Topic: Pillow Brand Name: A Fontane

CONTENT PAGE
A. BUSINESS BACKGROUND B. COMPETITORS ANALYSIS P.3 P.3

Strengths and Weaknesses 1. 2. 3. Afontane Airland Sinomax

P.3 P.3 P.4 P.4 P.5

P.5 P.5 P.6 P.6 P.6 P.7 P.8 P.8 P.9 P.9 P.9 P.10 P.11

Perceptual Map

C. CUSTOMER ANALYSIS

1.
2.

Customer Characteristics Buying Responses

D. PRODUCT ANALYSIS

1. 2. 3.

Product Classification Product Strategy Product Life Cycle Strategies

E. RECOMMENTATION (NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT)

1. 2. 3. 4.

Inspiration of the New product New Product ---Functions New Product ---Ingredient New Product ---Packaging

F. APPENDIEX 1

1. 2.

New Product Packaging Design P.11 New Product- Pillow Trasury__________________________________________P.12

P.13

APPENDIEX 2 ---References APPENDIEX 3 ---Group Task Form

P.15

A. BUSINESS Background:

A-Fontane Co, Ltd was set up by Mr. Cheung Wing Hui in 1983.

A-Fontane has produced different types of bed products, including mattresses, bed sheets and home towels, for 28 years. Through the whole production process, including selecting gauze, weaving cloth, designing, packing, logistic, checking, marketing are handled by the company itself. The factory is over one million square feet, with 1500 staff. The network of selling is distributed in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and America. A-Fontane develops technologies and applies them to their products. Cooperating with Hong Kong Productivity Council, they design a unique neck and spine pain scanner which can help users to choose a suitable pillow. A-Fontane is professional to concentrate and develop bedroom goods.1

B.Competitors Analysis:
1.Strength of Afontane:
A-Fontane has grasped over 50% market share for bed product because

of its successful establishment of excellent reputation for its pillow though developing a series of innovative products continuously.2 Also, A-Fontane is the first in the bed product market to sign a spokesperson for promotion of its products, and therefore, its well-known brand name is developed.4 It has the most diverse and massive marketing channels, including advertisements on bus bodies and subway platforms and sponsorship for TV drama. Besides, A-Fontane has a good sensitivity to consumers needs, so they has provided diverse products, which have different target customers; for example, since they understand different age groups have different requirements on pillow stature, they have produced specifically designed pillows to cater the needs for kids, juveniles and adults.3 They have invested money to build their own factory in mainland for production. It enables them to have better monitoring and thus their products quality is guaranteed. When they devise specifically designed machineries for sewing and dying, it increases the effectiveness and efficiency though their production. Furthermore, one continuous line of production also lowers the cost of production.29

Weakness of Afontane: A-Fontane does not provide after-sales service like warranty commitment. It is
combated by other competitors like Sinomax and Airland, which provide intimate after-sale services. It relatively loses its consumers easier who require quality guarantee for the development consumption confidence on its products. Also, A-Fontane does not have an explicit brand position; its products are

3 imitation of occidental high-class bed product, which could be easily combated by other imitated producers

as they dont have a distinct cost advantage.4

2.Strength of Airland: Compared with other bed product sellers which focus on only the public users,
Airland has designed dedicated hotel product series complying with the domestic flame retardant standard for hotel clients and also its hotel.6 Hotel can be a good way for marketing their products, apart from ltting the potential buys try its bed products in retail shops. A more active way to extend the brand name of Airland is to let consumers to experience their products comfort over a night in hotel. Besides, Airland has a wide distribution network of over 220 stores including department store counters, furniture stores and its own specialty stores which make consumers more accessible to its products. Having its own specialty stores on one hand it eliminates the ripple effect that causes to provide excess products, on the other it knows the consumers demand better by maintaining a close relationship with them.7 In 2007, Airland renewed their brand concept and positioned it into harmony between human and the nature by redesigning their shops and producing green products. As a result, Airland received China Eco-Label excelling others bed product producers. The new image is complied with the trend of increasing environmental consciousness, which makes Airland achieve a greater brand reputation.8

Weakness of Airland:

Airland does not have enough promotion on its patent design. Other bed

product producers focus their promotion on their patent products while Airland focus its promotion on its brand name. Also, they do not even disclose any patent design description on its webpage, which may make their product look less attractive and unique.9 Also, Airland patent design concentrates on material evolution. It uses the technologies on most of its products which may make consumers hard to notice the difference from its products.10 Besides, Airland does not have clear market segments for its products. For example, there is no specific product for a specific age group- no kids product line. Most of their products are functional and well-designed but do not specify to which target buyer groups.11

3.Strength of SINOMAX:

Sinomax targets Generation Y as their consumers, who will be a large

potential market group in the near future, because they will set up their family; hence, they will have a large demand for bed products for their new home. Sinomax has a large market share because they provide a reliable supply of quality products and services to their customers and partners worldwide. With 6 factories in Dongguan, Guangdong , Sinomax also has 22 subsidiary offices in mainland.12 It has 15 different types of pillows, such as 4D Wisdom Pillow Advanced, Nano Silver Pillow and so on13. It is famous for Sinomax

Memory Foam which is composed with hundred millions of spherical fiber and thermal-sensitive particles. Memory foam is also known as visco-elastic foam that is the material used to protect astronauts from injury during take-off landing. This is created by Sinomax and adjusted for customers an optimum firmness so as to prevent aches caused by mattress and pillows of unsuitable firmness. Also, its fruitful advertising channels reaching consumers increase the brand name. Sinomax has impressive TV commercials14, and there are other means to make promotion such as: Sinomax flight campaign on 7th April 2012 in HOLLYWOOD.
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At distribution, consumers enjoy place utility with more shops. SINOMAX has 10

specialty shops and 26 department store counters16 in Hong Kong.

Weakness of Sinomax:

When comparing SINOMAX with other brands, its products price is

higher than substitutes. Price is one of the factors affecting customers choice. Some price sensitive consumers prefer to consume other brands having economic prices. Perceptual Map High Price

Sinomax

Less Advertisement
Airland

A-Fontan e

More Advertisements

Low Price

C.Customer Analysis:

A-Fontane adopts various segmentations for its diverse products-

multiple products and multiple market segments. So as to have an intensive analysis for this project, we will focus on the pillow market.

1.Customer Characteristics: Market segments include demographic, psychographic and geographic.

There are numbers of market segments that are in accordance with the demographic. The first one is by age. A-Fontane aims to provide every one with high quality pillows. Hence, the pillow target market is divided- the kids market and the adults market. For example, latex-eco pillow, breathe-free pillow and eco- pillow () have the professional sizes (for adults) and the children sizes.17

5 The second one is by income. Some pillows prices are very economic as well as pearl pillow

(priced at $99) and comfortable pillow (priced at $169). Meanwhile, some pillows prices are quite expensive such as profession econ-pillow (priced at $699). The third one is by body shape. With its mission to eliminate neck and spine pain and eventually to improve sleeping quality18, A-Fontane has introduced an innovative neck and spine pain scanner. After scanning the consumers neck and spine pain, the scanner would give advice to consumers for choosing the most suitable pillow size. The eco-pillow has 48 sizes19. Psychographic segment strategy also adopted- by lifestyle. A-Fontane groups the consumers who have similar interests and taste together. For example, there are lots of product line as well as latex -wisdom pillow, e-con pillow, breathe-free pillow, side-sleeper pillow, aromatherapy latex-like pillow, tree- tea pillow and etc. The materials vary from different pillow lines; hence, functions, touches and smells are different among the pillows. The consumers may select the pillow base on their own favors.

2.Buying Responses:

The outlet type is in-store. The consumers may purchase A-Fontane from

many places. There are 11 specialty shops all round Hong Kong, and there are 17 counters in department stores, saying Wing On Department Stores, Citistores, Juscos and Sincere Department Stores21. The consumers may have a trial use from the shops. Visibly, the consumers enjoy place utility. Furthermore, the benefits sought are product features and needs. First is the product features. In A-Fontane, there are at least 15 kinds of pillows- their functions are not same. For example, aromatherapy latex-like pillow would provide a relaxing smell to the sleepers, side-sleeper pillow would correct the side sleepers sleeping positions, and tree tea pillow would have sterilization function. The pillows in A-Fontane can satisfy a large number of customers with the identical features. Second is the needs. A-Fontane aims to provide high quality products. According to the webpage last updated in 2005, it has been awarded and has been certified- (a) Hong Kong Q-Mark Product from Federation of Hong Kong Industries in 2004& 2005, (b) Certificate of Merit from The China International Home Textile Design Competition in 200422 and so on.

D. Product Analysis
Product Classification
Pollows are consumer goods because they are purchased by ultimate

consumers. Also, A-Fontane can be regarded as shopping goods because consumers have their brand loyalty, meaning that they will prefer a specific pillow brand and tend to purchase from the brand they used to buy;

however, they may accept other pillow brands sometimes (if another brand promotes innovative pillows or if other bands offer great discount). Additionally, pillow is not a consumable, so consumers may not need to purchase frequently. They would like to make comparison from several pillow brands before purchase.

Product Strategy

They used skinphilic materials and human-based design in order to create an

ultimate sleeping comfort for sleepers. Promodal is a newly invented fiber used for bedding collections. Its outstanding softness and silky feeling console sleepers with the greatest touch of their skins.23 They select the most suitable pillow for each customer with their pillow scanner by matching the measured cervical curvature with the formulated pillow statures.24 Also, they will provide extra feathery balls which can be replenished into the compartment of the pillow according to individuals sleeping custom. Both can relieve the burden of shoulders and to let the sleeper relax the whole body. A-Fontane offers pillows with high quality by two means; A-Fontane advocates producing pillows with high-cost performance30, which means having a long durable time for its pillow. As they are using enduring materials and good techniques for production, their pillows weave will not easily become flimsy after long term washing which means their pillows can withstand frequent washing.25 Also, pillows springiness normally will diminish after a certain time by tough long term burden by head weight, and it no longer provides support to the neck and shoulders. However, A-Fontane avoids bleaching the cotton ensuring the cotton configuration are not destroyed, thus their pillows can stay elastic for a long time usage.26 Thirdly, their eco-products can deliver the environment conservation concept to the customers. They have adopted a new environmental friendly dying technology in which it can save 50% of water and electricity. This new dying technology can also ensure the cloths of their pillows are free of any carcinogens, like formaldehyde.27 Finally, their products also deliver the value of health advantage to their customers. A-Fontane has investigated to use fragrance, material and shape to improve their customers sleep quality. A good sleep quality can stimulate the pituitary gland and adrenal gland to produce hormones which help dispose of our body wastes.28 Customers become healthier by having a stronger immunity. For tangible attributes, A-Fontane employed expert designers from America and Japan for designing the printing on the bedclothes. As A-Fontane is orientated to provide high class bedclothes, they use flower mostly as the prints on their bedclothes, like their four seasons bedclothes series. They have applied patent for each flowers design.29

Product Life Cycle Strategies

A-Fontane pillow market is in the maturity stage. It can be

interpreted in five marketing objectives. First, the competition in the broad pillow market is vital because there are many competitors, as well as Sinomax, Airland, Suzuran Bed and so on. A-Fontane may face a lot of competitions among brands. Second, the pillow distribution places of A-Fontane are as many as possible. There are in total 28 specialty shops and department store counters. It provides many platforms for the customers to make transactions. Third, the diverse products types suit customers needs. Producing a various pillow product lines and a wide range of pillows with different pillow sizes, A-Fontane may entertain customers needs and wants. Fourth, the price objectives of A-fontane can be reflected from its market shares. It is hard to extend the market share significantly since there are lots of competitors and the market becomes stable. Fifth, the promotion ways would mainly adopted remainder approach- remind the consumers previous knowledge of A-Fontanes pillows or promote some special event like Christmas Sales. Perhaps, A-Fontane would make persuasive promotion once there are some innovative pillows.

Recommendation
Product Classification: Before we market a specific group of customers for our products, we have to
understand their value. In this case, customers value the quality of the product the most because the reason of getting a well-designed pillow is to get a good sleep. Therefore we aim to design a pillow fitting with their fundamental requirement. Also they value the price as one of the components. We offer a reasonable price to them so that the pillow will be affordable to the most. For accessibility and convenience, we will sell it at our well branched stores to make our pillow easily accessible38. After the analysis, we found that A-Fontane has the following defects. First, as more and more similar human-based pillows appeared in the market, the household pillow market nearly became saturated. The target market of A-Fontane now is narrow which is mainly focus for household usage; it is hard to make a breakthrough on their sales figure if they dont explore new prospective customers. So, we recommend the brand to create a new product to expand its market segments to more prospective buyers, such as people who use the pillow other than at home. Besides, since pillows is a product with long shell life, the turnover rate of it is low. If A-Fontane just focuses on improving their old products or just provide products with similar characteristics, people will not be attracted to buy a new pillow from them. Therefore, we recommend the brand to create a new product, which is special and new to the market for the sake of attracting customers attention. To maintain the trend, we recommend A-Fontane to use breakaway

positioning to emphasize its products special features which are different from other competitors.

Inspiration of new product:

Our pervious dumbbells shape pillow, side sleeper, provides two

pillow statures to facilitate the shoulders support for both slide sleep and supine sleep. It received a great success. From our customers response, they thought it restricted their sleeping postures; they must roll into the designated area of the pillow in order to provide the required support to the shoulders. Besides, we often find the pillow in hotel uncomfortable and its hard to get a quality sleep in hotel, however. It is difficult for us to bring our own pillow for travel as the size of it is large and it is inconvenient to be brought. All these problems inspire us to produce a new pillow with a helmet shape, eliminating the redundant area of a pillow and making it smaller to bring around.

New product Introduction: Pillow Trasury is the name of our new product. It embeds the head
and neck except the upper head part for better ventilation. The two sides of the helmet is thicker and provides a higher stature to support the shoulder during slide sleeping and the middle part of the helmet is thinner to provide a lower stature to support the shoulder during supine sleeping. A normal phenomenon of using the old pillow is when people become unconscious during sleeping, for most of the time, their head does not roll into the appropriate area of the pillow, causing more harm to the cervical vertebra than using a normal pillow as their stature is fixed and is not suitable for other sleeping postures. The new product snugly adheres to the head and neck. The sleeping area changes simultaneously with the head when sleeper makes a turn of the head and it ensures the stature will always suit the degree of turn that the sleeper makes. The target customers of the new product are frequent travelers or businessmen which often use the pillow in hotel as a cushion for them to lean the head on, in addition to use it for sleeping. For sleeping, the trough of the pillow should be in the centre for better supporting of the neck and shoulders. While for sitting, the pillow should be protruding in the centre for better supporting for the vertebrate, and therefore to use it as a cushion, people have to untie the fore part of the pillow which covers the brow, and wind it to the back of the pillow. The contour of our new product suits for two uses.

New Product- Function:

Statistics shows that when travellers fly across the areas with three time

zones or above, they have 80% of having a hard time to get rid of the time difference, this lowers their sleeping quality.30 As businessmen need to be more concentrated than normal during their business travel, daytime tiredness lowers the efficiency and effectiveness of their work. Pillow Trasury has developed

three characteristics to help travellers to adjust their biological clock. Firstly, Melatonin signal form part of the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness. Therefore, in order to adjust the circadian rhythm, which makes travellers become easier to sleep,31 Pillow Trasury emits magnetic fields which stimulate the central nervous system to coordinate the endocrine system. The endocrine gland are stimulated to secrete more Melatonin that causes drowsiness to travellers.32 Secondly, time difference is not only an biological problem, but also a psychological problem. So one of the effective ways to reduce the persecution caused by time difference is try not to think about it.30 Pillow Trasury provides three fragrances for customers to choose, which are nymphaea tetragona, violet and rose. These scents help travellers to calm themselves with lower anxiety, making them easier to fall asleep. Thirdly, Pillow Trasury is harder than the other of our pillows; a harder pillow facilitates blood circulation34, which bring more oxygenated blood to the brain.35 Also, Melatonin is a hormone which is transported by blood to target cells.37 Therefore improved blood circulation boosts the Melatonin to reach the target cells to foster a better sleep. Apart from the problem of jet lag, there is another problem when travellers travel abroad. As different hotels have the mattresses with different hardness, varying indentation of sleepers into the mattress requires different statures of pillow in order to support the neck. Traditional pillows that depend on the filled material or shape to provide the fixed stature for support are not suitable to take for travel. Our new generation design is to make the bottom part of Pillow Trasury which adheres to the mattress become an arc shape to replace the previous flatten design. It self-adjusts to vary the pillow stature for different sleeping positions. If the hotel in which the travellers stay provides a relative soft mattress, the mattress is indented for a greater extent, which shifts the core of the pillow towards the shoulder. Then the pillow stature decreases due to its arc shape design, and vice versa. During the whole sleep, Pillow Trasury suitably supports the neck and shoulder ensuring a maximum sleeping comfort.

New Product- Packaging:

In order to make Pillow Trasury portable for travel, the package allows

compression of the pillow. Users can encapsulate the pillow into the plastic bag, and then knit the plastic bag opening to nearly closed. When they roll the bag or use a pump to draw the air out, the plastic bag becomes vacuum which saves up a lot of storage space. The plastic bag is equipped with double zippers to allow better enclosure. In order to be more social responsible, the packaging is designed to meet eco-conscious standards. The plastic bag is made by Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), which is recyclable.36

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Appendix 1
New Product Packaging Design

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Appendix 1
Pillow Trasury

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Appendix 2--Reference
1. TradeBIG Bedding. Retrieved March 15, 2012, from http://www.16066.tradebig.com/index.php?charset=eng
2. Afontane. Corporate profile. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com/en/about_us_coporate.php 3. Afontane. Products list. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com.hk/tc/products_list.php?catalog_id=3&page=1

4. Hometex. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.hometex114.com/news/174502.html 5. Airland. Hotel Clients. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.airland.com/en/products_hotelclient.php?region=hk 6. Airland. Sales Network. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.airland.com/en/network.php?region=hk 7. Airland. Design Concept. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.airland.com/en/brand_concept.php?region=hk 8. Airland. Index. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.airland.com/en/?region=hk 9. BeiJingJu. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.beijingju.com/zq/jccp/jiajuzq/2010/0414/22351.shtml 10. Airland. Bedding Series. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.airland.com/en/products_accessories.php?region=hk
11. SINOMAX. COMPANY PROFILE. Retrieved April 7,2012,from http://www.sinomax.com.hk/en/about_us/profile.html 12. SINOMAX. PRODUCT PILLOWS. Retrieved April 7,2012,from http://www.sinomax.com.hk/product/en_product2.php?catID=6 13. SINOMAX. TV PROMOTIONS. Retrieved April 7,2012,from http://www.sinomax.com.hk/product/en_media.php 14. SINOMAX. OTHER PROMOTIONS. Retrieved April 7,2012,from http://www.sinomax.com.hk/product/en_promotion.php 15. SINOMAX. SHOPS NETWORK. Retrieved April 7,2012,from http://www.sinomax.com.hk/product/en_service2.php

16. A-fontane. Product Introduction. Retrieved April 7, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com.hk/ 17. A-fontane Group Limited Company. Chairmans Profile. Retrieved April 7, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com/en/about_us_chairman.php 18. Marketing Department, (2009). Wisdom Pillow Leaflet. A-Fontane. 19. Hong Kong Observatory. Monthly Meteorological Normals for Hong Kong. Retrieved April 8, 2012 from http://www.hko.gov.hk/cis/normal/1981_2010/normals_c.htm 20. A-fontane. Shop Address. Retrieved April 8, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com/en/about_us_chairman.php

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21. A-fontane Group Limited Company. Award & Accreditation. Retrieved April 7, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com/en/about_us_awards.php 22. Afontane. ProModal. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com.hk/tc/recent_news/2011-10-31.php 23. Afontane. ECOPillow(D.I.Y). Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com.hk/tc/eco-pillow/D01.html 24. . . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.qs163.cn/fuwu/220377x.html 25. homer.hk. isimple. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.homer.hk/?p=10470 26. .. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://biz.ppsj.com.cn/2010-8-26/285040958.html 27. Afontane. sleeping hints. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.a-fontane.com.hk/tc/sleeping_hints.php 28. Hometex. Brand introduction. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.hometex114.com/Brand/122/intro.html 29. SouFun. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://home.gz.soufun.com/news/2010-03-19/3171970.htm 30. . Jet lag. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from
http://www.mmhfm.tw/mmhfm/index.php/menu-travel-clinic/144-jet-lag-syndrome.html

31. Circadian rhythm, Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm 32. One theory. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from
http://www.one-theory.com/zh/products_details.php?id=27

33. NETEASE. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://health.163.com/06/0906/00/2QA211DF00181RAA.html 34. Only Lady. . Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://blog.onlylady.com/article/10250459.html 35. Heidi Godman Media(2011). Increase Blood Circulation in the Head During Sleep. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/354374-increase-blood-circulation-in-the-head-during-sleep/ 36. Jessica Hobby (2011). What is Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)?. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-pet-polyethylene.htm 37. Melatonin, Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Circadian_rhythm 38. Anderson, J., C., & Narus, J., A. (1998), "Business Marketing: Understand What Customers Value", Harvard
Business Review, 76(6), 53-65.

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Appendix 3-- Group Task Form

Student Name Student No. Contents (Based on your table of content) COMPETITORS ANALYSIS (Afontane) COMPETITORS ANALYSIS (Airland) PRODUCT ANALYSIS (Product Strategy) RECOMMENTATION References Chau Lai Ching 11163236A CUSTOMER ANALYSIS PRODUCT ANALYSIS (Product Classification) PRODUCT ANALYSIS ( Life Cycle Strategies) RECOMMENTATION References Lui Yan Yee 11163064A COMPETITORS ANALYSIS (Sinomax) PRODUCT ANALYSIS (Product Classification) RECOMMENTATION References Mak Po Yee 11181870A RECOMMENTATION COMPETITORS ANALYSIS (Afontane) Tong Ka Chun 11133613A BUSINESS BACKGROUND PRODUCT ANALYSIS ( Life Cycle Strategies) RECOMMENTATION Appendix 1 References * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Report Presentation Signature

Chan Tsz Lung

11048664A

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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