Research On The Marketing Strategy Of GED Toys Company

As a manufacturing powerhouse,China had drawn upon its population bonus and lowproduction cost to become the world’s factory with industries of low thresholds,for instance OEM.However,faced with macro economic changes encompassing economic structures,demographics and exchange rates,advantages in manufacturing previously enjoyed by China have faded.In response,industries relying the OEM model have turned to other directions for the way ahead and new growth drivers.China’s toy industry has encapsulated the above transformation.As it is export oriented,most toy manufacturers had chosen to be contract makers for famous western brands.During the late 1990 s and early 2000 s,thanks to low production cost,most of their products found good overseas markets.However,due to fluctuating exchanges rates and higher production cost in recent years,the pace of their export business has slowed down,which has spurred more and more manufacturers to start looking domestically for new growth opportunities.Compounding the situation is the complete relaxing of the second child policy,which shall contribute to the fourth baby boom.In the meantime,as new consumption mentalities,concepts and values have been developed by new couples born in the 1980 s and 1990 s,who view toys as more of educational tools for the start phase of life-long learning than just objects that meet entertaining needs of their children,more opportunities and challenges have arisen for traditional toy manufacturers.This paper looks into the marketing strategy of the Magnetic-Link Building Blocks toy of GED,a toy maker,by utilizing marketing related theories and analysis methods.First,an introduction is given for the status quo of the toy industry,followed by a PEST analysis for domestic toy industry,which sheds lights on the macro background and developmental trend of it.Then Michael Porter’s five forces model is employed to examine the competitive environment in China,before using a SWOT analysis on GED’s internal operation environment.Next,a STP market analysis is relied upon for formulating the product decisions of GED.Finally,on the basis of the 4P marketing theory,an attempt is made to propose marketing strategies for GED and present suggestions on facilitating the implementation.Through analyzing the competitive environment and product marketing of GED,this paper seeks to reflect the common characteristics of and problems faced by China’s small and medium sized toy makers,and present some practical solutions for them to improve their marketing efforts.