Situational Analysis

Caveman Club Co.

Campaign Title: Let’s Go Outside

Emphasis: To increase sales of T-Shirts and products at the proposed Tie Dye event while
simultaneously encouraging people to say “Let’s Go Outside.”

Focus: To develop an event that will increase awareness of the client’s mission, and increase
their exposure on social media by increasing followers and engagement on social media.

Campaign Team:

Esha Mohammed
Cameron Owen
I’Reisha Pettiett
Zac Smith
Bronte Underwood

MC4320: Public Relations Campaigns

T-TH 12:30-1:50 PM

Course Instructor: Professor Paul Villagran

 Executive Summary

The “Let’s Go Outside” campaign we are running for The Caveman Club was formulated

in order to increase brand awareness, in both San Marcos and online, which will hopefully lead

to increased sales. After the company was born, Kc realized his passion for promoting outdoor

activities and the beauty of nature so in an effort to tie both his business and his passion

together, “Party Outside” became the company tagline. The Caveman Club Co started making

money by word of mouth, but they now have a digital presence with Instagram and Etsy. The

company is a one man show, with Kc calling all the shots. He attends a few markets every so

often but majority of his sales are made through social media. From the conception, The

Caveman Club Co. has been a self-funded project.

Kc began his company in his hometown of Montgomery, Texas just north of Houston. He

began to draw whatever came to his mind, while also trying to encourage his friends to unplug

and from their electronics and just hang up, and hang out. Once he drew up a few designs, he

gave them to his younger cousin to sell at school and once his friends purchased t-shirts and

went off to all different colleges, Kc began to collect photos from all of his clients and was able

to fill his Instagram with photos of his t-shirts all over the country at different national parks.

With these photos, Kc was able to grow an Instagram following and make sales through his

Direct Message on the app. There are several factors that may get in the way of Kc’s success,

such as trends in the fashion market and other local established brands getting in his way,

however he has been able to overcome all of them and become a one man company with no

stakeholders. Kc knows his demographics well and caters to their needs as he sees fit.
 Caveman Club Co. has many strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that add

and take away from its business. A big strength is its brand and mission itself. It has a powerful

and genuine message that can attract people and help them become more one with

themselves. A weakness, or rather an area for improvement, would be improving their social

media presence and followers, posting more content, and making sure the pricing is affordable

for the population/demographics that it appeals to. An opportunity is partnering with other

organizations, specifically The Outdoors Club. Lastly, a threat would be its competitors that not

only have online stores, but store fronts as well. That can be potentially double the business for

them, whereas Caveman Club Co. is currently only online.

Caveman Club Co. has grown through mutual connections between brand and

consumer. After launching his Instagram, he rocketed into direct messages from consumers

wanting custom orders, promotions on social media, and a shop on Etsy. The company has now

been making strides to engage the San Marcos community and encourage them to become

active in the brand. Caveman Co. is working on their primary growth in San Marcos, Texas,

especially at Texas State University. In order to gain the attention of the community we are

looking to plan a tie-dye event focused on the mission of Caveman Co, getting people outdoors,

as well as acquire exposure. Our plan is to also introduce students to the quality and content of

Caveman Co. t-shirts and differentiate it from other brands, specifically by the tie-dye event.

Finding a venue to host the tie-dye event has become our main priority for Caveman Co.

Because of competition with cheaper prices and greater brand awareness we will struggle to

compete with local brands that have cheaper prices and similar product, such as Plato’s Closet,

Creeds & Crests Inc, as well as others. Fortunately, our client is able to keep tabs on his key
demographics and focus on them. For the future we will be advising our client to take

advantage of third party software such as Hootsuite in order to keep his social media up to

date, as well as his customers satisfied and happy.

Problem Statement: Our client wants to increase community presence in San Marcos and
online to increase online sales.

Situational Analysis: The situational analysis is a tool that businesses use to identify internal
and external concerns when developing a communications plan. In this section we will consider
the client’s:
● Mission, Vision, Values
● Organizational History
● Organizational Structure
● Funding

Internal factors:

Mission, Vision and Values

The client’s mission is to encourage activity outdoors over activity online. He strongly
values face-to-face connection and human interaction through outdoor activity. The company
tagline “Party outside” supports this.

Organizational History
The Caveman Club began with Kc when he was just out of high school and was still living
in his hometown. He was always drawing and had a naturally creative mind and also loved to do
so when he was outdoors, living free of all his electronics. This is the purpose of his brand, to
encourage people to engage in outdoor activities, have fun and be free of the internet. To live
like a Caveman and party outside.
Once his creative juices were flowing, he made a few t-shirts for his cousin, who was still
in high school, to sell when he was at school. He would give his cousin a small percentage of his
earnings, and once he sold several shirts he was able to get some social media pages running
and sell his products on other platforms. He has had a website before, but opted to take down
the website because he did not think his site was professional enough. This led him to move his
sales platform to Etsy, where he has a few pieces listed, but mainly makes his sales through
Instagram Direct Messages. Instagram is his now his primary source of making sales on his
original pieces, as well as custom orders placed by his followers.

Organizational Structure
Caveman Club Co. exists solely online and uses social media to generate engagement
and sales. Our client uses Instagram to promote both his products and the lifestyle that they
represent. He has 1,839 followers on Instagram as of this writing and has expressed interest in
growing his following as well as the amount of engagements he gets on his content. We feel
that this can be achieved by increasing the frequency of his posts to foster a more consistent
social media presence. Increasing Instagram activity will keep him higher in his followers’ feeds
and make him more visible. Higher visibility is known to raise follower engagement as well. KC
also maintains a storefront on Etsy where all of his sales take place.
 Funding
Since the founding of The Caveman Club Co, Kc has self financed his entire company.
Most of his projects have began either in his room or outside in Austin on the Barton Creek
Greenbelt. Once he has his designs drawn on paper, Kc can design it online, post a photo and
wait for his orders to accumulate in his Instagram Direct Messages.

External factors:

Trends/Issues Emerging in the Industry

Consumer spending is expected to grow over the next five years with the increase in
disposable income. With this growth in income consumers can be expected to be “less price
sensitive and more responsive to advertising and branding”(O’Connor, 2019). One threat to this
trend is the limited growth in the number of adults aged 20 to 64 over the next five years. This
means fewer new customers in our client’s target demographic to buy new clothes.
People are more willing to purchase items from brands that they are familiar with and
whom they think have a positive impact on society and the environment. This trend of
corporate social responsibility could be advantageous to our client even when he doesn’t
operate on a corporate scale.

Competing Forces, Factors and Challenges

Some factors that could possibly be hindering the success of The Caveman Club include
being located in a college town, the threat of several other local t-shirt companies striving to be
successful in the same town, along with other brands that have been existing in the area who
already have a footprint in the town.
The college town, San Marcos, plays a factor because when you live in an area that is
predominately college students, many of the students are not putting “t-shirts” as a top priority
to spend money on, since when you are in college there are plenty of opportunities to get free
t-shirts. Also, being in San Marcos there are several local t-shirt brands that have already been
established in this town. That being said, when people come to visit San Marcos they may
already have a plan to buy a San Marvelous t-shirt and may not have the extra money to spend
on a t-shirt brand that is new and upcoming.
 Relevant Publics/Stakeholders
Caveman Club Co. is an independent business ran solely by CEO Kc Powell, he does not have
any stakeholders. Because he started his business in his hometown of Montgomery, Texas at
his local high school, his customers include males and females ages 17-24. As his high school
customers graduated they attended multiple different universities and his company spread
through word of mouth. This grew Caveman Co. and they blossomed as an online t-shirt
business. Overtime the customer base has evolved. The key demographics are now males and
females ages 18-23. The majority of his online orders are from San Marcos, Texas where most
of his organic promotion is conducted.

S. W. O. T.
Strengths:

Some strengths that the Caveman Club Co. has are that their mission statement about
reconnecting with the outdoors is something a lot of people support, they can ship orders,
orders can be customizable and the owner is relatable and genuine.

Weaknesses:

A few weaknesses facing The Caveman Club Co are that their social media posts aren’t
consistent, the brand is fairly unknown to the general public and especially to his target
audience (college students), his pricing may be high for a college student on a budget that can
get a t-shirt at Target for 5 dollars and the fact that they currently only sell shirts when other
clothing companies have it all.

Opportunities:

A big opportunity that The Caveman Club has is that a new organization started on
campus within the past year called the “Outdoors Club” and it seems like it would be a good
organization to partner with and possibly sponsor with club t-shirts. With some coaching and
advice about social media, the Caveman club has the opportunity to make a big impression on
the community and spread the word about his brand. The company also has plans to work on
some other products besides t-shirts and with that, has the opportunity to reach new
audiences.

Threats:

Some of the threats facing The Caveman Club Co are being based in a college-town, the
other local competing t-shirt companies, more established clothing companies that have brand
recognition and the lack of consistency of posts of social media sites like Instagram.
 Current Situation

Development

Soon after the launch of The Caveman Club, the main use of public relations was
through word of mouth by his cousin, friends and happy customers. A little later, he launched
social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to establish a digital presence and has since
used tactics like giveaways and polls to engage with his clients and to promote his brand.
Because he saw sales come through on Instagram, he began to sell his shirts at local markets as
a vendor and recently has launched an Etsy site to supplement sales from both social media and
markets.

Current Position

Since moving to San Marcos, the Caveman Club has seen some growth but has stay
steady for the most part when it comes to sales. The company has yet to find a way to integrate
themselves into the San Marcos community.

Direction

The lack of consistent posting on social media is a huge issue that needs to be
addressed. With a goal of becoming more involved in the San Marcos/Texas State University,
the Caveman Club has missed some major opportunities like partnering with the Outdoors club
on campus or setting up a pop-up shop in the Quad. Some goals for the company in general are
to increase sales, create more product than just t-shirts, attend more events as a vendor and
venture into other markets, like the music festival scene. Some of the expectations for our
campaign are to come up with a hashtag/promotional concept that brings together the clothes
and the company’s mission of being outdoors, help plan and organize a tie dye event that
allows each attendee the chance to make their own custom Caveman Club shirt and to increase
the overall quality of the company’s Instagram content.

Obstacles

Some challenges we might face during this campaign would be not being able to find a
venue for our tie-dye t-shirt event we plan to organize as the final piece of our campaign.
Another would be low engagement from the company’s Instagram audience during a giveaway
or in a poll. Lastly, we might struggle to increase sales dramatically because of cheaper clothing
items from competing companies, especially since the market he wants to make a presence in
currently is college students in a college town on a budget.

Resources

The client has access to his Instagram analytics, so our team knows where our starting
point is as well as what kind of content his audiences likes/doesn’t like. He also has total sales
and money brought in during different events and markets, so we can advise him of what kind
of events to attend in the future. With our suggestion of using a content management system,
our client will be utilizing Hootsuite or Plannoly to schedule posts and continue viewing
analytics.
 References

1. O'Connor, Claire. “Family Clothing Stores in the U.S.” IBISWorld Industry Report 44814,
IBISWorld, Dec. 2018, clients1-ibisworld-
com.libproxy.txstate.edu/reports/us/industry/default.aspx?entid=1069.

2. Cohen, Anya. “Online Original Design T-Shirt Sales in the US.” IBISWorld Industry Report
OD5439, IBISWorld, Dec. 2017, clients1-ibisworld-
com.libproxy.txstate.edu/reports/us/industry/default.aspx?entid=5439

3. Owen, C. (19, February 13). [Caveman Club Co. Survey]. Unpublished raw data.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWVG67W
 Survey Instrument

86 people took our survey about demographics, shopping habits/preferences and outdoors
activities.

1. I am a…
a. Male (17.4%)
b. Female (82.6%)
c. Gender non-conforming (0.0%)

2. I am…
a. 17-24 years old (76.5%)
b. 25-39 years old (11.8%)
c. 40+ years old (11.8%)

3. What is your average screen time per day?

a. 0-1 hour (0.0%)
b. 2-4 hours (54.7%)
c. 5-10 hours (41.9%)
d. 11+ hours (3.5%)

4. What is the average amount of time you spend outdoors daily?

a. 0-1 hour (40.7%)
b. 2-4 hours (52.3%)
c. 5-10 hours (7.0%)
d. 11+ hours (0.0%)

5. What is your favorite outdoors activity?

The most common answer for this was “hiking”.

6. What is the maximum you are willing to spend on a t-shirt?

a. 5-10 dollars (11.8%)
b. 11-20 dollars (44.7%)
c. 21-30 dollars (35.3%)
d. 31-40 dollars (8.2%)

7. What item would you like to see The Caveman Club Co design next?
a. Yoga mat (17.4%)
b. Hats (52.3%)
c. Beach towel (18.6%)
d. Bandana (11.6%)
 8. Would you rather purchase a tie-dyed shirt or purchase a DIY tie die kit?
a. DIY tie die kit (30.2%)
b. Tie dyed shirt (69.8%)

These results have shown us many things that will be able to help us plan our campaign. We
know that majority of our target are college-aged females so we can cater more specifically to
this group of people. Although majority of the people surveyed said that they spend the same
amount of time looking at a screen as they do outdoors (2-4 hours), we know there is still room
to grow, more people to get active outside. We wanted to know what the consensus for
“favorite outdoor activity” and if the average person prefers to buy a product already tie dyed
or to do it themselves so that when we plan our campaign’s final event, we had some sort of
idea as to what to include. We also needed to know the max that the average consumer is
willing to spend on a t-shirt so that Kc doesn’t lose business because his prices are too high. And
lastly, we wanted to know which product excited the audience more because in the near
future, the Caveman club is looking to expand to more than just shirts.