Warby Parker, established in 2010, has become a successful online company that sells cheap and quality prescription glasses merging that with a social activity outlook. The problem is that WP wants to expand and look for new partners. They also want to develop their clientele. They are afraid that by doing so they may lose their original culture. They also want to get employees and stakeholders interested in their social projects without seeming to be intrusive. Finally, they want to know how to continue being fresh and innovate. Each of these steps would help WP with their marketing and move them to a new tier. Until now, marketing has been largely word-of-mouth and via media. In order to expand and continue their direction, WP will have to focus on their brand image, as opposed to their brand identity; on innovating; and on formulating their Mission, Vision, and Culture. This will not only help them hire people who will fit in with their goals, but also help them market their company.
¶ … marketing challenges facing Warby Parker in the future and what advice would you give the company on how to face them?
In 2010, Neil Blumenthal and David Gilboa had started a company called Warby Parker that sold prescription glasses. It was a successful company that had gone from selling 20,000 eyeglasses to over 100,000 per year. The founders too integrated their mission with a social mission: to increase access to prescription eyewear around the world.
In the beginning, in 2010, the founders had come across problems. Now once again, the founders were prepared for change. Change involved the following factors:
the team size was growing
The company was planning to move from a word-of-mouth marketing strategy to a virtual one that would be more intentional
the company was also planning to increase the company's manufacturing partner base
The question was how they were going to accomplish these changes whilst retaining their ethos.
The two primary competitors of Warby Parker were Luxottica Group Spa (LUX) and Essilor International SA (EI). To cut prices and offer cheaper glasses, Blumenthal and Gilboa decided to sell their glasses online. Others had also already one online or were intending to penetrate it, but Warbury Parker's niche was offering branded, high quality and low-priced eyewear.
Another one of their goals was to be a "social responsible "business. They promised to give one pair of free glasses to anyone one who needed it with every pair of glasses bought.
Warbury Parker also employed excellent customer service:
They combined customer friendly policies, like free shipping and a 30-day "no questions asked" free return policy, with creative ways for customers to "try-on" glasses. They licensed the best virtual try-on technology in the market and devised a home try-on program. When ordering, customers would have the option to select up to five frames that would be shipped to them for free, allowing them to try on pairs in the comfort of their own home. They would be able to keep the glasses for one week before sending them back to Warby Parker (at no cost), with the subsequent opportunity to make a purchase.
Early on, the founders had long decided that the brand would epitomize classic, American heritage design, exceptional value, amazing customer service and social good. The founders too decided to develop their brand around the following four criteria: aesthetic, excellent customer service, sustainability / social mission, and price.
The company also created a culture that was built on fun and transparency. Employees described the company as having a "social atmosphere" where "people are not just coworkers, but friends." At the same time, the founders insisted that the twin rules of "always presuming positive intent" and "embracing honest but difficult conversations"
Later the two founders expanded into four: Gilboa and Raider focused on operations, including customer service, order fulfillment, and legal and finance. Blumenthal and Hunt worked on marketing, branding, eyewear design, website user experience and the social mission. In order to remain objective despite their friendship, they would ask advice of their one of their earliest advisors, Wharton Marketing Professor David Bell who would cast the deciding vote. They also conducted monthly 360-review sessions together to provide constructive feedback and to prevent possible problems.
Warby Parker grew quickly. Marketing was primarily word-of-mouth. In January 2012 Warby Parker had 50 employees. The company planned to hire about 50 more throughout the year in order to keep up with growth projections other areas of the company, such as the technology division, too began to significantly expand during that same year. Warby Parker also sought experienced candidates to lead the areas of finance, technology, marketing, and supply chain management
As the company grew they also saw that they had to change their learning approach and the company introduced training workshops for employees. The company too opened a division to support their social changes. The extra pair of glasses given away for free supported projects ranging from the fight against breast cancer to the restoration of communities affected by armed conflict in central Africa
In January, 2012, however, Warby Parker's Social Innovation division faced challenges. Firstly, they had to get customers interested in their social projects; many of their customers were unaware of these activities. At the same time, Warby Parkers was concerned that publicizing their activities and actively involving their customers, would seem intrusive to many other customers
The second challenge was rallying their employees around their social activities. They were unsure whether or not they should do so.
Thirdly, the company's growth has called for an expansion of its partner base. Warby Parkers was seeking partners / associates that would merge with the goals and culture of the company.
In short, Warby Parkers is growing and this is both good and bad news. bad news because it is changing because with growth comes new challenges and the original founders wondered whether the methods that they had used in the beginning years would be suffice to propel the company through the years of change that lie ahead specially as the company is going to grow expecting to double by 2012.
Until now too most promotions have been homegrown trained from within the company. The company is now intending to hire partners from outside. They questioned whether they would be able to find experienced and culturally-savvy candidates to fill high-level positions and whether these new people would continue leading the company in the traditional way.
The founders also asked themselves what the best integrated online and offline marketing strategy for a brand like Warby Parker might be. Until now Warby Brothers had worked with clients within its social circles. Now they were planning to expand from beyond that. Media and word-of-mouth had helped them the first two years. The company now planned to invest in marketing efforts. Their question now was which marketing efforts would be most effective for them to replicate the success of the first two years.
Finally, the company had the challenge of continuing to innovate in order to keep its method and approach -- its business -- fresh.
Summary of challenges
The marketing challenges of Warby Parkers are the following;
1. Warby Parkers need to brand themselves. They need to formulate a formal vision, mission, and philosophy of culture and keep it constant so that they and their stakeholders as well as their clients have something to identify and recognize them by. In this way, too, WP would know how to structure a training program that would orbit around their culture and values and know which kind of partners to look for
2. WP need to build a brand and loyal customer base
3. WP want to expand to a different clientele whilst retaining the one they have
4. WP need to keep their business fresh and continue to innovate
Recommendations
These are the steps that Warby Parkers has to see to:
1. Formulating a vision, mission, and culture
If Warby Parkers wants to find partners who will continue to lead company in their culture, they have to formalize their culture. Until now it has been ad hoc. They need to formulate a vision, mission, and cultural description.
All businesses should have vision, Mission, and Culture. It hedges the business in and informs clients of the business's identity. WP does have one but it is vague. They need to formalize it.
1. Vision Statement -- This is the overall big picture of the company. Where they see the company in, for example, five years from then and what they want to achieve within that five-year bloc.
2. Mission statement -- what WP stands for and what it is striving to achieve. This is a description of its services and niche. WP may well describe this as creating cheaper prescription glasses that are quality and doing this within a social services manner.
3. Culture -- This is the attitude that WP seeks to promote within its business. WP sets out to have a fun and collaborative as well as transparent environment where all work together. It also wants to promote the values of social activism. (Trades Coaching)
It was best for WP to sit down together and formulate Mission, vision, and culture on paper. Now that they have it formalized, they can publicize it by inserting it in their leaflets, incorporating it as logo on their websites and other materials, and generating their workshops and training programs around it.
Warby Parkers, too, can now know what to look for in potential employees since they want employees to epitomize these values.
Step 2. Warby Parker needs to build a brand and loyal customer base
There is a difference between brand identity and brand image. Brand identity is the Mission, Values, and Culture that WP has created and which is the way that they want potential clients to regard them. Brand image, on the other hand, is the way that customers do regard the company. WP wants customers to regard them in a positive way. They want to stake new territory whilst retaining their old, and in both they want to retain a loyal customer base.
In short, Warby Parkers want satisfied / loyal customers. There are three studies that can help. Lai et al. (2009) shows that quality of service directly influences both the perceived value and the image perceptions of the company, that this perceived value and customer image of the company also influence customer satisfaction, that the image of the manager influences the value of the company, and that both customer's satisfaction and perceived value (as well as real value) of company are the basic factors of loyalty. In other words, that if WP wants to cross sectors, expand into another clientele, and retain a loyal clientele in both, much depends on the way that the customers view both management of WP and the quality of their service. This is the brand image that the company disseminated. There is a difference between brand identity and image in that the former is formed by the company (it is the culture, mission, and values that WP creates), but this is insufficient since the client forms her own brand image and this may well differ from the company's brand identity. The company tries to makes their brand identity as telling consumer "who they really are"; but consumer may see the company's image in a different way formed on their own experience of it.(marketingfaq.net).Brand identity, in other words, signifies the company's promise to consumer about deliverance of their brand. Brand image, on the other hand, signifies the consumer's experience with the brand: whether or not she is satisfied (managementstudyguide.com).
Warby Parkers has done the first step of formalizing their brand identity. Now they want to create an attractive brand image. The question is: how can they do so?
Liao and Hsei (2011) explored relationships between service quality, brand Image, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on 300 participants from Taiwan. They showed that that the service quality, brand image and customer satisfaction of the destination place has a direct relation with loyalty, and that service quality has an indirect effect on loyalty through customer satisfaction. Lastly, they discovered that service quality may be the key factor of customer satisfaction and loyalty. In other words, what Liao and Hsei (2011) demonstrated wars that the quality o9f the merchandise and service -- and consistent quality -- may be the number one significant factor in instigating and retaining loyal customers regardless of clientele or origin of customers, since customers form their image of the brand based on the service that they receive. If WP therefore wants to attain a new devoted clientele whilst retaining their old, they are recommended to focus on quality customer service as well as on optimum quality of product.
Researchers Kun-Hsi Liao and Ming-Fang Hsieh (2011) go a step further and define the entire brand experience as a package of sensations that need to be worked on to arouse the feeling of maximum customer satisfaction. Brand experience effects customer loyalty and therefore it is an important concept. Brand experience is defined as sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses that are evoked by certain aspects of the brand's packaging such as environment, communication, and overall stimuli. Brand experience, therefore, is synonymous to brand image. When marketers create an identity, they package brand in a certain way (called brand packaging). To create an indelible and satisfactory experienced, they need to construct a brand experience scale that spans four dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral.
Warby Parkers, wanting to satisfy their customers and expand their base, should ensure that their eyeglasses and the delivery of this service should integrate and incorporate each of those sensory values.
Satisfaction is the core customer experience and is mostly reduced to a combination of the customer feeling that he product suits her needs and desires and makes her happy. At the same time, she is satisfied with customer experience of the company / manufacturer too in that her use of the product is facilitated and her needs / queries effectively, promptly, and sympathetically or helpfully met. Satisfaction is a compound of both product quality and customer service of company. The two together consequent in a loyal consumer.
Step 3: Warby Parker needs to keep their business fresh and continue to innovate
Successful companies have to, and are able to, continue innovating on a regular basis. Warby Parker can never afford to "rest on their laurels" and remain satisfied with the previous innovations. They have been successful enough to attract copycats, but now WP must keep ahead of this imitation.
The way that they can do so is by adopting 10 principles of innovation. These ten principles can also guide them in looking for and hiring effective partners for their company. The ten principles are the following:
1. Inspire. -- looking for and hiring inspirational leaders who can inspire and motivate employees
2. Risk -- when both company and employees are willing to take on risk in order to innovate and try new things. Change comes only with risk. Employees must feel that management trusts them and they must feel no fear from adopting risk.
3. New product development process. -- Management should set a procedure where ideas are brainstormed; projects are put into place, deadlines implemented, and ideas monitored. In other words there should be "the key elements of idea generation, prioritization, prototyping, commercialization, and measurement "( Business Insider)
You’re 80% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.