GoPro Marketing Strategy Sample Assignment

Introduction

GoPro historically has been a leader within the market for wearable action cameras. Since it’s founding in 2002, it has seen a major growth in popularity and sales up 2015. Since then, the company’s stock prices have dropped nearly 90% from it’s high point due to a now highly competitive market for these cameras and investors questioning whether or not GoPro would be able to diversify revenue streams. GoPro’s release of the Hero4 Session camera in July 2015 aimed at improving its sales revenues and hoped it would renew interest in the company’s products unfortunately performed below expectations.

GoPro has the opportunity to turn its growth back around, due to its unique business model and strong marketing position strengths, but is currently facing difficulties from its reliance on a small number of retailers, and its lack of scale, along with others. GoPro is also facing competition from large-scale camera retailers such as Sony, Cannon, and Nikon, who are all creating similar products and some at lower price points. However, GoPro still retains its competitive edge against these companies by appealing to its original core niche, the adventurous and athletic consumer. Fortunately, GoPro overall has a strong outlook for the action camera market and its live-streaming app opportunities.

Segmentation & Targeting Strategy

Market Segmentation

Segment 1: The Adventurist

• Demographic
  • Age: 16-25
  • Income: Working/Middle Class
• Psychographic
  • Young and adventurous lifestyles
  • Active and health-oriented motivation
  • Outgoing and energetic personalities
• Benefits Sought
  • Large-scale social visibility through media sharing
  • Desire to capture and share impressive feats accomplished
• Usage Rate
  • Medium to high usage of products
• Substantial base due to current niche targeting of this segment due to the idea that these qualities are what the GoPro product was originally based upon
• Easily accessible through both large scale and specialty sporting and outdoors stores that appeal to this market segment.

Segment 2: Family-Oriented

• Demographics
  • Age: 25-35
  • Family life cycle: Young with kids
  • Income: Middle/Upper class
• Psychographics
  • Lifestyles that are focused upon kids’ daily activities (i.e. soccer/dance practice, etc.)
  • Millennial interest in social media and evolving technology
• Benefits Sought
  • Desire to capture life’s special moments in a unique way
  • Parents’ wish to get more involved in their kids activities in a way that their kids can view as fun
• Usage Rate
  • Potential: Previously haven’t viewed GoPro as applicable to this consumer segment, but rather solely directed to Segment 1
  • First time: Own GoPro products and wish to better put the product to use
• The parent lifestyle market is currently substantial enough to support GoPro as it would allow them to break into the traditional camera industry’s current market share.
• Accessibility: Members of this target segment would be accessible through children and family oriented programing commercials and in-store advertising and promotion at grocery stores, which influences the mom demographic

Segment 3: Government

• Volume of purchase: high quantities for implementation across whole range of military level personnel
• Product use
  • Easily disguisable surveillance
  • Night vision capabilities option
  • Wearable combat cameras to aid issues such as desertion or violation of war ethics
• The government is the largest business consumer segment to target and also the perfect opportunity for GoPro to widen its consumer base.
• This segment is easily identifiable and measureable and could likely be approached with specialty product contracts

Targeting Strategy

Since two separate consumer segment targets have been suggested, a multi-segment targeting strategy would be ideal to capture both. Multi-segment targeting strategies typically generate greater financial success for companies, which GoPro is currently hoping to improve due to current slow growth rates. The strategy would broaden GoPro’s current, stagnant focus solely on the adventurist niche and open it into a substantial base of actively involved parents and government contracts, though this marketing plan will primarily be focusing on the adventurist and family-oriented segments. A multi-segment strategy would also open up GoPro to greater economies of scale, which is a segment within which it is lacking when put up against big name competitors such as Nikon and Cannon. This strategy would help GoPro withstand against its competitors, gaining ground in the standard camera market share by offering a unique alternative to current available products. However, GoPro should not turn away from its original consumer base of the adventurist consumer, as they embody the basic ideals for the company’s founding and still hold major influence within the market for wearable cameras. This segment still holds a strong business opportunity if able to present a fresh positioning on the products uses.

Target Segment Wants/Needs

The Adventurist Segment is looking for a marketing mix that will offer them the widest variety of versatile and unique products. They have an outlook on life that every day should present itself with a new path to travel and explore, and wish to find a product that can capture what they discover without being cumbersome to the adventure itself. This segment also tends to take a less traditional route, and looks for products that can differentiate themselves as one that can convey their adventures with the unique perspective they view it themselves. They desire to purchase from a company that understand that everything they do is stimulating and needs a product that can withstand all conditions it may encounter and still perform at the highest level. This segment is motivated by individuality and looks for a product that presents itself as a custom fit for its needs and events.

Meanwhile, the Family-Oriented Segment is looking for a product that can enhance their everyday experience. They want a product that acknowledges the fact that their everyday life has its routine, and may seem mundane to outsiders, but to them yields high satisfaction. This segment enjoys capturing life’s little everyday moments, and desires a company that acknowledges their focus on anything and everything being special, and can also offer a unique perspective on the capture of it. They are motivated by their family’s enjoyment and need a product that is versatile enough to keep every member captivated and involved in each other’s activities. This segment is currently focused on the traditional, but millennial parents enjoy updates in technology and look to implement it to best suit their needs and lifestyles to the fullest extent. They are also avid social media users, and enjoy uploading all sorts of content highlighting their family’s successes and adventures, and enjoy product that are able to enhance this hobby of theirs.  

Key Benefits & Attributes

Within the Adventurist Segment, a key product quality to highlight would be GoPro’s new live-streaming capabilities. This would draw upon their desire to capture every moment of their excitement and their love of media sharing. This helps to differentiate GoPro from other wearable action cameras, since it is one of the only of these products to offer this application within its own marketing mix, rather than requiring third party software. This also ties into highlighting GoPro’s updated and integrated, more user friendly editing and uploading app. This aspect as proven to be a strong selling point for this consumer segment and highlighting the GoPro app’s ability to do both simultaneously will be a big selling point for these consumers. While most all other wearable cameras also have editing software, GoPro sponsors its software by being integrated with the products directly, so there’s less hassle to transfer content between the camera to the software to social media upload. This target segment would also be intrigued by the promotion of GoPro’s durability and versatility, proving it can help them enjoy both their beach adventures and their winter sports, without requiring separate products to transition between the climates and already come provided with built-in protection from the elements or human error mishaps. GoPro can also draw on this user’s desire for uniqueness by promoting its new drone as an extension of the wearable camera, to capture the adventure from a unique perspective. This product also helps differentiate GoPro from its competition in the market, as it is the first to integrate this product line into its marketing mix. The drone will become the extension of the wearable camera, and promotion of integration between the two’s content will help GoPro’s sales.

The Family-Oriented market would be best targeted with the promotion of GoPro cameras as interactive for the whole family. The idea that a parent can place the camera on their child during a soccer game, and have the whole family look back on the footage as if they were in the game themselves would present an opportunity for GoPro to differentiate from its traditional camera market competition. They should also highlight the camera’s durability that can withstand accidents by a clumsy toddler, appealing to the more user-friendly aspects parents’ desire. GoPro should also highlight the ease of use for content upload, as this is a huge selling point for this media and technology-invested segment. The GoPro app allows direct uploads to all the major social media applications, and highlighting this seamless transition can appeal to many consumers in this segment.

Positioning

Desired Perceptions

The Family-Oriented Segment would require a change in consumer perception from the idea that GoPro products are solely oriented around the more-rare lifestyles of cliff jumpers and extreme sports enthusiasts, to rather the idea that GoPro products can capture all aspects of life’s fun moments with a unique perspective. Traditional cameras are usually larger and more cumbersome to travel around with, and also require more effort to edit and upload content. GoPro has the opportunity to position itself as the go-to camera for everyday events by highlighting its camera’s small, inconspicuous size that makes traveling with it simpler. It should also emphasize its interactive possibilities for the whole family to get involved with, like the idea of placing the wearable camera on your kid playing soccer, so them and the whole family can view the game from the live action perspective, almost as if playing themselves.

The Adventurist Segment would also benefit from this idea of the everyday is extraordinary. In order to get greater usage out of these products, GoPro should position itself in their minds as an indispensible product to their everyday lives. This product could serve as a video blog for users adventures, which may be as simplistic or outrageous as they desire. GoPro needs to transition its positioning within this market from a specialty product to a shopping product, and remind users why the original camera they bought 3 years ago will no longer serve as the best fit to their needs as the new version can. They should emphasize that like with their iPhones, each release of new GoPro cameras and products comes with it an update in hardware and camera quality that would render their previous versions less fit.

Positioning Statements

• For 25-35 year old parents who view the everyday as extraordinary milestones, GoPro offers a unique twist and point of view to the capture of family adventures compared to traditional cameras because GoPro offers them durability and easy-to-use products that can shoot video in a variety of formats for interactive family fun.
  • This positioning statement highlights the Family-Oriented Segments desire for the product to cater towards their more simplistic lifestyle but still offer a bit of fun into the experience.
• To the thrill-seeker who acknowledges that life itself is a great adventure, GoPro presents a product that can be introduced into every day life and live-stream better than other wearable action camera companies offer because GoPro has integrated all steps in the streaming process to make it simpler and faster to use each step in the process.
  • This positioning statement highlights the Adventurist Segment’s target for an indispensible product that can upload content with greater ease of use.

Marketing Program Objectives

Marketing Objectives – Product, Price, & Place

The first marketing objective GoPro should work towards would be to aid consumers in viewing GoPro products less as a specialty product and more of a shopping product. To begin implementation of this, GoPro should investigate pricing its products at a slightly more competitive price-point, where consumers will perceive it to be of better value than its competition. Problems arose with the release of the Hero4 session camera release due to its high price point and low differentiation between either current GoPro products or competitor products. GoPro should instill consumers with the idea that each camera released is an adaptation of the previous version, and an improvement on quality with each increasing level. Therefore this draws on the idea that each camera is an upgrade rather than a new product itself and will help with the rate of re-purchase of products.

A second marketing objective GoPro should assess would be the transition to the family consumer market. In order to do so, GoPro should expand the retail of its products from largely specialty and outdoors retailers to those of more everyday shopping centers, such as large-scale grocers, specialty discount stores, and warehouse clubs. The placement of these products among other more traditional cameras may help highlight the idea that GoPro products are more versatile and durable. This in store placement will also help position the products in the minds of consumers as not solely an extreme adventurist’s product, but also suitable for everyday use. Also the placement of the GoPro cameras next to Nikon or Cannon’s high quality options will help to advertise GoPro’s lower price point compared to many traditional cameras for its broad usage and similar features. Placing the $199 Hero4 Session beside the $289 Nikon DSLR would promote its competitive price.

A third marketing objective GoPro should implement this year would be to promote the online presence of its content. Many consumers are currently unaware of the wide variety of software that is embedded in the price of the cameras and products. Drawing on the idea of social media presence, GoPro should highlight its ability to edit content within its own applications and simultaneously post to major social media applications. The current generation is largely media focused, and implementing a product that not only shares content with the world but also captures it in higher quality than current everyday technology such as the iPhone would help GoPro sales by moving it into the position of an everyday usage technology such as their phone or laptop. Content provided by GoPro products is unique to its business and should be placed in the same realm as other common goods technology, rather than a special luxury good that may or may not be necessary.