Demonstrate, using evidence from the case, which type of entrant is Tupperware AND explain 3 advantages of this timing.
Tupperware
Having made ‘Poly-T’ (as he named it), Earl Tupper from Massachusetts, looked around to find ways of using it, coming up, amongst other things, with a food container which he could make in fresh bright colours. More important, he took inspiration from the way paint tins are sealed to develop a snap-on lid which gave an excellent seal. He registered his patent in 1947 (awarded in 1949), launched a range of 14 products – and failed to grow any kind of market. Not entirely surprising since plastics were still in their early stage as consumer products; people associated the material with being easy to break, greasy to touch and smelly.
What he was offering was a good product with a potentially big relative advantage – an alternative to tin foil as a way of storing and keeping food fresh. He tried to deal with the issues the market was concerned about – his plastics were brightly coloured, odourless and soft to the touch – and priced reasonably. Market testing suggested they should sell – people described them as “featherweight,” “flexible” and “modern.”
In another corner of the USA a possible solution was already in operation. The Stanley Home Product Company distributed and sold brushes, cleaning materials and other household goods and in the process had evolved an interesting sales model. They’d been experimenting with a novel approach; instead of selling door-to-door their salesmen had begun to organise parties and invite local housewives (their target market) to a social event; during the evening there would be a demonstration of some of the products Stanley were trying to sell.
The model built on the idea of creating a stage – a context in which the customers could be exposed to the product in an environment which was social, comfortable, safe and without pressure. The sales pitch came alongside food, drink and conversation – and it was much harder to close the door on the salesperson. Tupper could see the potential value in this approach, so he engaged the Stanley company to distribute his new Tupperware range and sales began to improve, though not as expected.
Brownie Mae Wise, a single mother was working hard to try and make ends meet and worked as a party demonstrator for Stanley Home Products. She was an innovator with a gift for what we might call ‘position innovation’. Innovation not in the product or process but in the way it is sold – the story wrapped around it, the opening of a new market by pioneering and improving sales techniques. She guessed that the home party model was still in its infancy but offered plenty of potential; so in 1949 she left Stanley Home Products and set up her own business, Patio Parties, selling, amongst other things, Tupperware.
She recruited other ‘housewives’ who were well-dressed, social and had an interest in throwing parties. The model gave the women who acted as hostess several incentives; they had social status not only for organising a party but also for being the source of information which others valued – in this case about a useful range of products which would make their lives easier. And she would be rewarded, directly with a small gift of Tupperware merchandise but also with commission on the sales she was able to generate across her social networks.
Not surprisingly this consistent improvement in sales caught the attention of Earl Tupper who invited her to this headquarters – and found a woman full of ideas for his sales approach. She told him that people wouldn’t buy his products from catalogues or pick it off shelves in stores. Instead they needed to see it, feel it, even smell it. They needed to be able to drop it and throw it across the room without the seal leaking. They needed to enjoy the bright colours and the practical shapes. And they needed to be reassured by having this experience in the company of a trusted friend or a neighbour. It was convincing enough to get him to withdraw from his current sales channels and instead to sell it exclusively using the home party approach. The move paid off; by 1952 sales had jumped to over $2m with the figures tripling in the final quarter of the year.
From the above case:
Demonstrate, using evidence from the case, which type of entrant is Tupperware AND explain 3 advantages of this timing.
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