Strategic Business Management For Brand Name And Awareness

Promoting Tough Mudder Business

Discuss about the Strategic Business Management for Brand Name and Awareness.

The CEO Will Dean of the company Tough Mudder has outlined a long term strategy for the company in which the CEO wants to take the brand awareness and brand name of the company Tough Mudder to level where it becomes a household. This commonly refers to establishing the brand name as the most popular and the most challenging of all in the endurance athletics business. The promotional endeavor of the company has been observed and what has been gathered from the observed is that the company is keen on promoting its business in almost all kinds of level depending on age groups, professions, and cultural groups (Ansoff, 2009). The obvious example is the Wounded Warriors initiative which the company has undertaken from the year 2010 onwards. This kind of initiative shows that the company is keen on promoting its brand name and business in almost every bit of opportunity they find. Analyzing the company’s recent promotional activities such as their collaboration with General Mills and other consumer based goods companies it can be evidently assumed that the company is its very own strategic plan to establish its brand name as an irrefutable entity in the endurance athletics and sports entertainment business.

The strategy adopted by the Tough Mudder in the course of promoting their business as the best and the most challenging endurance athletics, has gained a significant amount of success over the years. The reason behind this success that tough Mudder has gained out of their business endeavors is the result of perceptive strategic planning, meticulously planning every event and operations, designing their products charily, and of course through an fanatical pursuit on bringing to the customers and participants an experience which they would not soon forget and would love to come back for more (Dess and Miller, 2003). This led the company to promote a prolific customer retention initiative, which did not only retained a large proportion of its existing customers but also through word of mouth advertisement from these customers it attracted even more customers. This process went on in a chain method and the led the company achieve a massive figure of more than one million participants across the world and generating a substantial amount of five million dollars out of such events. Another important reason behind the success which the company has gained is that the unrelenting response they have given to their customers. The company exclusively focuses on responding to the feedback left by the customers and meticulously following on their endeavors based on the feedback they receive. This endeavor aids the company to a great extent as the particular endeavor develops a kind of sense of trust between the company and its customers, this is as, the customers receive the response from the company they take it as a sign from the company which shows that the company looks after its customers (Dodgson, 2012). This is turn results in heightened customer retention and further results in the success of the strategies the company incorporated in its business undertakings.

Reasons behind the success of Tough Mudder

It is evident that the brand name of Tough Mudder is justified as the company is the best and the most popular name among the sports athletes who crave for challenging endurance athletics. This is largely due to the reason that the company not only organizes endurance athletics events across multiple locations and multiple nations but also encourages the participants to muster their survival instincts. As per the observation made on the case study the company brings to its customers a unique kind of experience which obviously defines the company (Friesl and Kwon, 2016). A company is known for the product or service it specializes in for instance, the name Motorola paints a picture of cell phones in the minds of the people, likewise, when the people hear the name Tough Mudder their instincts tell them the subject would consist of endurance athleticism. Therefore, the sense of identity “we know who we are and what we stand for” which the company has adopted, fits perfectly to the company’s typical nature. This sense of identity of the company also defines the company and perfectly complements the strategies that the company has undertaken in promoting its business. This largely due to the reason that the company has over the past years introduced unique set of strategic planning for the growth of their business like planning their products and events based on customer perspectives, which demonstrates their uniqueness and capability to develop and introduce matchless stratagems which would sustain the brand reputation the company has generated over the years (Godet, 1989).

A corporate strategy can be essentially defined as the kind of strategy a company adopts for carrying out their business operations. Based on the case study the corporate strategy of Tough Mudders can be said to be the methods that the company implements in their course of accomplishing business goals such as partnering, gathering sponsors, and establishing management structure. In this context the typical company’s mission and vision are defined which includes elaborating the point of view of the company the maxim on which the company stands (Wheelen and Hunger, 2008).

In comparison, a competitive strategy is typically the strategy which the company incorporates in order to sustain in the concerned business field in comparison to its business rivals. Based on the case study the strategies which Tough Mudder implements to overcome the business challenges put up by its competitors like Spartan races, and Warrior run would be taken into the context of the company’s competitive strategy (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2009). The competitive strategy is characteristically based on the company’s abilities in regards to strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats in comparison to the strengths, weakness, opportunity, and threats its business competitors’ face.

Corporate and Competitive Strategy Distinction

Tough Mudder reaped the idea of becoming a household name over the country and the five-person strategy team has been the strongest link between the management and the key target customer. The primary strategy of this adventure sports company was to make life-changing experience for the participants. In order to achieve the desired target, the company has acquired the best and potential talents who would germinate the same vision and mission like the company’s mission. Tough Mudders’ passion in building a strong identity is reflected from the recruitments made and some of the recruited personnel recruited were from ESPN, Diageo, Bain & Company, and London Olympic Committee (Lamb and Hillman, 2015).

Tough Mudders’ success has been dependent on some strong basics that consisted of astute positioning of the brand, cautious product designing, effective brand building, operational planning, and focusing on the quality of customer experiences. Due to presence of strong and competitive rivals like Warrior Run, Spartan Race, it was quite difficult for Tough Mudder to be successful in holding the market lead. Hence, the company emphasized that enhanced market presence, and delivering unique customer experience is necessary so that customers are likely to return repetitively to have their best experience over time (Mullins, 2012).

The terms strategy and tactics are often taken into the same context however, both the terms have a fine line of difference between the two. A tactics in general is taken into the context of being a method adopted in order to accomplish an objective whereas; strategy consists of the methods which are implemented in accomplishing a greater operation (Jeffs, 2008). For instance, the method implemented by Tough Mudder in gaining success in a particular event can be said to be the tactics and the methods that the company implemented in gaining overall success in its business operations can be taken into the context of strategy.

From the beginning, it was clear that Tough Mudder had the intentions of being the market lead, hence, the company’s strategy to make a strong team of staffs reflected the company’s intensity of reaching the peak within quick succession. The company’s gaming strategy was quite different from the games hosted by the other adventure sports company. Apart from being considered as one of the most adventurous sports organizer, the company exemplified its strong operational tactics by getting involved in the sponsorship program of ‘Wounded Warrior project” that highlighted the company’s commitment towards wounded veterans (Mullins, 2012). Both these response from Tough Mudder made the world witnessed something that had not happened previously, i.e. relying of the company’s “toughness”, the army of the United States of America sponsored eight events hosted by this sports company in 2013. Hence, the company’s tactics to look after the injured veterans paid off by the involvement of the Army. Hence, the sponsorship was a tactics that attracted people’s attention and at the same time, received an official sponsorship for hosting costly sports.

Tactics and Strategy

The most significant challenge that the company faces is sustaining its leadership in the market. This is primarily due to the challenge its competitors are putting up in the recent years. Overcoming these challenges would require the company to plan out events that would be highly appreciated by the people so that the company is successful in customer retention. In order to do so the company requires hearing out what the customers expect out of them and design better events and even more challenges that would encourage maximum participation (Najmaei, n.d.).

It was already highlighted that Tough Mudder got severe competition from the remaining adventure sports organizers, hence, despite of having some strong strategies, it is essential to have some counter strategies to defend the situation. Initially, the company has a competitive edge as it organizes differently adventurous sports, which has been satisfactory for the clients. Now, Tough Mudder needs to move out of the domestic borders and hot the global markets, especially the demand of Adventure sports are the highest (Mullins, 2012). Celebrity endorsement, especially those who have been associated with rough sports like boxing, wrestling could be appointed as ambassadors of the brand to derive additional success. Tough Mudder can also be associated with other sports as sponsors so that viewers or followers of other sports are attracted as well.

Tough Mudder is a socially responsible company. It is because the company does not incorporate any unethical or immoral activity in their events. The events that the company designs for its customers are typically based on military training methods of several countries. The company takes meticulous care of any liabilities that occur in the course of the event which further establishes the fact that the company is socially responsible (Subba Rao, 2010). Another advantage that company gains out of this is the competitive advantage over its competitors. For, the company offers challenging events which is of course appreciated by the customers coupled with their socially responsible attitude they do have gained advantage over their competitors.

References

Ansoff, H. (2009). Strategic management. New York: Wiley.

Dess, G. and Miller, A. (2003). Strategic management. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Dodgson, M. (2012). The strategic management of R&D collaboration. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 4(3), pp.227-244.

Friesl, M. and Kwon, W. (2016). The strategic importance of top management resistance: Extending Alfred D. Chandler. Strategic Organization.

Godet, M. (2009). Effective strategic management the prospective approach. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 1(1), pp.45-56.

Hitt, M., Ireland, R. and Hoskisson, R. (2009). Strategic management. Cincinnati: South-Western College Pub.

Jeffs, C. (2008). Strategic management. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Lamb, M.D. and Hillman, C., 2015. Whiners Go Home Tough Mudder, Conspicuous Consumption, and the Rhetorical Proof of “Fitness”. Communication & sport, 3(1), pp.81-99.

Mullins, N., 2012. Obstacle course challenges: History, popularity, performance demands, effective training, and course design. Journal of Exercise Physiology online, 15(2), pp.100-128.

Najmaei, A. (n.d.). Strategic Management of Strategic Innovation. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Subba Rao, P. (2010). Strategic management. Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House.

Wheelen, T. and Hunger, J. (2008). Strategic management and business policy. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.