Increasing brand awareness in China is a challenge for Stressless. According to the conducted market survey, only 15 percents of participants have heard about Stressless before. In contrast to this, 19 % had heard about La-Z-boy.

 

Rebecca Knitght from Ekornes’ Asia office stated about the Chinese market awareness the following:

“Awareness – huge market, very expensive and/or fragmented media, niche product concentrated in top tier cities (making national advertising very inefficient)”.

 

The Chinese market is extremely vast. National advertisements promoted through Youku and WeChat are really cheap, but inefficient. Costly national advertisement campaigns are arguably not the correct way of increasing brand awareness.

 

The marketing communication mix consists of eight major communication modes:

• Advertising: The immensity of the Chinese market makes traditional advertisement difficult on a national level. Increasing the amount of banners and posters in the top tier cities’ high traffic areas is a plausible method of increasing brand recognition.

• Sales Promotion: Stressless offers sales promotion and discounts.

• Events and Experiences: If they aim to increase sales through retailers, they should increase their participation at furniture expos such as the Nordic Light in 2010 that they attended. An example of a furniture expo is the annual UBM Seinoexpo Furniture China in Shanghai. Another way to increase brand awareness is through increasing the availability of their furniture experiences, which can be done by offering demos and products in VIP lounges in airports or luxury hotels. People who stay in these lounges or hotels fit to the target group of Stressless as they achieve an appropriate income to buy this furniture. Experiencing the comfortable seating may lead to the wish to buy the same furniture for your home.

• Public Relations and Publicity: During the ghost shopping experience, we observed rude customer service. To protect the company image, better customer service should be provided.

• Direct Marketing: Direct marketing through telemarketing is not a part of the today` strategy and is not considered a suitable marketing method for a high-end product like Stressless.

• Interactive Marketing: Stressless is already present in the ointeractive marketing in China with Youko and WeChat. However, they can improve their interactive marketing by increasing the community’s awareness with rapidly updated news feed.

• Word-of-mouth Marketing: Word of mouth is a very effective mode of communication. When relatives and friends recommend products, the receiver will usually trust these sources. This is a strength for Stressless since they are delivering high quality furniture that aims for high customer satisfaction. They could also introduce a referral program, which gives customers a bonus like a gift card if they refer a friend or relative to buy a Stressless product. The word-of-mouth marketing is a result of the purchasing process. The service in one of the Shanghai stores has been perceived as unfriendly and if this a theme throughout the other stores, it can harm the positive effects of word-of-mouth marketing.

• Personal Selling: Personal selling is not a current method for Stressless in China. By making alliances with interior-designers, Stressless can gain prospective customers can lead to increased sales.