Marketing 421

ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW

The company that we have chosen to use for our team project is Hawaiian Tropic. This company was founded by Ron Rice in 1969. Hawaiian Tropic was the largest private manufacturer of sun care products in the United States until the company was acquired by Playtex Products, Inc. in May of 2007. Playtex Products, Inc. combined the Hawaiian Tropic products with Playtex Products already establish Banana Boat sun products. Playtex then became on of the largest manufacturers of sun care products in the western hemisphere. Although Playtex acquired the Hawaiian Tropic name and product Playtex still uses and develops under the Hawaiian Tropic brand name. (Wikipedia, 2007)

Hawaiian Tropic®: The Early Days

Ron Rice, founder of Hawaiian Tropic®, sold his first bottle of Hawaiian Tropic® the same day America launched the first moon mission July 16, 1969.

The first full trailer truckload of Hawaiian Tropic® product left the plant in 1974. That same year, during the oil crisis, huge tanks were installed at the plant to hold 120,000 gallons of oil.

Hawaiian Tropic® pioneered the use and popularity of Aloe Vera Gel (lauded as nature's greatest healer) in cosmetics.

Prior to automation, Hawaiian Tropic® Distributors would wait at the plant with blank checks made out to Ron ready to take as much product as he could possibly produce.

Hawaiian Tropic® was the first U.S. sun care company to:

Promote rich, natural ingredients for moisturizing the skin.

Use tropical coconut/banana fragrance in lotions and oils.

Place higher than a 15 SPF in the U.S. mass market.

Develop the children's market for sun care with the introduction of Baby Faces Sun block.

Introduce sun blocks without chemical sunscreens.

Use bilingual packaging for foreign markets.

Sell SPF 30 and above in South America, Canada and Mexico.

Develop new products uniquely for foreign markets.

Be approved by the Canadian Cancer Society.

Feature The Skin Cancer Foundation Seal Of Recommendation on packaging outside the U.S.

To use designer fragrance in sun care.

To incorporate Herbal Aromatherapy in formulations

Hawaiian Tropic®: General Information

Hawaiian Tropic® holds a dominant position in U.S. and Canadian markets. We rank #1 on the Caribbean, Mexican and South American beaches.

Hawaiian Tropic® utilizes over 125 product formulations and over 400 different types of ingredients.

Hawaiian Tropic® neither conducts or contracts animal testing for its sun care products.

The Ormond Beach headquarters facility for Hawaiian Tropic® covers more than 306,500 square feet. (Hawaiian Tropic, 2007)

Hawaiian Tropic® employs more than 2,000 people worldwide.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

In the early 21 century, the Hawaiian Tropic corporations research and development team received a directive from the CEO to begin work on a product that would revolutionize the industry. The marketing departments research had been collecting information from polls and customer questionnaires. A large percentage of the customer base had expressed satisfaction with the Hawaiian Tropic line of products except for one thing. That thing was sand.

Sand was always the bane of freshly oiled and lotioned beach goers. The sand of course sticks to people and has a drying effect as it absorbs the oils used in the lotions. It also has the unpleasant tendency to get into beachwear and cause considerable chaffing. So in order to make the entire beach going experience more enjoyable, Hawaiian Tropic decided to spend billions investing in a proprietary technology that would give them the edge on the competition and make them leaders of the sunscreen industry in the next century. That new product was sand repellent. This would be an additive ingredient to their line of sunscreen products that would make use of molecular charge manipulation to negate the tendency of sand to absorb the oils and other liquid components of sunscreen and suntan lotion. Not only does it repel sand and dirt, but also preserves the just oiled sheen on the skin, enhancing the aesthetic quality and creating a striking visual differentiation of beach goers using Hawaiian Tropic Sand Off products and those using a competitors brand.

SWOTT ANALYSIS

The in-depth SWOTT analysis showed more strengths than anticipated while only unearthing a few weaknesses or threats. This is a list of out findings:

Strengths

Product backed by Hawaiian Tropic®

1st product like it

No competition

Hawaiian Tropic® has the money to market the product

Hawaiian Tropic® already has thousands of loyal users

Hawaiian Tropic® is #1 on the Caribbean, Mexican and South American beaches

Weaknesses

New product

No competition

Cost to research and produce new product

Opportunities

Already ahead of the competition

Promoted to use with already popular Hawaiian Tropic® products

Market penetration

They have a white ocean market

Hawaiian Tropic® already has thousands of loyal users

Hawaiian