Papel del Profesional de Enfermería en la Educación del Paciente con EPO C

Sport Co. (disguised name), a leading

sporting goods manufacturer, has developed a revolutionary golf club named the “Big Drive.” The new design has led to significant increases in distance and accuracy for both beginning and advanced players. The question facing the management team was how to set prices given that there were many different types of golfers who would be potential customers. Beginning players found the club appealing because it was much more forgiving of poorly hit balls compared to traditional clubs. However, the management team believed that beginners would be relatively price sensistive and unwilling to pay a premium price for the technology. More advanced players concerned about

improving performance found the added distance of the Big Drive very appealing, and qualitative research indicated they would be willing to pay a substantial premium for the club.

Knowing that there were multiple segments with different value drivers and willingness-to-pay created a quandry for Sport Co. management—

how should they set prices to maximize profits?

The approach involved several steps. The first was to identify the different segments that might be interested in the new club and profile them based on actionable descriptors.

This segmentation work uncovered four unique segments:

• Innovators: Frequent golfers highly focused on performance.

They tend to have higher incomes and purchase clubs through their local pro shop after extensive consultation with the club pro and friends.

• Value Seekers: Casual players who play from 5 —10 times during the season. They have moderate income and purchase from major retailers such as the Sports Depot or Golf Warehouse. Value seekers are thrifty, but they will pay a premium for added performance.

• Lost Players: This is a large segment of occasional players

who have largely drifted away from the game. They do not purchase significant amounts of golf equipment, but they can be drawn back to playing if a new innovation creates enough buzz to capture their attention.

• Budget Shoppers: These players range widely in ability and frequency of play, but they have budget constraints that limit the amount they can spend on equipment. They typically buy new equipment through discount stores such as Wal-Mart and online outlets.

Having identified the key segments, the

next step was to identify the attributes of the club that each segment found appealing so that they could be tested in the conjoint study. Of the extensive list of attributes that were tested, three were noted most commonly by all segments:

distance, straightness, and consistency.

These attributes were then tested along with some other features of the offering such as warranty in a conjoint survey of 670 golfers.

The results of the conjoint study provided the needed inputs to develop a segmented pricing strategy. For example, the study provided actionable data on consumer willingness-to-pay for various attributes such as a warranty, as shown i n Exhibit 2-8. The initial hypothesis

was that a warranty was not a key driver in the purchase decision; potential purchasers were more focused on the performance attributes of the club. The data revealed that the initial hypothesis was not correct, because consumers across all segments were willing to pay a premium for a one-year warranty.

Interestingly, extending the warranty from one to two years did not lead to a similar increase in willingness-to-pay.

The results also provided key insights into the value derived by different market segments that, in turn, informed the channel pricing strategy.

The data in Exhibit 2-9 shows the differences in willingness-to-pay between the Innovator and Budget

Shopper segments based on the conjoint results. The profit-maximizing price for the innovators was $425, which would lead to approximately 40,000 unit sales.

As expected, the optimal price point for budget shoppers was considerably less at $275. This difference in the value (and hence willingness-to-pay) created a dilemma for Sport Co.: If they set the optimal price for the innovator segment, they would lose many of the budget consumers, who represent nearly 30 percent of the market. This challenge of setting prices when value differs widely across segments is a common one that we will address in detail in Chapter 3.

In this instance, the quantified value estimates of the different segments

combined with a detailed understanding of segment buying patterns and value drivers enabled the team to make a solid business case for a two-tier pricing strategy. With some minor modifications to the club design, aesthetics, and brand, Sport Co. was able to introduce a lower-performance model aimed at budget shoppers and sold through discount retailers. At the same time, they introduced the premium model aimed at Innovators and Value Buyers to be sold at a higher price in pro shops and high-end sporting goods outlets.

EXHIBIT 2-8 Impact of Warranty Length on Willingness to Pay

It was possible to generate reliable estimates of psychological value for the

“Big Drive” because the key benefits of distance and accuracy are ones with which golfers have prior experience.

They know what it feels like to hit the best ball off the tee in their foursome and can imagine what they might pay for that

feeling. Where conjoint and other similar survey research techniques can fall short is when the differentiating benefits are innovative. The research subject in that case must guess what the benefits are and how satisfying they might be. Most people, even those deeply familiar with the technology, are not good at inferring the benefits of innovation. In 1977, the founder and CEO of the world’s second largest computer company at the time asserted publicly, “There is no reason anyone would ever want a computer in their home.” But Steve Jobs did imagine the benefits and set prices for the Apple computer that sparked the growth of the home computer industry.

EXHIBIT 2-9 Impact of Warranty Length on Willingness to Pay

As the GenetiCorp and Sport Co.

examples illustrate, the approach and data used to estimate monetary and psychological values differ

substantially, with each having some advantages over the other. While both approaches yield quantified value estimates that are essential to effective pricing strategy, the qualitative approach used for monetary value enables the price-setter to make an explicit linkage between a product’s differentiated features, the benefits those features create for customers and the value associated with each benefit. The importance of this feature–benefit–value linkage will become clear in later chapters where we discuss bundling and value communication choices.

Quantitative approaches such as conjoint analysis are appealing because they enable the pricing researcher to perform

a wide variety of statistical analyses that can be readily used to test different offering designs and competitive scenarios. In each case, however, they provide the pricing manager with a solid fact base from which to make more profitable pricing choices.