After reading’s Tiffany Pai’s blog post about TOMS Shoes, I thought of their campaign “One for One Movement” in which every time a customer buys a pair of TOMS shoes, the company will donate a pair of shoes to a child in a developing country.
TOMS has decided to raise awareness for their brand and a charitable cause through this campaign. Much of the population agrees on charitable causes (people’s views on society), but most are unwilling to donate their money. This is especially true in tough economic times, but TOMS has come up with a “win-win” situation for the consumer. There are many consumers who are interested in donating to developing countries, but just don’t have the financial stability to give their money away. Therefore, the consumer can buy a new pair of shoes from TOMS and the consumer is also contributing to a charitable cause. As Blake Mycoskie says in this blog post, “buy one pair of shoes, make two people happy”.
The campaign itself will undoubtedly attract consumers who are more focused on ethics and changing the world. This is a psychological influence on the consumer’s motivation, beliefs and attitudes in buying their product. Therefore, through benefit segmentation, the company has differentiated the brand from all the other brands through superior customer satisfaction and the company is able to attract the consumers who are wanting to make a difference, which is TOMS Shoes’ target market. Through this concentrated marketing campaign, the company will also be able to build loyalty status from it’s customers and will continue to capture more of their target market. In addition, TOMS Shoes has also taken advantage of e-commerce by allowing consumers to purchase their shoes online. Therefore, it is made even more convenient for customers (loyal or new) to purchase their products.
Thanks for your post. It’s easy to understand why Tom’s is really standing out as a brand these days. Jenny