Marketing Mix: Promotion

Here we want to answer how promotion of Ambro should be carried out – where and when to do marketing to reach our target group.

Marketing channels

Internet: social media

Firstly, we think that internet is the prime advertising channel for Ambro to use. As a totally new, niche market product with no direct competitors, it is important for Ambro to get some opinion leaders to market their product. These opinion leaders would be successful and extremely busy business people interested in healthy lifestyle and who blog regularly. Such bloggers are Timothy Ferriss (Fourhourworkweek) and Dave Asprey (The Bulletproof Executive), which were both mentioned by Ambro’s founders. Other bloggers to contact would be those successful bloggers on the Digital100 Power Index.

Ambro could try to get their attention multiple ways:

• Give free samples to the bloggers
• Engage beta users to write on online forums on busy but healthy lifestyle and participate in these as well
• Acquire meetings with influential people known for blogging when visiting Stanford University with the Start-up Sauna program in January

At the moment Ambro has around 120 beta users, some in the US as well.  Getting them to praise Ambro on online forums is very important in terms of Word-of-mouth – health enthusiasts, especially those with busy life, are likely to rely on recommendations by other people. Also other social media channels such as Youtube could be used for building awareness of meal substitutes. In addition, Ambro could advertise on facebook since that is often quite cost-efficient – and may reach lots of people with interest in their product.

PR

As a new product, it is important for Ambro to get publicity through different online newspapers/magazines in the areas of technology, start-ups, healthy lifestyle etc., to reach the innovators and early adopters of a new product. Ambro has already received some media coverage on Wired and Business Insider. Other very influential magazines to get articles on would be Discover or other online tech newspapers covering new technology trends. Such articles are extremely important for marketing – therefore, Ambro should be sure to contact such magazines, give ideas for articles and be present at important innovator events, from where they could acquire media presence.

Speaker events

Ambro recently attended Slush, a startup event in Finland. The objective of the event was to meet investors as well as spread the word of Ambro. The group should look for similar local events in the big cities of US, especially our first target region San Francisco West Bay area. The event could be such that are meant for startup or even ones meant for promoting new ideas (such as in TEDx events) – for Ambro meaning promoting the organic food substitutes to be able to live healthy and feel good despite extremely busy jobs.

Naturally, all these promotion ways should be continued also after the launch, but these are especially important before launching the product as well.

Marketing campaign

As the financial districts are the best locations for reaching extremely busy business people, we suggest Ambro to make physical marketing campaigns in these areas during lunch times – by giving free samples. Naturally, Ambro cannot spend too much on free samples due to high production costs, but the positive outcomes are likely to beat the losses – after all, Ambro needs get visibility among the business people.

Website and social media channels

Time of promotion

Timing of promotion depends heavily on Ambro’s final decision of their launch date. Online promotion for raising awareness should be started right away – there can never be enough of awareness of a new product. Attending of speaker events is only possible to do when in the country; with their current plans, this would mean in the beginning of 2014. However, they should already be in touch with any organizers. Physical marketing campaigns should be made at the time of launch. 

Marketing messages
In all of their marketing messages, Ambro should communicate the product's core attributes for the consumers - making food easier, quicker and healthier. This should apply to those professionals in extremely busy jobs who

1. need to save time
2. want to eat healthy
3. want to feel good 

Thus, we believe these core values should be used in all marketing actions:
Time-saving, healthy, wellbeing

Other notes

We decided Ambro should not offer discounts on the product at this point, since this might hurt the image of the premium product. Production and other operating costs may be quite high in the beginning, which also suggests not cutting the price down.