Promotion through personality and partnerships

Fujitsu General is one of the leading suppliers of air conditioning and plasma display technology products within Australia. With the company's slogan "Australia's Favourite Air", Fujitsu has recently rapidly expanded its air conditioning range, with products to suit the domestic and commercial market. This Case Study examines how Fujitsu has achieved its business objectives with a promotional strategy using former Australian cricket captain Mark Taylor.

As a result of reading the Case Study, students should be able to:

• Explain the concepts of marketing strategy and promotion and how these relate to Fujitsu's business objectives. 
• Evaluate the success of Fujitsu's promotional strategy of personality endorsement to increase brand recognition.
• Analyse the value of implementing a marketing strategy of partnering with other businesses.

Introduction

The company, which later became Fujitsu General (Aust.) Pty Limited (Fujitsu), entered the Australian market in the early 1970's as a supplier of a range of consumer electronics products including air conditioners, televisions and refrigerators.

Using a personality to build a brand

Fujitsu planned a strategy based on using a personality, a well-known Australian sportsperson. Using a personality is a modern marketing technique that involves much more than the use of the person's physical image.

Planning the campaign

Fujitsu along with McNabb, then planned the campaign and the advertising and public relations tactics.

Communication

An objective with the Mark Taylor campaign was to build greater awareness of the Fujitsu brand among the target audience.

Evaluation

The key to any marketing campaign lies in the results. The results Fujitsu planned to achieve were to increase brand awareness, build market share and achieve market leadership. So, just what did the Mark Taylor campaign achieve?

Promotion through partnerships

As more and more competitors copied Fujitsu's winter cashback initiative, it looked to again differentiate itself from its competitors.

Conclusion

In a market continuing to experience growth, as well as dealing with the continuing pressure coming from cheaper brands and products from Korea and China, the Fujitsu brand, endorsed by Mark Taylor, is maintaining its dominance as the market leader in air conditioning products.

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