Prompt: "The regional brand manager sent the following memo to the national brand manager for Sun-Beem Facial Cleanser. “We need to institute a huge publicity campaign for the launch of Sun-Beem’s improved formula. Without an enormous media blitz, including television, radio, internet, and magazine ads, potential new customers will not be aware of our product. And previous customers will not be aware that Sun-Beem’s new, non-carcinogenic formula is on the shelves. The best way to combat the negative publicity Sun-Beem’s old formula received is to fight fire with fire, by using the media’s insatiable interest in any new news about Sun-Beem to sell the new formula. This will erase the negative connotations in the minds of former customers, and will ensure that Sun-Beem is once again the best-selling facial cleanser on the market.”"
The regional brand manager tries to make the case that a large amount of money needs to be spent on advertising the new product and that this will make new customers aware of the product and dispel the negative image of the earlier product in the eyes of the old customers, by bringing the new product to the fore. This appears a convincing argument, but it is one that is riddled with a few assumptions that the regional manager would have done well to explain and expand upon.
The assumption that a huge media blitz was the only way to generate awareness of the product is not fully substantiated, given that the product was already enjoying enormous media attention. Even if the publicity was negative, for example, Sun-Beem makers could have used the media opportunity to introduce the new product in their interviews with the press. Explaining why the existing media attention was not sufficient to put the message of the new product out there would have been useful.
In the extreme case, due to the enormous media attention the company is already presumably recieving, the new product may enjoy popularity even without the blitz. Release of the product and a look at the initial sales numbers would have given better information as to whether an enormous media blitz was required in the first place. Customers may actually take well to a new non-carcinogenic product especially if there are none other in the market.
Even if a media blitz was justified, it is not clear that the timing of it would have been appropriate. Given the negative publicity of the prior product, presumably because of its carcinogenic nature, customers may not take it well that the company is trying to exploit the opportunity to make more mony by selling more products, even if they solved the prior defect, after having produced a flawed carcinogenic product in the first place. If lawsuits are in place, the best strategy might be to douse by a recall, rather than trying to fight fire with fire. An explanation of the 'fire' the company is involved in and why that would not be further fuelled would be useful.
Thus, the memo would have been more convincing had the regional manager substantiated the assumptions made in various pieces.
