Global Ugg is a respected Australian manufacturer and supplier of ugg boots and others sheepskin products and owner of the brand 'Global Ugg'. Global Ugg is a boutique brand that promises to deliver its customers 'handcrafted' authenticity, luxury, style, and comfort at a competitive price point as well as the most fashion-focused ugg boot range in Australia.

The overarching mission of Global Ugg is to deliver comfortable, stylish sheepskin footwear to men, women and children globally. They have created different types of footwear, from sandals and slippers to boots in a variety of colours; but ugg boots are their predominant product.

Global Uggs' goals for the current year are:

1.Maintain positive, steady growth each quarter.

2.Experience a growth in new customers who are turned into long-term customers.

3.Be recognised as the premier Australian-owned high-end ugg boot provider.

A strong emphasis is placed on the quality creation of their products, and Global Ugg is therefore dedicated to providing the highest quality footwear available, and does so by utilising only the highest quality of leathers, suede and sheepskin.

In communications to date, a strong emphasis has been placed on its 100% Australian made/authenticity positioning as the highest quality ugg boots available. 'Every pair of

Global Ugg boots are meticulously crafted from a selection of premium components at a manufacturing facility in Sydney, Australia, by highly trained craftsmen'. However, a major challenge for Global Ugg has been that Deckers (Ugg Australia) own the worldwide trademark on the word 'UGG'. Deckers are notorious litigators and very aggressive in protecting their trademarks, using bullying tactics like intimidation of smaller competitors, baseless legal actions, and lobbying customs and government authorities. This has made for a very difficult situation for Australian manufacturers who want to market their products and sell internationally, as they can't use the word 'UGG' outside Australia.

Situation analysis - Internal and external

Over the past 10 years, the marketplace has become very competitive and is only getting tougher, with a number of manufacturers locally and internationally (Pacific Sheepskin,

Jumbo UGG, Chic Empire, UGG Australia, and Emu Australia) offering very similar products at very similar prices. There are also numerous smaller brands that sell Ugg boots extremely cheaply, but these are usually not made from real sheepskin.

Even though these companies do differ behind the scenes in how they operate and manufacture, from the customer's perspective they all look similar. This is making it harder and harder for the authentic sheepskin manufacturers like Global Ugg to get noticed, to differentiate and, ultimately, to grow sales.

Even so, the Global Ugg brand has an excellent reputation in the sheepskin footwear industry and is in a strong position, particularly in terms of offering 100% Australian made, superior quality products, style variety, and customer service at a cheaper price point to its competitors (between $80-$150 per pair). The unique selling proposition of Global Ugg is 'luxury and style handcrafted in Australia'.

However, Global Ugg possess relatively low market awareness overall, mostly due to the lack of a clear and consistent marketing strategy. An inherent weakness is the brand itself, which suffers greatly from being outdated and incongruous with the high quality image the brand is trying to project. Overall, whilst Global Ugg does have significant strengths, they may not be sustainable long-term, as their products are easily delivered and copied by most of the other brands.

Marketing activities to date

Global Ugg has trialled/dabbled in a number of marketing activities over the years, but unfortunately has not had the resources to give each activity the attention it needs to make it successful. A few activities have generated a good response for a short time, but have not been sustainable (due mainly to budget). This has resulted in a very inconsistent marketing program with low ROI in most areas. The only forms of marketing Global Ugg have used consistently are email marketing and search engine marketing, but these have been met with minimal success.

Even so, the business has managed to sustain itself well by having a good product, strong online sales and a good wholesale network. Global Ugg depends heavily on retail point-of-sale through 1) their own stores, 2) wholesalers and 3) online marketing. The split is about 30% of sales for each of these 3 areas.

A dynamic SWOT analysis of Global Ugg's market and operations has revealed the following.

The target audience

Currently, Global Ugg segment their target market by:

geographical location (Australia vs overseas)

demographics (male, female, kids)

distribution channel (traditional retail, visiting tourists, online retail, wholesalers, bulk export).

For the B2B audience (wholesalers), there doesn't seem to be any segmentation used, except current versus prospective.

To date, no formal research has ever been done to understand customers and develop true personas. In addition, customer segments have not been used to craft specific messaging, which could be affecting the ability of communications to cut through. The challenge here is for Global Ugg to really get to know its ideal customers. This should be based on real data about customer demographics, online behaviour, and preferences, along with educated guesses about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns. A formal customer research project is planned for the following year, including deep analysis of their own customer database.

Global Ugg intend look more into the lifestyle of an ugg boot buyer; e.g. tourists looking for iconic Australian gifts or authentic uggs, and those who buy for comfort, price, warmth or fashion. They also intend to look at segmenting their wholesalers into groups, such as: what they do (department store, tourist shop, footwear store); how they operate (retail store versus online); their buying patterns (how they place orders, how often, how many); and even how they behave (loyal and regular vs. buy-back consignment stores).

The strategy

At its essence, the focus of the marketing and communications strategy for this year and beyond is about building the foundations for increased brand awareness and recognition of the Global Ugg brand and value in the marketplace by:

1.Positioning Global Ugg as the best value (quality, affordable) brand of sheepskin products in Australia and overseas.

2.Educating the target audience about the ugg boot manufacturing process in a compelling way.

3.Focusing on 'innovation' and 'product diversification' to differentiate Global Ugg from its competitors.

4.Representing the Global Ugg brand consistently in a fresh, creative and modern way.

5.Using compelling content to build loyalty with customers.

6.Building a consistent and repeatable marketing program.

7.Developing stronger relationships with the wholesaler network.

Key marketing activities will centre on building a stronger brand story, rebuilding its online presence and combining this with a strong POS, PR program, social media engagement and direct marketing strategy. It will use a range of marketing channels online and offline to re-educate its audiences about Global Uggs' key differentiators, and aggressively promote and support the fact that the Global Ugg suite of products are the best brand choice if you are looking for sheepskin footwear.

There are many areas of the business where the creative translation of ideas can be implemented, improved and enhanced. If Global Ugg can undertake this effectively, it will make it more difficult for competitors to easily copy or dominate the market, and will give Global Ugg the opportunity to generate the results it is looking for.

In the case study Global UGG has stated the business goals for the next 12 months as;

1. Maintain positive, steady growth each quarter.

2. Experience a growth in new customers who are turned into long-term customers.

3. Be recognized as the premier Australian-owned high-end ugg boot provider.

Refer to the above business goals, and according to the case study, write three (3) smart marketing objectives for Global UGG. You can make assumptions regarding reasonable numbers that would appear in marketing objectives (each SMART marketing objective should be one sentence long).

SMART Marketing Objectives

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2.

3.