ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ASAD ULLAH
SP17-BBA-014  
Gorilla Marketing Strategy of Broshems
Situation Analysis
Market Situtation
The market situation is unique at Borsheims Fine Jewelry and Gifts because they are
owned by Berkshire Hathaway and located in Omaha, Nebraska.
Demographics
Borsheims demographics are diverse in every way. The majority of customers are
female, but the purchaser tends to be predominantly male. The average age of a
Borsheims customer is around 40, but they have customers that range from early 20s up.
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders tend to give the most business to Borsheims and
shareholders are mainly from the baby boomer generation (Fischer, Personal
Communication, 2014). Since Borsheims deals with different life events, a customer’s
marital status is not a major demographic.
Psychographics
The average income of a Borsheims customer is $75,000+ and they tend to be college
educated. Borsheims prides itself on having a diverse customer base. The majority of
customers that apply for credit have an average income of $40,000 (Fischer, Personal
Communication, 2014). Throughout Berkshire Hathaway weekend customers could range
from CEO’s to farmers. Customers can never be judged based on clothing because the
people that tend to buy the most during the annual Berkshire Hathaway weekend are
farmers and international who rarely get to Omaha (Fischer, Personal Communication,
2014). During Berkshire Hathaway weekend, Borsheims offers a discount to shareholders
from the Monday before the weekend to the Saturday after the weekend; however,
employee’s might not know the exact discount until the Borsheims shopping event on the
Sunday of the shareholder weekend (Berkshire Hathaway, Visitor’s Guide, 2014).
Borsheims customers tend to be of an old-fashioned mind set when it comes to giving
gifts to people for life events. Some life events that people would shop at Borsheims for
include, engagements, weddings, births, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Confirmations, graduations,
thank you or hostess gifts.
Product Situation
Borsheims offers a variety of products from engagement rings to decorative plates.
Borsheims pricing is given a stigma that they are expensive because the quality and customer
service is comparable to Tiffany’s. If people would take the time to compare pricing for
engagement rings between several of Borsheims competitors, they would see that pricing is
more reasonable than other places. The chart below shows the difference in pricing of the
same ring, if available, for three competitors of Borsheims. The prices were taken from each
company’s website.
Competitive Situation
Borsheims’ competitors are not only local, but also national because of Berkshire
Hathaway. The major competitors include:
• Tiffany & Co. (National)
• Helzberg Diamonds (National and Berkshire Hathaway Owned)
• Zales Jewelers (National)
• Kay Jeweler (National)
• Blue Nile (Online)
• Nebraska Diamond (Local)
• Alletti Jewelry (Local)
• Malashocks (Local)
The local companies around Omaha, especially family owned, have had to break into new
markets because of more competition. Blue Nile has become Borsheims biggest competitor
because their website gives the same information on diamonds including size, cut, clarity,
color, price options, and mounting and diamonds are sold separately.
Distribution Situation
Borsheims is a retailer of fine jewelry and gifts. The designers sell their products through
Borsheims. Borsheims has a flagship store in Omaha, Nebraska and a boutique in Gretna,
Nebraska, along with their website. Market coverage for Borsheims is both selective and
exclusive. One service that Borsheims offers, that is very exclusive, is a person can go
through an extensive background check, once they have spent a certain amount of money at
Borsheims or own a certain amount of Berkshire Hathaway stock, and be sent different
pieces of jewelry, try them on in the comfort of their home, choose what they want, and then
send the pieces that they don’t want back (Fischer, Personal Communication, 2014). This is
also an option for celebrities who are walking the red carpet and the Aksarben Ball, which is
an event held in Nebraska every year.
With technology improving, Borsheims could purchase new technology to help with
inventory, but that is not the case. Borsheims does have newer technology to help with the
cohesion between inventory and sales, but they still have Diamond Librarians. A diamond
librarian takes inventory of all diamonds that are brought into Borsheims, they ensure that the
cut and clarity is whatever the distributor said it is. They also look for imperfections in the
diamond and price it as such (Fischer, Personal Communication, 2014). Once they have
examined the diamond, they enter it into the database which is then uploaded to Borsheims
website and entered into the computer system so the sales associates can give correct
information. This technique is older, but keeps up with the value of Borsheims to be the best
in customer service.
Macroenvironment Situation
There are several external factors that can affect Borsheims at any point in time. One
being that they are a company that is privately held under Berkshire Hathaway, the stock
market controls quite a bit of what they are able to do. Also, any time there is a scandal with
a Berkshire Hathaway company or executive, Borsheims could be affected. The economy is
also an external factor especially if people don’t have extra income to buy certain gifts for
life cycle events, Borsheims could be affected.
Target Market
The ideal target market for Borsheims to focus on is a young couple in their mid-twenties.
They are college educated and have been in a relationship for several years. They are at the
point
in their relationship where they are ready to get engaged and need to choose between several
jewelry retailers.
Day in the Life
Jim and Kristine grew up in Omaha, Nebraska; Jim, a member of an affluent family,
Kristine, a member of a middle-class, blue collar family. They met at the University of
Nebraska-Omaha where they went to college and joined the Greek System. Jim always
dreamed of becoming a lawyer, like his mother, and Kristine wanted to be a CEO, unlike her
family. They fell in love her sophomore year of college, and his junior year of college. Jim
graduated from UNO and went on to attend Creighton Law School.
Creative Strategy Statement
The advertising will convince our target audience of Millennials, especially females 18-30,
that Borsheims Fine Jewelry & Gifts provides great customer service while selling products
that are affordable and timeless. The support will be through customer testimonials and
payment options. The tone will be feminine, cheerful, elegant and honest.
Use of brosheims guerilla market strategy in small to medium enterprise:
Guerrilla marketing is defined as an advertising strategy, in which low-cost unconventional
means are used, employs various techniques which keep costs at a minimum, and is often
adopted by small companies. In this research, 100 SME’s that are working on different
sectors in Istanbul have been reviewed to understand if these companies are aware of this
marketing strategy and if they have ever used these tactics in their marketing. Although in
former studies guerilla marketing is said to be adopted by small companies, this research
shows that most of the Turkish SME’s had never used or willing to use guerilla marketing in
their past or future marketing plans.In today's highly fragmented media landscape, generating
positive word of mouth (WOM) among consumers has become a very important tool for
marketers (Bowman and Narayandas, 2001; Godes and Mayzlin, 2004; Liu, 2006) and this is
especially so in digital media (Huang and Chen, 2006). Traditional marketing methods
simply do not reach theirtarget audiences with the same effectiveness as they did just a
decade ago. Instead, WOM Has become an increasingly useful channel to share information
in our society and should continue to grow in importance (Keller And Berry, 2003). Thus,
there has been a recent surge of interest in how marketers can take advantage of new
marketing techniques.
Guerilla marketing, which consists of strategies that can be applied by businesses easily and
with little cost, is an important marketing tool that companies should learn and make use of in
order to be successful in such a competitive environment.(Ay, Aytekin, and Nardali, 2010).
In Wikipedia, guerrilla marketing is defined as an advertising strategy, in which low-cost
unconventional means (graffiti or street art, sticker bombing, flash mobs) are used, often in a
localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an
idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerrilla warfare, which utilizes atypical
tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive and unforgiving environment
The basic tactics of guerilla marketing are to substitute innovation and creativity for the staid
and status quo methods of advertising. The guerrilla marketing concept, which was created
by Levinson (1984), implies an unconventional way of performing promotional activities on
a very low budget. Since 1984, Levinson’s ideas have been reworked to illustrate how those
in a variety of occupations can translate the principles of low budget, aggressive marketing to
aid in selling their products Guerrilla marketing draws its strength from creativity and the
power of imagination.
For that reason it is often a hybrid of marketing strategies utilizing a number of practices
which differ from traditional advertising, and by drawing upon innovative materials and
methods it makes it possible to obtain maximum levels of turnover for the lowest cost.
Guerrilla marketing is a powerful means of rapidly boosting a firm’s competitive edge,
particularly for small and middle scale enterprises in today’s fiercely competitive markets
Guerrilla tactics are rational, and it is able to transform its disadvantages into advantages. Jay
Conrad Levinson defines guerrilla marketing in the following terms: “It is for those
entrepreneurs whose budgets are low but their imaginations are great...”
The aim of guerrilla marketing is to maximize public interest in a firm’s goods and services
while also minimizing the costs of advertising. Just like guerrilla warfare, this form of
marketing strives to focus attention in a particular direction. The means to achieving this in
advertising are “different, surprising, original and entertaining,” implemented with a small
budget. Initially, guerrilla marketing was primarily adopted by small companies to allow
them to compete with larger firms that have larger budgets. As Kotler notes, “Guerrilla
warfare is normally practised by smaller companies against larger companies”. However,
changing economic conditions have caused even larger companies to seek out means to
achieve maximum results with smaller budgets in their marketing and advertising activities,
and guerrilla marketing techniques are quite successful in this regard .