in history.
Q2
How did consumers make their decisions on whether or not to buy products/services from Click Frenzy, and how did they arrive at their final purchasing decision?
Consumers made their decision on whether to purchase products/services from Click Frenzy due to several reasons. Most consumers wanted to purchase products from this site since retailers with an established brand were offering their products for sale on this website. Some of the established retailers included Dick Smith, Myer, Jeans West, West Field, and Toys 'R Us. In addition, some of the retailers stated that they would offer huge discounts to their consumers (Wells 2013). Kogan, one of the retailers on this website, offered to give a 33 percent discount on its 46-inch television. Telstra also offered good discounts on some of its products that it offered for sale to its consumers. It offered consumers a 50 percent discount on all BigPond Music albums. However, several people challenged the discounts offered by some of the retailers participating in the Click Frenzy. David Jones claimed to offer 15 percent discount on all of the fragrances that it offered to consumers. However, all the products that it offered to consumers did not reflect the discounts that it promised to offer to its consumers.
The final purchasing decision of the consumers may have been significantly driven by several factors. Consumers in social media started complaining that some of the brands that were offered on this website were not of high quality. This was after they compared the brands offered by this website to other international brands (Byrne 2012). One of the products that received much criticism in social media was 15-minute sales book that was offered by Jamie Olivers. This book retailed for $ 26.95 on the Click Frenzy's Website. However, this book retailed for less than $ 15 dollars in some of the retail stores in the United Kingdom. It retailed for less than $ 25 at BigW and K-Mart.
Q3
a. Evaluate the positioning of Click Frenzy. Have they defined their positioning correctly?
Defining market position correctly helps to influence the perception of consumers concerning a particular brand or product that is offered for sale. It helps to ensure that the perception of a particular product is stronger compared to the perception of its competitors. Click Frenzy defined their positioning correctly since they received massive support from the media in Australia. In addition, they managed to convince big retailers such as Myer and Dick Smith to offer their products on its website (Carmody 2004). Due to this, consumers associated its brand with high-quality products. Its vision titled "the sale that stops the nation" also helped consumers to associate this brand with quality
b. Who is their target market?
The target market for Click Frenzy was online shoppers. Online shoppers in Australia and other countries exhibit several characteristics (Nicholson 2012). One of these characteristics is that they are impulsive. Such consumers like purchasing downloadable items such as music and eBooks. Online shoppers are also well-educated. They are also very well-informed.
c. What is their main points-of-parity and points-of-difference?
Points-of-parity refers to the elements that are considered critical for a particular brand to be viewed as a legitimate competitor in a certain field (Haig 2005). One of the points of parity of Click Frenzy is that it had many retailers on a single platform. This made its consumers to have a wide choice from where they would make their purchasing decisions. Points of difference refer to the characteristics that make a particular brand unique. It wanted to offer massive discounts to all its shoppers. The mega sales were also arranged to occur in one day.
Q4
a. What competitive frames of reference does Click Frenzy face?
Competitive frame of reference refers to the market or context that a particular brand chooses to compete. It provides a particular context for a certain brand to compete. Click Frenzy faces strict competition from online stores such as Cyber Monday. This company has been increasing its online sales each year. The increase in the sales for this company has been driven by the advancement in technology. In 2012, the IBM sales of this online store rose by 28.4 percent. This has caused Cyber Monday to consider introducing multiple distribution channels in order to increase its brand portfolio. In 2012, the retail online spending by shoppers visiting this website increased by about 17 percent compared to the figures recorded in 2011 (Dawnstar 2012). Amazon.com also offers very stiff competition to Click Frenzy. In 2011, this company recorded a 51 percent jump in its second quarter revenues to $9.9. Since then, its revenues have been positive. It shows that Click Frenzy will have a hard time trying to beat an online giant such as Amazon.
b. What are the implications of those frames of reference for its positioning?
These frames of reference have certain implications for its positioning. One of these implications is that Click Frenzy should conduct massive public consumer campaigns in order to make the public switch from its competitors. This is because companies such as Amazon already have created brand loyalty among their consumers. In addition, the brand of Cyber Monday is also strong in making consumers trust this brand more compared to the way they trust the brands that are offered by competitors (Lui 2012).
Q5
a. Identify Click Frenzy's sources of brand equity.
Brand equity refers to the value and strength of a particular brand that determine its worth. It is determined by looking at evaluating the potential earnings of a particular brand in the long run. Sources of brand equity include brand loyalty, brand awareness, and the perceived quality of a particular product. One of the sources of brand equity of Click Frenzy is that it wanted to organize the biggest online shopping sale in the history of Australia (Paine, Dudley-Nicholson 2012). This helped to create the strength to its brand since consumers knew the risk that this company was willing to take in order to establish itself in the market. Another source of brand equity for this company is the fact that big retail stores were willing to offer their products for sale on this website. Since retailers trusted it, it was clear that they saw a bright future for the revenue growth of this company.
b. Assess its level of brand awareness and the strength, favorability, and uniqueness of its association.
The level of brand awareness of Click Frenzy is strong. The reason that has caused its brand awareness to be strong is the fact that it offers unique products and services to its customers. No company in Australia has ever arranged mega online sales that occur in 24 hours. This makes its brand unique (Landa 2006). The favorability of this brand is that it offers many products from major retailers at discounted prices.
Q6.
Do you think Click Frenzy did a good job in managing its visitors and customers? Why?
Click Frenzy did not do a good job in managing its visitors and customers. It failed to build a user friendly online website that was able to handle Internet traffic. This is despite the fact that it had promised all its consumers that it would build a platform that would take care of all their purchasing requirements. According to information technology experts, millions of customers and visitors tried to log in on this website. This website could not cope with the huge number of buyer traffic, thus making it crash. It caused huge disappointment among the consumers who were eager to purchase products from this website. One of the consumers posted his picture on Facebook that stated, "I attended Click Frenzy and couldn't even buy this lousy t-shirt." According to UltraServe that hosts the website of Click Frenzy, its system was built to deal with about one million users within 24 hours (Lui 2012). However, it got about two million visitors on the day that this company wanted to launch its online sales. Grant Arnott released a statement to assure customers that its company was doing everything possible to deal with the problem of website traffic that his company experienced. However, some of the consumers argued that the reasons that Click Frenzy gave were not valid. This is because some companies such as Facebook and Amazon get about one billion hits per day and still manage to deal with the web traffic.
Q7.
How did Social Media impact the reputation of Click Frenzy, before and after the sales period?
Social media had several influences on the reputation of Click Frenzy. Before its sales, consumers were very angry with the fact that its servers were not working. This made some of the consumers compose angry messages on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Some of the people started tweeting that "They specifically advertised this wouldn't happen." Other people tweeted that "Click Frenzy try turning your servers on and off." On Facebook, a certain user posted the message "Not sure if I should continue refreshing or go to the actual store."According to Asher Moses, "The whole program run by Click Frenzy was a marketing exercise run by technical products." People in social media were angry since some of the retailers stated that they paid from $2,000 to 30,000 in order to feature on this website (Wells 2013). Click Frenzy Fail Facebook page was amassed by about 3,600 fans in about 19 hours. A video was created in You Tube showing the poor execution strategy and some of the poor products that it offered.
Despite the fact that social media failed to portray a positive image before the sales of this company, Click Frenzy's sales increased after the website started operating. More than 25 percent of the sales that Click Frenzy recorded happened during its crash period. In addition, most of the brands that presented their products on this website recorded 30 percent rise in their sales after featuring in Click Frenzy (Wells 2013). Since this company delivered epic sales for its retailers, most people started delivering positive images on social media regarding the success of Click Frenzy. This enabled it to improve its company's brand in social media.
Q8.
How can retailers prepare for Click Frenzy?
Retailers should do several things in order to prepare for another event to be introduced by Click Frenzy. One of the key things that they should do is building necessary infrastructure that will be able to handle heavy visitors' traffic who may want to view some of the products that they offer for sale (Vaid 2003). They should consider monitoring their company websites at all times. This will enable the company to know the time that their particular web pages take to load. Retailers will therefore have enough time to rectify any mistakes that they find on their websites. Information technology experts argue that it is important for all the retailers to optimize their databases. This will enable the company to identify queries that require large CPU time. Good communication between the service providers and the retailers will also help all the retailers to prepare adequately for Click Frenzy. This will enable the service providers to get enough information on the amount of traffic spikes.
Q9.
Using other strong brands, which have been born online (e.g., Google, Facebook), how do you build a successful online brand?
Companies such as Google and Facebook have succeeded in building successful online brands due to several reasons. One of these strategies is building a strong URL structure. A good URL structure ensures that the site architecture is good for the success of the online brand (Verma 2009). Facebook has also succeeded in building its online brand since it has organized the contents of its website well. For a company to succeed in organizing its contents, it needs to determine the critical pages that are needed on their website. In addition, they need to establish the key themes that are needed in every website pages. This will enable users to easily understand all the contents that are on the web pages. Creativity is also very critical for the success of any online brand (Pringle, Field 2008). This is because all online consumers love exciting and fresh ideas. Research has established that most online consumers are well-educated and informed. This is the main reason that they love exciting and fresh ideas. Innovation is also very crucial for the success of any online brand. The main reason that Google has succeeded in building its image is that it always introduces innovative products for all its consumers. This helps to create a good brand loyalty on all the products that this company offers to consumers. Developing successful fan following for each brand can also help an online company to successfully build its brand (Budelmann, Kim, Wozniak 2010). Successful fan following can be conducted on online media sites such as Facebook, Linkedln, and Twitter. It helps in increasing the brand awareness of a particular online company. The site of an online company should be user friendly. This can be done by making the website easily navigable.
Q10.
What do you think are the future branding challenges and opportunities for Click Frenzy?
A future branding opportunity for Click Frenzy is arranging another online shopping sale. Arnott, the co-founder of this company, has revealed that he plans to unveil a second Click Frenzy on April 23. They strategy was chosen since Click Frenzy wants to earn significant revenues after selling gifts on Mother's Day (Wells 2013). This company has revealed that it is well prepared this time since it has invested in best information technology infrastructure. This is in an attempt of preventing its site from crashing just as it did in November 2012. It has an opportunity of convincing big retail companies to participate in the online retail sales. Even though some of the retailers were disappointed with the crash of its website, most of them recorded high sales after the site recovered. If this company is successful in convincing big retailers to participate in its future Click Frenzy events, its brand will improve. The management of this company has revealed that they will introduce Click Frenzy events. Some of the events that they plan to introduce include Father's Day Frenzy, Entertainment Frenzy, eCarnivale Frenzy (Wells 2013). This will help to increase the level of consumers' confidence since they will be reassured of the ability of this company to organize successful events. However, this company still faces many challenges. One of the key challenges that it faces is the poor public relations that it has faced after its first event failed. It will be hard to completely assure consumers of the ability of this company to organize an online event. Another key challenge that this company faces is the high competition from companies such as Amazon.
