The Casio Was Established Marketing Essay

Casio was established in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio, an engineer specializing in fabrication technology. Kashio’s first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that would hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer’s hands free. Japan was impoverished immediately following World War II, so cigarettes were valuable, and the invention was a success.After seeing the electric calculators at the first Business Show in Ginza, Tokyo in 1949, Kashio and his younger brothers used their profits from the yubiwa pipe to develop their own calculators. Most of the calculators at that time worked using gears and could be operated by hand using a crank or using a motor. Kashio possessed some knowledge of electronics, and set out to make a calculator using solenoids. The desk-sized calculator was finished in 1954 and was Japan’s first electro-mechanical calculator. One of the central innovations of the calculator was its adoption of the 10-key number pad; at that time other calculators were using a “full keypad”, which meant that each place in the number (1s, 10s, 100s, etc.) had nine keys. Another innovation was the use of a single display window instead of the three display windows used in other calculators.In 1957, Casio released the Model 14-A, sold for 485,000 yen, the world’s first all-electric compact calculator, which was based on relay technology. Year 1957 also marked the establishment of Casio Computer Co. Ltd.In the 1980s, its budget electronic instruments and home keyboards gained huge popularity. The company also became well known for the wide variety and innovation of its wristwatches. It was one of the earliest manufacturers of quartz crystal watches, both digital and analogue. It also began selling calculator watches during this time. It was one of the first manufacturers of watches that could display the time in many different time zones and of watches with temperature, atmospheric-pressure, altitude, and even GPS position displays.A number of notable digital cameras firsts have been made by Casio, including the first consumer digital camera with an LCD screen, the first consumer 3 megapixels camera, the first true ultra-compact model, and the first digital camera to incorporate ceramic lens technology.

1.1.2Different product/brand marketed by the firm/company

There are few different products marketed by Casio Company which are calculator, digital camera, watches, label printer, digital piano or keyboard, mobile devices and cash registers. For watches, it is divided into men and women categories. The watches have divided into many brands such as G-Shock, Baby-G, Dress, Sport, Classic, Databank and Wave Ceptor. Some of the branded watches are for men used only and some are for women used only. Besides, like Sport, Classic and Dress brands is suitable for both men and women. In addition, Casio also offers many different kind of branded calculators, which are Desktop, Basic, Printing, Graphing and Fraction & Scientific. These calculators have their own unique functions subject to different types of calculator. Last but not least, Casio also offers different kind of keyboard and electronic piano such as Digital Synthesizers Keyboard, Privia Digital Piano, CELVIANO Digital Piano, Workstation Keyboard, Mini Keyboard and Portable Keyboard. Different kind of keyboards has their own unique functions too.

1.2 Product Background

1.2.1Established in the market

1.2.2Brand identity for the selected brand

CHAPTER 2 : Analysis of marketing strategy

2.1 Product Strategy

2.1.1Product Classification

2.1.2Product and Service Decision

2.1.3Major Brand Strategy Decisions

Brand positioningBrand positioning is important for a company to build a position in customer’s mind. So, Casio Calculator created a slogan, “Support Classroom with Technology”, which means the Casio Calculator is ideal for educational environments.Brand name selectionFor a brand name selection, it must be clear enough to make sure customers can easily recognize the products. Thus, Casio came out with few brand names when introducing any new Calculators. We take the Scientific Calculator as example, buyers automatically know from the brand name itself that this calculator is used to solve complex scientific and mathematical problems. So, when customers need to buy a calculator for use in counting for mathematics, they will go straight for Scientific Calculator.Brand sponsorshipAs for brand sponsorship, Casio Calculator is a manufacturer’s brand which is also called national brand. It is a brand name created and owned by the producer. Casio sell their own products under their own manufacturer’s brand names. For example, Casio will have their own factories to produce their products as well as own retailers to help in distributing the products.Brand developmentIt is important to a company to have brand development in order to attract more buyers. As for Casio Calculator, it is practicing the line extension because it used the existing brand name with the existing product. Casio Calculator always introduced new models for the calculator by only adding some new functions in the calculator. For example, when the first Scientific Calculator introduced, it only consisted of almost 80 functions. However, Casio then slowly improve their functions of calculator and consequently the latest Scientific Calculator can do as many as 1500 functions instead of only 80.

2.2 Pricing Strategy

2.2.1 Factors Affecting Pricing Decisions (Types of Market)

Casio Calculator is categorized as monopolistic competition market. The reason why Casio Calculator is consider as monopolistic competition is because there are a lots of calculator sellers, or competitors, such as Sharp, Panasonic, Canon and so on. Those brands are selling the calculator products just like Casio. Besides, it is more based on the product differentiation because Casio produced different types of calculator with different types of functions and designs. Furthermore, the marketers spend money on doing advertisements to attract and convince people to consume more their calculator. For example, the customers can see different types of calculator are promoting on the TV and also the magazines. Other than that, the Casio’ marketers will determine and decide the price of the products by themselves. Casio Company knows that pricing can affect the market demand too. The more people demand their Casio calculator, the higher the price of the calculator. Marketers will supply less calculator products to increase the price because the demand of the calculator products goes up which means the customers is willing to buy more.Table 1 show the types, function and prices of calculator sold in Casio.

TYPES OF Calculator

Function

PRICE (RM)

(Model: LC-1000TV)

(Model: HR-8TM-BK)

2.2.2 New product pricing strategy

2.2.3 Product mix pricing strategy

Product mix pricing strategy is mean to look for a set of prices that maximize the profits on the total product mix of Casio. The pricing is different because each different type of products having different demand and cost and also the face different degrees of competition. There are five types of product mix pricing strategies which are product line pricing, optional-product pricing, captive- product pricing, by-product pricing and product bundle pricing. However, for the Casio calculator they are applying the product line in product mix pricing strategies.Product line pricing is a kind of pricing strategy which sells different products in the same product range at different point based on function and looks. The goal of product line pricing is to maximize profits. The more features offered, the more consumers will pay. For Example, Casio has chosen one of the calculators which called as FX-7000G as their first generation graphing programmable calculator because they wanted to attract the new customers. Other than that, in the pricing strategies, price of one product in the line cannot be too high compared the others because it will not adhere to the pricing plan. Casio tries to set the price steps between various items in a product line based on cost differences between products, customers’ evaluations of different features and competitors’ prices.

2.2.4 Price adjustment strategies

There are 7 types of price adjustment strategies which are discount and allowance, segmented, psychological, promotional, geographical, dynamic and international pricing.First is the geographical part. As an intelligent company, they must know how to decide whether to launch your product in a single locality, a region, several regions, the national market or the international market. For example, Casio has launched a new calculator which named it as FX-9860GII SD. The purpose to launch this calculator is because they found that almost every people in Malaysia will use PC and SD card in daily life, so that they try to combine the SD card into the calculator and USB connection to a PC to satisfy their customers.Secondly, the international pricing used by Casio is based on economic condition. If the economy condition is well, they will set a higher price and vice versa. Besides, international pricing depends on the competitive situations. Casio can set a higher price for their high quality calculator if compare to the competitors because customers will always think that the high prices of product is always a better quality. Furthermore, cost of the production of Casio is a bit higher because all Casio calculators that sold in Malaysia are fully imported from its extension in China. Moreover, customer perceptions and preferences are very important as customers will buy calculator made by Casio if they feel satisfied.Lastly, the psychological pricing considers the psychology of prices and not only the economy. It is that the consumers perceive the high-priced products like Casio offers high quality of products. Besides, the consumer usually see price less importantly when they can judge the quality of a product by examining it or based on their experiences. Loyal Casio customers will purchase the calculator based on their experiences.

2.3 Place strategy

2.3.1Marketing Channels/Distribution Channels

Supplier of Casio (Japan)

Casio (Japan)

Casio (Wholesaler & Retailer in Malaysia)

Customers

Retailing/Wholesaling

Promotion Strategy

2.4.1 Integrated marketing communication

CHAPTER 3 : Critiques of the strategies and recommendation

Product strategyCasio Calculator could try to release more calculator models that have a colour display instead of dull colour. Among calculators Casio have released, only a few graphing calculator models, like fx-CG20, have colour display attached on. As many students think that subjects that require complex mathematical calculations are dull, Casio Company could consider releases new model of normal scientific calculator, where main users are students, with attached colour display to make the calculating process looks a lot more colourful.Pricing strategyCasio Company is selling its calculators in relatively high prices. Because of the high-priced calculator, it actually lost a large amount of potential customers who are price sensitive. Therefore, Casio Company should try setting the prices by using cost-plus pricing. Through this, the prices of all models will relatively decrease and eventually getting more customers. Although the profit might be lesser, this in fact increases the company’s reputation as more consumers will be using its calculators and the lost profits can be covered through the profits gained from the other business units like watches and computers.Place strategyCasio Company has only very limited warehouses and wholesalers around the world. Therefore, it makes it difficult for its worldwide customers to get their products or they have to pay extra shipping fee for their products. For example, in the Southeast Asia region, there is only one warehouse available, which is in Singapore, for the eleven countries. So, Casio Company could consider to build more warehouses around the world hence indirectly increase the accessibility of its product to the customers.Promotion strategyCasio Calculators has only very limited advertisements and most of it are on the internet or magazines, a place where thousands are information are simultaneously available. This makes their advertisement less obvious to the consumers. Therefore, the company should invest some money in advertising, whether on radio, television or anywhere else, on its calculator to make their new models more recognisable to the consumer world.