Case Study:
When Eric Hudson started the Massachusetts-based consumer products company, Preserve, in 1996, he wasn’t necessarily trying to make a “green” company. Armed with an MBA, a love of the outdoors, and a desire to be his own boss, he came up with a product and set out to find a way to make it. That product was the Preserve toothbrush. Made from recycled plastic, the brush was not only environmentally friendly, but featured a unique 45-degree angled head designed by his dad, an industrial designer specializing in automobiles and boats, and with help from several dentists. It is hard to believe today, with the popularity of green products and our increased environmental awareness, but in the late 1990s, green products were considered “fringe” and could be found mostly around college towns on both coasts. Most of the products were considered less effective and low quality. Many actually were. That’s why, from the beginning, Hudson felt strongly that Preserve’s mission would be to make it easy to be green by offering environmentally friendly products for the mass market—without sacrificing quality or performance. For the first few years, the Preserve toothbrush was mostly available locally in natural food stores. Soon they were sold in Whole Foods, a national natural foods chain, and Trader Joe’s, which specializes in unique and gourmet grocery items. Preserve was doing a lot of grassroots marketing. They were sampling products at an Earth Day celebration in Boston when an employee from Stonyfield Yogurt approached them with an idea. Stonyfield had a lot of scrap waste from the manufacture of their yogurt containers that was difficult for them to recycle. Preserve needed a reliable source of recycled plastic. It was a match made in heaven. Stonyfield had a great piece of PR (public relations) to enhance its environmentally friendly reputation, and Preserve could benefit from an association with such a mainstream, well-respected product. The yogurt container toothbrushes hit the shelves in 2001 and have been doing well for both companies ever since. Stonyfield even encourages consumers to send Preserve used yogurt containers. “We’re a pretty scrappy, upstart company going up against some very big brands,” says C. A. Webb, director of marketing at Preserve. Large retailers are unwilling or unable to devote large chunks of shelf space to an unknown brand, so Preserve put a lot of effort into refining its packaging and marketing to have more of a presence and appeal to a more sophisticated consumer. “Our marketing budget pales in comparison to our competitors,” says Webb. Even though they’ve been around for more than a decade, Preserve still relies heavily on sampling and grassroots marketing. Finally, in 2008, Webb persuaded the marketing department to do their first real advertising campaign. She and her small staff now work closely with a PR firm and smaller marketing agencies to keep the wheels turning. With so little money and so few resources, Preserve relies heavily on publicity to market their brand. A magazine article or television appearance can reach an incredible number of unique consumers—plus, it’s free. Because the green movement is hot right now, Preserve has received great press in The New York Times Magazine, Gourmet, and Every day with Rachael Ray as well as on “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show,” and on Sundance Channel’s “The Green.” “One thing you can be assured of is that some part of it won’t work the way you’d hoped!” says Webb of her strategic marketing plans. She attributes many of the misses to the complexities of working with outside agencies on campaigns. Sometimes it’s a failure to communicate or a firm’s inability to deliver on the plan. No matter the reason, “sometimes you have to figure out a way to save that investment and then other times it just becomes a learning moment when you say, ‘Okay, let’s do the post mortem, let’s understand what went wrong and let’s just be sure we don’t do that again.’ ” Webb admits she hasn’t performed a SWOT analysis, on paper at least, since business school. But when it comes to thinking about new channels, design decisions, bringing a product to market, or just looking at the marketplace in general, “I absolutely use that thinking on a daily basis . . . always,” she says. When Hudson started the company in 1998, he could have only dreamed that America’s desire for green products would be as strong as it is today. Of course, all good trends eventually come to an end. “The interest in green products has just been incredible. The biggest thing I’m concerned about is whether it’s going to kinda have a negative backlash.” He is hoping that, like the dot-com trend that put a laptop on every desk and a BlackBerry in every palm, “We will all realize that we’ve incorporated these green activities in our lives.”
Q1. Do you consider Preserve’s strategy for the Preserve brand a first mover or second mover strategy? Explain.
Q2. Perform a SWOT analysis on Preserve. Identify their core competency and their weaknesses in the marketplace.
Your answer must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman font (size 12), one-inch margins on all sides, APA format and also include references.