BilleBeino marketing strategy

Marketing communication
Rudolf Jurvanen AA2179
Patrik Peltohaka AA2825
Julius Taskinen AA2894
Kristina Novikova AA2218
Minh Bui AA4078

March 2021
Business Administration
Degree Program in International Business
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Contents

1 Introduction...................................................................................................................2
2 Analysis of the subject....................................................................................................2
2.1 National and international environment...........................................................................2
2.2 Market and buyer characteristics......................................................................................2
2.3 SWOT-analysis of the brand (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).................3
2.3.1 Strenghts..................................................................................................................3
2.3.2 Weaknesses..............................................................................................................3
2.3.3 Opportunities...........................................................................................................3
2.3.4 Threats......................................................................................................................4
3 Objectives.......................................................................................................................4
3.1 Step 1: Address a specific need of a customer..................................................................4
3.2 Step 2: Always improve products or services....................................................................4
3.3 Step 3: Customer opinion becomes part of the brand......................................................4
3.4 Step 4: Be proactive in communicating changes to customers........................................5
3.5 Step 5: Exceeding customer expectations.........................................................................5
4 Segmentation.................................................................................................................5
4.1 Geographical......................................................................................................................5
4.2 Demographical...................................................................................................................5
4.3 Psychographic....................................................................................................................6
4.4 Behavioral..........................................................................................................................6
5 The marketing mix..........................................................................................................6
5.1 BilleBeino & marketing mix...............................................................................................7
5.2 What can we improve on BilleBeino PR?..........................................................................7
5.3 Tools to rise the value of PR..............................................................................................7
6 Action plan.....................................................................................................................8
References..........................................................................................................................10
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1 Introduction

BilleBeino is a company founded by Ville Leino, an ex-hockey play. It is a lifestyle brand that has
grown successfully over the past years. Their main product line is clothing, but they have also
launched a product line for sunglasses, and they have founded a padel hall. They do not shy away
from collaborations either, which is great to see in today’s modern world. In this report, we will go
through how we would execute a marketing strategy for BilleBeino as a PR agency.

2 Analysis of the subject

2.1 National and international environment

2.2 Market and buyer characteristics

Firstly, we would start with the times when the brand just began to develop and grow. Founders
of Billebeino said that when they produced their first products, they sold them to their friends. But
since Ville Leino, the founder of Billebeino, is a famous NHL player, he has popular friends who are
also famous at least in Finland. So, such people as Teemu Selanne, who is NHL player too, and Kimi
Raikkonen, Formula 1 driver, wore Billebeino beanies when the company was just at the start of
its development. Probably, it was a great start in their marketing strategy, and it gave an
advantage to the brand. What’s more, Billebeino clothes is also worn by popular people in sport or
music related spheres not only in Finland. For example, P. K. Subban, an American hockey player,
wore a Billebeino cap on the press day of a Stanley Cup. Talking about targeted markets of the
company, it is important to mention that their clothes is sold not only for sport and hockey fans.
The background of Billebeino is obviously related to hockey but as Juhani Putkonen, co- founder of
the company, said: “Billebeino is a lifestyle brand” so their clothes is for everyone.
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2.3 SWOT-analysis of the brand (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

2.3.1 Strenghts

Billebeino has many strengths which will be discussed in this paragraph. For example, the brand
had already had collaborations with New Balance and Umbro in Finland. Billebeino also has quite
many customers in its home country and it is well- known for their logo. We consider this as a
strength as it will help the company to continue expanding its customer base. What’s more, the
brand started to develop and expand rapidly thanks to excellent marketing strategy with the use
of social media. And one more advantage of Billebeino which I would like to mention is their
sustainability. Products of the brand are made of 100% recycled materials and 40% of their
clothing is made of Pure Waste fabrics. As it is said on Billebeino official website, since 2015 they
saved more than 865 million liters of water, using these materials. So, it seems that the brand
is pretty responsible and caring about nature and the planet. This feature is extremely
valuable nowadays and it makes Billebeino more attractive to consumers.

2.3.2 Weaknesses

2.3.3 Opportunities

In our opinion, opportunities of this brand are great, especially with right strategies and
approaches. First of all, Billebeino is already quite successful brand as it is known worldwide.
Moreover, Ville Leino is planning to continue working on his brand after the career of a hockey
player. Later founders of the brand hope to expand their brand to the American and European
market which can bring many new opportunities. For instance, Billebeino will be presented in
trade shows in Europe, more accurately- in Germany and Denmark. Additionally, more and more
new products and items of clothes are launched and produced by Billebeino and there are also
some collaborations expected in the future. All these factors point to the fact that a brand has a
bright future if it will be developed further.
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2.3.4 Threats

3 Objectives

3.1 Step 1: Address a specific need of a customer

BilleBeino belongs to a certain group of customers. It could be solving a customer's problem or

adding value to them. But this value lies in the product's features or the benefits that your solution
brings to customers. If BilleBeino cannot meet the needs of the customer, they are always ready
to leave you and look for an alternative product.

3.2 Step 2: Always improve products or services

Customer needs are constantly evolving and you need to keep up with those continual changes.
New information or the introduction of new products changes the tastes of customers. If you do
not improve your product, you may be discarded. Customers require easy-to-use, more
convenient, better, better design ... If the product is version 1.0, you need to have a plan for
upgrading to the new versions 2.0, 3.0 to better suit the needs of customers, with new features
and new benefits.

3.3 Step 3: Customer opinion becomes part of the brand

Not only does customer opinion help you create better products and services that meet customer
needs, but customer reviews can also help your business grow rapidly. In many industries, the
factor that influences a buying decision comes from one-to-one referral. If I have been used by
someone who has used this product effectively and not advertised, then I tend to trust the
product / brand more.
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3.4 Step 4: Be proactive in communicating changes to customers

Markets, technology are always changing and businesses will also have important changes that
can affect the stability of customers. For example, changes in products, business models, price
policies etc.

3.5 Step 5: Exceeding customer expectations

The strategy that many late-born businesses (Billebeino) assert their position in the market is to
create a customer service that surpasses all inherent standards and sets itself apart from
competitors.

4 Segmentation

Segmentation in marketing means dividing the target population into specific groups. Next, we are
going to discuss about how segmentation will be implemented in BilleBeino’s marketing strategy.

4.1 Geographical

Since part of BilleBeino’s popularity is its relationship with ice hockey (the founder Ville Leino is a
former professional ice hockey player), the marketing strategy will be executed in a way that
people from continents where ice hockey is a popular sport will be targeted. These continents are
North America and Northern Europe.

4.2 Demographical

Demographically, the marketing strategy will try to attract mostly young (15-40 years old) people,
because the design of BilleBeino is mostly youthful. Although, the strategy will not exclude older
or younger population: almost every people who have some kind of relationship with ice hockey
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will be targeted for instance through Instagram. Gender, profession, or education are not relevant
factors for this strategy: we want people to feel like BilleBeino’s apparel is made for everyone.

4.3 Psychographic

As mentioned, BilleBeino has a strong relationship with athletes. Also, BilleBeino promotes their
responsibility as a company, so we want to gain people’s attraction who want to have or already
have sporty lifestyle and at the same time who care about the environment. BilleBeino’s clothing
catalog is not the cheapest one, but we want people to think that investing more money than
usually to fashionable apparel enables them to simultaneously contribute to the war against
climate change.

4.4 Behavioral

Our strategy promotes BilleBeino’s status among famous people and as earlier mentioned, status
as a company which cares about the climate change. With these instruments we want people to
find BilleBeino as a clothing brand which represents these values. When people think they bear
the same characteristics as BilleBeino, they want to support the company and represent the
brand.

5 The marketing mix

Marketing mix consists of the famous 4 P’s of the marketing: Price, Place, Product, Promotion.
Promotion mixes, also known as marketing communications mix, is divided into five different tools
to be used in building customer relations and value (Kotler, Armstrong et al. 2019). The tools are
known as advertising, sales promotion, direct and digital marketing, public relations, and personal
selling (Kotler, Armstrong et al. 2019). The tools of the communications mix are used in promoting
the items of the marketing mix.
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5.1 BilleBeino & marketing mix

BilleBeino uses marketing mix and promotion mix quite agilely. From the marketing mix elements
it is most versatile in Product and Promotion. It has been able to create some buzz already by
using collaborations and creating products that are sustainably made and durable. (Billebeino
website, 2021). Linked to the marketing mix, the way the company has already utilized the
promotion mix tools in use is already great. Trough social media and collaborations it has been
able to create value to its marketing communication.

5.2 What can we improve on BilleBeino PR?

BilleBeino has already good public relations from the use of sustainable and reused materials,
having been linked strongly to sports and doing collaborations with known persons.

5.3 Tools to rise the value of PR

We would create charity campaign by designing a charity-focused collection and/or doing a

collaboration with some charity, for example with UNICEF. In addition, we would create a
campaign in which we would promote only very young athletes and create some hype around
competitive sports with younger kids. Also, we would contribute to charity by donating sportwear
to schools in Finland. As the company is strongly being linked to sports, we would be using that
also in our PR campaign. Our target for PR would be creating idea about people and children
-friendly, sustainable company, that makes clothing with a sporty kick and purpose.
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6 Action plan

Our action plan is to be implemented in one main way. Advertising through influencers will be very
effective, since the target audience spends most of their day in social media. This indicates that
the strategy has a higher probability to succeed, in comparison to another channel, such as
television. We are planning to Choose influencers to work with us based on their follower count,
their type of content and their willingness to commit. There will be a fixed frequency and some
elements that will repeat inside every post. Each post will include a short promotion sentence for
the product, as well as a discount code. These influencers will gain a set % for every sale that is
made through their affiliate link. This concept will incentivize the influencers to work harder. In
addition, they will also gain a down payment when the contract is made, since otherwise they
could end up with no revenue, technically. With this model, we create mutual respect between us
and the employee, hence making all communication more transparent and honest. We truly
believe that when the right influencers are chosen and incentivized correctly, it has the potential
massively boost the sales. (Budget and a proper timetable will be assembled later when the
project kicks off).
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References

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Harris, L. C., He, H. (2019)

Principles of Marketing; Eight European Edition. Pearson

Billebeino, 2021. Billebeino.com Retrieved from

https://eu.billebeino.com/

https://www.goodnewsfinland.com/feature/billebeino-passion-fabric/

https://www.epressi.com/tiedotteet/fashion/the-finnish-clothing-brand-of-a-former-nhl-player-is-
expanding-abroad.html
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