Jonathan ParsonsUMUCTitleist

Segmentation

• In order to market its golf products, Titleist always considers the two important groups: the Golf balls owners (segment 1) and the people who play golf (segment 2). By specifically identifying those who play golf, Titleist can design its market strategy around the feasible media which will attract a golf player.

• The U.S ownership of Golf Balls survey was carried out for people who own golf balls. The survey is a crucial segmentation strategy for Titleist because golf balls are very durable. Since most golfers play the sport their entire lives, the data can easily be extrapolated to get more buyers of golf balls.

• There are basically three categories of people who play golf. There are those who play when given chance, others play occasionally while the third category is those who hardly play. Out of these three categories, Titleist can disregard those who hardly play because it does not want to make golf products for people who don’t play golf.

Marketing targeting strategy

• Just like many market-oriented organizations, Titleist main marketing strategy is to create and communicate value to its clients. With a good marketing reputation, Titleist parent organization, Fortune Brands, has come up with an innovative framework that affords significant latitude its group of companies. As a multinational, Fortune Brands has achieved a lot through effective planning and balancing among its diverse group of companies. It has also delegated marketing responsibilities to each individual companies and this allows for specialization and can enable Titleist, for instance, to assume responsibility for devising their own marketing strategies.

• While Fortune Brands has a secluded approach for marketing its products, it does not imply that Titleist or any other company within the conglomerate cannot form co-alliances to co-market products. Titleist, for instance, partnered with Scotty Cameron to build up specialty putters. For sophisticated golf products, Titleist’s marketing strategy has included professional sponsorships, timely new product launches, individualized quests such as the Titleist and a series of print and television ads. To keep in synch with technology, the company has also gone tech by launching a visually attractive website and its tour blog.

Value proposition

• Most professional as well as low handicap beginners play Titleist Pro V golf balls because they find out that value proposition favors them. A good number of golfers go for the lower priced Titleist products such as NXT, Carry or Roll balls that are customized to suit their specific requirements. In general, Titleist segments the market with value propositions with an aim of improving performance at perceptible levels.

• Every golfer is granted an opportunity by this strategic planning, to choose the Titleist products at a price they feel to a value for their particular skill level. Other than responding to customer needs, Titleist also creates these needs through introduction of new golfer-friendly products, and in the process, gain a competitive advantage.

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior of the Primary Target Market

• Consumer’s buyer behavior is influenced by four major factors: cultural; personal; social and psychological.

• Cultural factors comprises of the golfer’s culture, sub-culture as well as social class. These factors are usually inherent in ones values and decision making process.

• Personal factors include aspects such as lifestyle, age, occupation, self concept, personality and economic circumstance. This explains why a golfer’s preference can change when his/her situation changes.

• Social factors include groups (member groups, inspirational groups, and reference groups), family and social class. Therefore outside influence can influence one either to buy or not to buy a given golf product

• Psychological factors affection a golfer’s decision to buy a certain golf product includes perception, motivation attitudes and beliefs.

Buyer decision process of the primary target market

• For first-time purchasers of golf products, the buyer might seek the advice of a friend, family member or colleague with experience in golf products. In such situation, the buyer’s decision might depend on the guidance received from the experienced advisor.

• Other factors that may influence the buyer’s decision include attractive packaging, price, and existing brand preferences. For instance, if a buyer had recently purchased Titleist golf clubs, he/she is more likely to purchase Titleist golf balls than Callaway golf balls.

• While the time required by first-time buyers to make a decision exceeds that of a straight re-buy situation, it is clearly evident from the relative simplicity of golf balls that ball type and brand choice is more of an impulse buy.

Levels of products

• The Titleist golf ball symbolizes product performance as well as quality excellence and is the unmistakable number one ball in golf, as it has been for more than six decades. The latest Titleist golf clubs are longer, straighter and more accommodating than clubs from elsewhere.

• They have earned broad acceptance with club professionals, tour professionals and spirited amateurs across the globe through steadfast commitment to fitting, performance and quality excellence.

Levels of product cont’d

• The Titleist 915 driver shafts are very strong and durable and give every player an opportunity to correct shaft characteristics without the need for getting very expensive shafts.

• State of the art quality and performance, technological advancement, product innovation and performance justification at every level of the game result in the world wide appreciation that Titleist is golf’s symbol of excellence.

Types of products

• There is a variety of products at Titleist with the DT SoLo the ball of choice for many renowned golfers in the world for over the past three decades. The DT SoLo is characterized with a red ‘1’ under the Titleist logo and its recent upgrades have made it capable of getting between six to fifteen more feet at swings between 90 and 150 miles/hour.

• NXT Extreme is another golf ball designed to attain maximum distance with less hustle. This model has both an outer and inner polybutadiene core and fusablend cover that enables high performance control.

• Other products are the Pro V1 and Pro V1x lines. They feature an Alignment Integrated Marking side stamp that improves the alignment. The Pro V1 offers long and steady distances when hit with irons and drivers. It is characterized by a black ‘1’ under the Titleist logo and it’s the most durable of all Tour-played golf balls.

Product life cycle

• The introduction of new technologies into the golf ball industry has not changed much as the total sales in dollars within the industry have stagnated in the recent years as the product continues to mature.

• According to a survey conducted by Simmons Market Research Bureau there is a decline in participation in golf sport since 2003. Golf club membership, which is a key driver of demand, has also gone down. In 2003, golf memberships were 1.8% but the figure had fallen to 1.3% by 2005. The membership rates continued to decay as a result of busy lifestyles.

• Between 2005 and 2010, the shipment of golf products declined at a rate of -0.5% each year.

Benefits/features analysis

• Building upon the state of the art design and booming success of the original AP irons, Titleist designed other two high performance golf products for enthusiastic golfers. Extensive improvements to the new AP1 and AP2 irons include the enhancement of heel and toe to increase stability at the expense of the face thickness.

• The ideology for the sophisticated performance irons emerged as a result of research that revealed that enthusiastic golfers prefer performance with great feel rather than performance at the expense of feel.

• The company’s Research and Development team has been conducting extensive and sound surveys aimed at suppressing the unwanted low frequency vibration that affect feel in irons. Several technologies and materials were then combined in the manufacture of new AP irons resulting in the new impressive feel.

Differentiation

• Differentiation can take many forms: technology; innovation; prestige or brand image customer service; and features. Differentiation at Titleist serves to:

• Create higher entry barriers due to uniqueness in its products and customer loyalty

• Avoid need for low cost position by increasing its margins• Provide elevated margins that enable the company to

effectively handle supplier power• Reduce consumer power because they lack appropriate

alternative• Create customer loyalty and hence reduce threat from

competitors such as Callaway

Branding strategy

• The brand strategy defines what the company stands for, the promise it makes and the personality it conveys. Brand strategies at Titleist include:

• Seeing consumer engagement that others don’t • Establishing easily relatable identity• Being consistent with the product quality• Continuous innovation with unblemished timing

and execution

Competitive analysis

• Titleist experiences minimal competition because of its dominance in the golf products market. However, Callaway could be the only company with potential threat to Titleist. Unlike Titleist, Callaway Golf does not operate as a fully-owned portfolio company of a multinational.

• From a corporate point of view, this gives Callaway an upper hand as far as golf business is concerned. While Titleist might be restricted by Fortune Brands or governance from Acushnet, Callaway is free to whatever it feels is good for the company.

• In 2006, Callaway made estimated $220 million from sales of golf balls. The company markets its products under the Callaway Golf, Ben Hogan and Top-Flite brands.

• They make both 2-piece and multi-layer golf balls. Callaway products compete at all price levels. However, multi-layer golf balls go for higher prices as compared with 2-layer golf balls.

Market share

• Titleist has the majority market share in all golf products, holding close to 50% of the market

• Callaway Golf Company, Adidas Salomon AG and Nike Inc are the major competitors with Callaway having a market share of 34% and Adidas and Nike sharing the remaining 8%

• Competitive positions and roles• Competitive position is a position an organization occupies in a

market or its trying to occupy relative to its competitors.• Titleist has a positioning strategy that is influenced by:• Customer segments: Golf ball owners and real players of the sport• Market profile: Competitors, size and stage of growth• Value delivering technique: How to deliver value to the market at

the highest level• Competitive analysis: Strength, weaknesses opportunities and

threats on the ground

Strategic sweet spot

• The strategic sweet spot of a company is where the company meets consumer’s needs in a way that competitors can’t, in a given competitive medium.

• Titleist, for example, segments its consumers into two main groups and will therefore have two targeted sweet spots in their content:

• Golf balls owners• Real players of golf • Content besieged to each group will have a unique bent

to it, aligning with exclusive needs of each consumer group.

Positioning

• Currently, Titleist is regarded as number one company as far as golf products are concerned. Its voluminous sales attest to this.

• The company already has excellent equity but the only blockade to purchase in this market is lack of disposable income.

• The company has established itself as a market in both quality performance and innovation.

• This position, particularly n a sport that embraces both tradition and technology is critical to Titleist’s success.

Current supply chain members and roles

• Stakeholders at Titleist mount a lot of pressure on supply chains to integrate a superfluity of corporate sustainability and responsibility aspects in their business practices.

• Legal as well as commercial demands are rapidly changing and almost no organization, firm, company or supply chain remains unaffected.

• Owing to the last decade’s outsourcing wave, purchasing and supply management at Titleist, in particular, plays a major role in guaranteeing sustainable supply chains in the market place.

Value delivery network analysis

• A value delivery network is a business analysis framework that addresses technical and social resources within and between businesses.

• Fortune Brands make use of value delivery networks to address issues within all of its affiliate companies, Titleist being one of them. Roles or people are represented by nodes in a value delivery network.

• The nodes are connected by lines that symbolize tangible and intangible deliverables. The deliverables account for overall value for products and services.

Current type of distribution strategy

• As a leading company in the golf product business, it is not easy for Titleist to acquire more market share.

• Capturing new distribution strategies will require Titleist to keep up their brand reputation as well as their aggressive advertising scheme.

• The company must continue to come up in conversation as it deals with new and non-traditional markets.

• Maintaining at the top of trends will allow Titleist to attain more commercial success.

SWOT AnalysisStrengths

• More than 50% of market share

• Product innovation

• Diversified product line

• Positive financial picture

Weaknesses

• Some top enthusiastic golfers switched from Titleist to Nike

• Disintegration of Fortune Brand into golf, hardware and wine while competitors focus mainly on golf market

Opportunities

• Increasing international sales

• Favorable demographics

• Developing GPS-enhanced ball tracking systems

• Appealing to high-net worth customers

Threats

• Substandard golf balls from China

• Gaining prominence of MLS, NFL and the MLB

• Economic depression

References

• Pallate, D. (2010): Creating Sustainable Customer Value: Business and Economics

• Pulizzi, J. (2013) Epic Content Marketing: Forbes• Sheffi, Y. 2005. The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming

Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage: Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

• The U.S Market for Golf Equipment (2006) Packaged Facts: Division of Market Research

• Williamson, O. E. 2008. Outsourcing: Transaction cost economics and supply chain management: Journal of Supply Chain Management