One Day Acuvue free essay sample

Vistakon seeks to be the leader in providing soft, daily disposable, high-quality contact lenses to the part-time lens user by providing superior quality products through innovative manufacturing and RD combined with strong advertising presence and trade support. In 1987, Vistakon, an independent subsidiary of Johnson Johnson, introduced Acuvue, the first soft, disposable contact lens through marked innovations in production and marketing.The â€Å"stabilized soft molding† production technique, promising better quality through reducing imperfections, coupled with a dual pronged marketing campaign that â€Å"pulled† consumers to enquire about Acuvue through extensive advertising and promotions and â€Å"pushed† the product by educating Eye Care Professionals (ECPs) on the product’s superior features resulted in Vistakon dominating the soft disposable contact lens market (with a 18. 9% market share) by 1993. To continue building up on its success, Vistakon developed 1 Day Acuvue, the first daily disposable contact lens. However, marketing tests revealed multiple issues with existing product cannibalization (of current products with sales up to $250 million), pricing and positioning, targeted markets, and the optimal marketing campaign. We will write a custom essay sample on One Day Acuvue or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The firm needed to decide if more marketing tests are required to gain more perception into these issues or to embark immediately on a nationwide launch. Vistakon initially targeted 1 Day Acuvue to three market segments, contact lens dropouts (size: 15. 5 million, exhibit 2), patients with medical problems or active lifestyle consumers, and conventional daily wear users (size: 4. 6 million, exhibit 2).The western regional rollout indicates that 88% of all 1 Day Acuvue customers utilized contact lenses prior to purchase, a majority of whom used contact lenses in conjunction with spectacles. Exhibit 18 indicates that 1 Day Acuvue was also preferred by college graduates earning $81,000 or more primarily between the ages of 18-45 who frequently travel on business. This data insinuates that 1 Day Acuvue should be targeted towards two specific markets: high income business travelers and athletes and medical patients. Both segments share common characteristics of being less price-sensitive and being current users of disposable soft lenses.While the dropout market is potentially lucrative, it will be hard for the ECP or Vistakon to convince this market that 1-Day Acuvue possesses benefits far beyond their prior contact lens, specifically for the 65% who discontinued because of cost, discomfort, ease of use, need for bifocals, and loss/tear in lens. Exhibit 10 indicates that the gross margins fell from 88% to 40% with the advent of disposables. ECPs currently make $464. 00/patient/2 years from current disposables, whereas the initial costing policy of 1 Day Acuvue would reduce that contribution to $194. 40 (calculations in appendix 1). This is probably the primary reason why ECPs did not push 1 Day Acuvue as strongly as Vistakon expected during marketing tests (with only 20% of ECPs emphasizing the cost/day marketing strategy and 33% of ECPs stating that Acuvue was the most expensive lens). Vistakon somewhat corrected this issue with its new pricing policy in the western regional launch, with the contribution to ECPs who availed the volume discount for orders more than 4 30 packs increasing to $408/patient/2 years (calculations in appendix 1). This also helped reduce ECPs emphasizing Acuvue as most expensive (6%).