MSc in Marketing

Salome Sakhvadze

14.10.2018

Soren Chemical
Why is the New Swimming Pool Product Sinking?

Company Background and Problem Statement

Soren Chemical was founded by Timothy Soren in 1942 to sell industrial cleaning solutions and the
main focus of the company was B2B market. Soren Chemical product line included over 350
products, and company revenues were $450 million. They usually did not spend many resources to
create consumer awareness for its products. Even thought they were oriented on B2B market, in 2002
company entered the consumer markets with its water clarifier – Kailan MW. Kailan MW was
intended to be used in large recreational water parts of one million gallons or higher. “Most
competing clarifiers required daily application, but Kalian MW’s advantage was its effectiveness over
a long period”.

Since Kailan MW product was unsuitable for small scale applications like household swimming pools,
Soren Chemical launched Coracle in 2006. However, the results have been very discouraging with
sales lagging behind its target by 90% due to a number of strategic and tactical problems.

The main problems identified were:

- The low awareness among consumers about the benefits of Coracle – Residential pool owners
are not professional enough and often they just use the diluted versions of clarifiers. Also,
because of the wrong marketing message, consumers consider the Coracle as just a high
priced product.
- Poor communication strategy as only 30% of retailers and professionals received a response to
their enquiries from the company.
- No support from distributors because Coracle reduces the use of other chemicals by 25%
thereby affecting their margins, high pricing of Coracle as compared to competitors.
The volume target was 50,000 gallons or 100,000 units for the first year of sales. However, Soren has
been able to sell just 3,725 gallons or 7,450 units through the first half of selling season of pool
chemicals. Considering that pool chemicals season lasts just for 9 months from September to May,
Coracle is behind its target by almost 90%.
Recommendations
As I mentioned above in this case there are three identified problems. In this part (recommendations)
I will discuss each of them separately.

Problem #1-The low awareness among consumers about the benefits of Coracle – Residential pool
owners are not professionals enough and often they just use the diluted versions of clarifiers. Also,
because of the wrong marketing message, consumers consider the Coracle as just a high priced
product.

Recommendation
As it was mentioned in the case study, the market potential for residential pools is highly profitable.
In the Unites States there are 9 million residential pools. All of them require maintenance and
cleaning by their owners or a professional pool service. That is the first and most important concern
for owners. They technically do not understand intricacies of the clarifiers they use. They have no
idea of the fact that water which appears clean after using some clarifier may still have several
harmful pathogens which is hard to be easily conspicuous. The pool owners buy based on the
suggestions of the specialty pool retailers and pool service professionals. Accordingly, the awareness
about Coracle needs to be increased. They need to reach directly owners.

In the case of owners cleaning pools by themselves, they need to know the following facts: Coracle
removes the biological contaminants invisible to the naked eye and this is the main benefit which
differentiates Coracles from competitors. In case of using Coral, they will have economic benefits in
the long term, because using Coral automatically reduces the need to use other cleaning chemicals. If
they understand the advantages of Coral, their perception that it’s high priced product will be
changed. For the communication, the company should use messages based on the main benefits and
advantages of the product:

For example:

- Saves cost up to 100$ annually

- Requires less monthly treatments
- Absolutely clears water, free from cloudiness

Direct communication is a better way for consumer to understand the main advantages of the
product.

Company can create an educational animated graphic video – where will be an information about key
benefits and advantages of Coral and they should send this video via E-mail. (Company should
consider e-mail marketing rather than direct marketing to reach the consumers as it is cheaper and
faster than a direct mail). It is always easy to understand details when it is visible and not just words.

Video content should include the following information:

 - Customers must be informed about the difference between clean water and pathogen free
water
- Company must address the key problem of high price perceived by customers by clarifying
how Coracle would be cheaper in the long run as it reduces chemical consumption

Unlike the products of its competitors, Coracle is not used on a daily basis. The company should
highlight that fact. Company can collect information/data about the consumers who visit its website
and use this data for different promotional campaigns.

As I mentioned above, the mail campaign is more expensive but they also can use this communication
channel. It’s not mandatory to send it to millions of people. But they can use Influence marketing.
They can choose influencers who own pools (in their home) and send them non-standard mail (for
example as it was for the world water day campaign https://goo.gl/KUFjwL) .

At the same time, they can upload the created video on the YouTube channel and boost it.
Additionally, with help of Google AdWords they can launch YouTube, display and search campaigns.
In this case they will have an opportunity to choose target. For ads they can use simple and exact
messages. (what I have already mentioned above)

Problem #2 Poor communication strategy as only 30% of retailers and professionals received a
response to their enquiries from the company.
In this case, the service professionals need to inform about the unique selling point of Coracle. And as
it was mentioned in the case study, by using Coracle, their periodic maintenance visits to the pools
would decrease and the chemicals usage will also decline. This will save money and increase their
profit margins. This message must reach the professionals clearly by targeted marketing campaigns.

Direct communication is a best way in this situation. Each professional and each retailer are a very
important target for the company and they have to try their best to reach them with precise
communication and with accurate messages.

Problem #3 No support from distributors because Coracle reduces the use of other chemicals by 25%
what affecting their margins, high pricing of Coracle as compared to competitors.
Coracle is a new brand, and because of it company first of all should adopt a push strategy (above
mentioned recommendations) since there is low brand loyalty and awareness. Because of this it is
hard to promote Coracle to the distributors since they believe that low annual cost of Coracle comes
with low profit margin. It is important for Soren to use a pull strategy through advertisements to raise
brand awareness and build on brand loyalty in the long run. With face-to-face communication, the
company should explain to each distributor what kind of economic benefits they can gain from
Corals product. Therefore, Soren should implement a balance of both push and pull strategies.