Johnson Wax Case Study

Harvard Business Review Case Study

Johnson Wax: Enhance (A)

1. How is Enhanced positioned? Does this position make sense? Why/not?

2. Would you recommend sampling? Why/not? (show your calculations)

3. As John Sherman, what would you recommend be done with Enhance?

Johnson Wax: Enhance (A)

1. Enhance is targeted towards women 25-45 years old with dry hair. During ASSESSOR's Advertising Recall, total unaided recall for Enhance was 76%; among those who recalled the Enhance ad, almost 50% recalled that Enhance was "for dry hair". The perceptual maps in Exhibit 3 showed that Enhance was positioned 1) med/high conditioning; med/low clean, and 2) med/high conditioning; medium effects on hair.

This positioning doesn't make sense. During ASSESSOR's Product Acceptance phase, the callback interviews asked respondents what they liked best about Enhance - and "surprisingly", manageability was mentioned most frequently (instead of conditioning) even though it was not a main copy point. And those who made repeat purchases were more likely than nonrepeaters to mention manageability.

Additionally, in Exhibit 1, in women aged 25-45, hard to manage hair (dull/limp problems) were far more prominent on the Incidence of Problems than Dry/Damage problems. Dull/limp problems were an average of 63.3% (64%, 68%, 58%) vs. a 51.3% for Dry/Damage problems (55%, 53%, 46%). Enhance should position itself closer to the dull/limp problems, since its perception of manageability is also closer to that target.

The relevant perceptual dimensions outlined in Table A show that the relative importance of Conditioning was 33%, Clean was 27%, Manageability/effects was 23%, and Fragrance was 17%. According to Exhibits 7 and 8, Enhance was liked for Manageability (42%) overall, Conditioning by 11% (overall) and Clean by 5%. However, Conditioning was also disliked by 11% (overall). So conditioning was both liked and disliked equally on an overall basis. Yet Enhance was currently being marketed for its "conditioning" qualities towards dry hair.

2. No, I would not recommend sampling. Exhibit 10 shows the Estimated Incremental Share from Sampling for 35 Million Sample Drop with 90% Delivery. If the values in the table are calculated with Excel's solver (assuming linearity), then it is highly apparent that sampling would not be practical. To reach a target market share of 10%, we would need to deliver $93. million in samples (this would get 6.1% market share. 6.1% + 3.9% (page