Aqualisa Quartz: Simply a Better Shower

Marketing Management

Case Submission

Aqualisa Quartz: Simply a Better Shower

Submitted to: Prof Siddarth Shekhar Singh

Submitted by: Vandan Christian (PGPpro CO 2019 - 89180032)

1. What is the Quartz value proposition to plumbers? Consumers?

Aqualisa, a UK based company shower manufacturing company launched its premium product “Quartz” in 2001. The main purpose behind the launch was to address concerns of consumers and plumbers which were not mitigated by the existing products in the market.

Quartz as a product provided substantial value proposition to both, Consumers as well as Plumbers.

Existing Issues of Consumers with the current product in the market:

• Consumers were not happy with the existing products in the market which was revealed by Market Research conducted by the R&D team of Aqualisa.
• Consumers wanted the shower to be elegant, less cumbersome, easy to use, delivered water flow at high pressure with a stable temperature, less maintenance cost, strong resistance to wear and tear and a product that does not break down easily.
•  Moreover, consumers did not want big mechanical box to be installed over the shower wall.

Value Proposition to Consumers:

• Controlled Temperature: helped user to take shower at an optimal temperature using push button

• Elegant design: Styling fitting as it required only to drill single hole in shower wall to set up the device

• Easy to use: push button was an advantage. The button came with the light which flashed red when the desired temperature was reached

• No Excavation of shower wall: As Quartz came in the size of shoe box; hence the excavation of shower wall was not required to mix the hot and cold water. This was done remotely.

• Easy Installation: Much easier to install for DIY market

Existing Issues of Plumbers with current product in the market:

• Plumbers resisted innovation and were comfortable with the showers they had been installing.

• New product could come up with unknown challenges which might result in an increment of their visits to consumers. The expenses for the same were to be borne by them.

Value Proposition to Plumbers:

• Simple & Easy Installation: Plumber could install Quartz simply by drilling a single hole in the shower wall as against excavation. “Push-fit- connect- you’re done”.

• More Profitable: Installation was done in half day. Earlier the standard shower installation took almost 1.5 days (>25%). This provided plumbers to install more and more products while increasing their profit

• No Specialist Plumber: As Quartz was simple and easy to install, it did not require any major expertise in installing the product. Plumbers were happy that they were able to send apprentices or with less experience to do the job.

• Low Maintenance: Strong and Sturdy Product which could not break down easily or required often servicing.

1. Why is the Quartz not selling?

Quartz has potential to revolutionize the bathing experience of consumers. However, in my opinion, below mentioned factors accounted for their fewer sales:

• Poor Marketing Strategy: According to Exhibit 7, Aqualisa’s financial statement, only 2.7 million euro was spent in marketing campaign, which indicates insufficient marketing strategy.

• Lack of Product knowledge – Consumers & Plumbers: From Exhibit 4, we can say that ~70% of the customers in UK relied on plumber’s suggestion for the selection of shower.

 Plumbers distrusted technological innovation and advancement as it was evident from the failure they had seen in 1980 with an introduction of push button controls for temperature settings. The entire electronic shower mechanism was poorly designed and since then plumbers had less affinity towards anything that was technologically new-flanged.

It can be said that Plumbers played a key role in determining and selecting the brand of product that a consumer would buy.

As Plumbers resisted, even consumers started distancing themselves from the product.

Even though, if at all plumbers would come out of this defensive mindset, the adoption of Quartz for them would still take time and the initial sales results for Quartz would still be low.

• Limited Market Segment: From Exhibit 8, we can see that Quartz was a Premium Product and came with 2 versions (Quartz Standard – priced at 850 Euros and Quartz Pumped – priced at 1080 Euros).

For this premium market segment, consumers usually took for granted the high performance and services. Cost of Product was never an issue for them and what mattered to them was the style and elegancy the product carried. Hence, they usually shopped from showrooms with high-end product lines.

In nutshell, the purchasing behavior of those consumers relied more on an emotional experience rather than the value of the product. Hence Quartz had limited market segment and it was not affordable to other consumers. This might have resisted the company in not marketing the product in DIY (Do-It-Yourself) segment generating fewer sales.

• Incorrect Distribution Channel: Tim Pestell, Aqualisa’s National Sales Manager decided to cover the product across all channel which were specifically categorized across price, performance and convenience. This resulted in Quartz being sold through incorrect channels without any focus on specific market segment resulting in diminishing value proposition of the product.

• Less Salesforce: With the launch of any new product in the market, a substantial marketing effort coupled with salesforce is required. However, Aqualisa’ sales force team spent 90% of their effort on maintaining existing customers and only 10%  of their time was focused in generating new customers.

Contributing more time towards mining and acquisition of new customers by Aqualisa’s Salesforce team would have resulted in market traction and increased sale.