Introduction
Toni and Guy salon was cofounded by Toni Mascolo and his brother Guy Mascolo in the year 1963 in London-Clapham. In the late 1990’s, the company grew from their one branch to more than 100 other Salons in London. Toni and Guy salon philosophy was to push the boundaries of hairdressing and to deliver creativity, quality and consistency in every client. The brothers were the first to start the franchising boom. They opened the first franchising salon in Brighton in the year 1988.
Toni and Guy salon operates in the hairdressing industry. It has been the pioneer of professional hairdressing and has outdone all other industry standards to make proficiency available on the global scale. What makes Toni and Guy Salon stand out is their innovativeness with hair dressing; and how they bridge the gap between hairdressing and high fashion. The salon has more than 420 salons in about 42 countries. It has employed more than 5000 in United Kingdom and it has also employed more than 2000 employees around the world. On average the company has over 200,000 employees worldwide.
This report will focus on the hairdressing services; hair treatment products and services that Toni and Guy provides as its main product. Because Toni and Guy Salon is a multinational cooperation, it faces numerous and stiff competition. This is not only because hair trends and fashion are constantly changing, but also because the customers and population preferences and tastes are constantly changing. The Salon faces direct competition from most of their previous employees. Because the company offers hair treatment and services and additional services as products, it could face direct competitions from other salons that offer the same products for example Saco, Andrew Barton Salon and Atherton Cox. They could also face competition from their previous employees who have gone further to establish their own salons or work for other salons. Substitute competitors can come from organizations that offer one product among those that are offered by Toni and Guy.
There are several opportunities and threats that are faced by a hairdressing company like Toni and Guy. The major opportunities provided by the salon are the provision of career opportunities for various individuals and of different backgrounds. In the U. S., 84% of individuals in personal appearance are women which are compared to 47% of employed individuals in the United States working force. The ever changing and evolving hair styles and different trends provide an opportunity for the hair dressing industry. Other opportunities that the salon has include: the introduction of new hair styles, introduction of new styling methods, introduction of new product lines and marques in the organizations inventory and appealing to a new client base. Toni and Guy does these every once in a while during fashion shows non the runway. It also does this when they are contracted to style actors on set. Threats of a hair salon are those things that intimidate the livelihood of the salon business. These threats can range from emerging competition to modifications in the trade’s law and regulations. The salon can however decide to look and identify these threats so that it can adapt ways of overcoming the challenges. The salon can create strategies that counteract their competition, keep their clients and make new clients in order to solve problems that arise from competition. These strategies can include initiating new styles, introducing different promotions and pushing the organization’s customer advantages.
Place
Place refers to the distribution channel that is used to get the products to the customers. The product determines the distribution. Place can also be defined as how the product or service gets to people who will use it. It is the distribution strategy. There are two distribution strategies: Direct and indirect distribution strategies. A direct strategy is a situation whereby the company sells direct to the customers and indirect is a situation whereby wholesalers and retailers are involved. The salon in this case is a direct distribution strategy.
Companies have to offer their services on time and at the right place so that they can increase their client and consumer base. In order to have an efficient functioning place, marketers should think about the cost of selling their products in different locations. The marketers should consider a place that the target market would be more likely to use the services. It is also important to consider the distance from the clients so that the clients can save their time. The place should also be safe.
For the hairdressing product, it is important to understand the target market before choosing the place. The target market in this case includes people of ages 35-55 and mostly includes the females. There are also various needs of the clients of the salon. These needs have been met by the salon establishing various branches in different parts of the world. Toni and Guy has fulfilled their client needs by reinventing themselves regularly to keep up with the market trends and the changing tastes and preference of their customers. The salon has also found success by focusing the place aspect of its marketing mix on the unique behaviors and expectations of the client who use the salon.
The salon has various branches that are distributed in different places in the world; 420 salons in 42 countries, in order to get its services to various clients in the world. The strategy that the salon has adopted is direct strategy whereby the salon provides the services direct to their customers. This is because the company interacts directly with its customers by providing hair services to its clientele. The salon has vertical marketing channels because it is offering specific hairdressing services to women specifically. The target market is 35-55 year olds. The services provided are professional hairdressing and sale of treatment and hair products; this is aimed at solving the problem of providing different hair trends in the ever changing society. The company also faces competition from a well-defined segment from other salons that offer similar services; this is because of the overlapping focus on the hairdressing service that is provided to its customers.
Promotion
Promotion is the advertisement and selling of marketing. This is how people get to know the services and the products that an organization has to offer. Promotion helps people to understand the product or the services, what they can use the product for, why it is important, that is, why they should want it and what they will use the product for. The customers need to know that the particular service or products will satisfy their needs.
The promotional efforts must have clear messages that target specific audience and this should reach them through the appropriate channel. There should therefore be a market research that identifies the specific individuals that will use the product or service before promotion. To get a target audience, it is imperative for the promotion message to be consistent with the overall marketing image, it should get the target audience attention and should produce the repose that is desired, for example purchasing of a product or use of particular services. There are various ways of promotion that can range from public relations, personal selling, and advertising to sales and promotion. The key channel in promotion is advertising. Advertising methods include: Use of radios, television, print, electronic, word of mouth and generic.
The main goal of an integrated communication strategy is to influence the behavior of specific communication audience. Integrated communication strategy uses different forms of communication that are relevant to the customers and prospects that may be receptive. It is important to have a well-integrated marketing communication strategy in a company to help in search marketing. This occurs when somebody intends to buy something or get a particular product online. Search markets can include Google and other search engines on the internet. Other search engines can include review sites, videos, information from news websites, directories and place based searches. All these are placed together and therefore involve integration. Integrated marketing communication enables accessibility and convenience of information to clients and the aggregation of information and services offered by the organization. With a well-established integrated marketing and communication strategy, the organization can be able to encourage coordinate brand development with both internal and external participants.
Toni and Guy salon promotional objectives that it has adapted to promoting the product category are to give the highest quality cut possible to all their customers. It does these promotions by advertisement for example the use of websites that give details of the packages offered by the salon and use of runway shows that showcase their products
Tony and Guy use advertisement through social websites, websites, print, word of mouth and the television to communicate effectively with its target audience. These tools are effective because they are not only easily accessible by the target audience, but they are also cheap and easily seen by the target audience.