New product - new sonar, deep finder for boat

Résumé du document

Sonar is an acronym standing for “Sound, Navigation and Ranging”. Sonar is an underwater detection device based on the reflection of acoustic wave in the sea environment. This system is close from the Radar system using the reflection of the radio pulses in the air. Sonars are used for the navigation and the detection of objects underwater such as fish, shipwreck or submarines or simply to identify the depth of the sea.

A sonar device uses the reflection of the acoustic wave on an object to calculate its position and its distance from the ships, thanks to the knowledge of the sound speed in water. The direction of the echo allows determining the position of the target. The acoustic waves are emitted thanks to an apparel places inside or on the ship hulls.

A complete sonar device has several components:
- An acoustic pulse generator placed inside or on the ship hull.
- A transducer to transform acoustic waves in narrow beams
- An acoustic pick up
- A set of amplifiers
- A delay timer
- An indicating display.

Thanks to these different components, a high level sonar is able to differentiate objects among others and to distinguish individual objects from another (definition of the sonar). Nowadays there are two different types of sonars:
- Active sonars: A sound pulse is emitted underwater and allows locating the different targets (submarines, fish, shipwrecks…). This type of sonars is never used in the navy forces as the emitting of the sound pulse may allow an enemy to locate the ships. Nevertheless this type of sonars is mainly used on the civilian market.

- Passive sonars: Passive sonar allows to a ship or a submarine to listen to its environment without emitting any sound pulse allowing the submarine to be perfectly discreet.

Actually sonars are sold on two main markets:
- The military market: Military naval forces are big consumers of sonars, for a simple reason: “search & destroy” enemy submarines. For this reason most of the military vessels are equipped with high definition sonars. Nevertheless, on this market, sonars are Business to business products, and there are no advertisings and promotion for secrecy reasons.

- The civilian markets: this market is extremely large thanks to the wide number of customers, and suppliers. This civilian market can be divided in two smaller markets:
Business to Business: The customers may be Ships builder, fishing companies, Cruise lines, leisure boats builders…
Business to consumers: the customers are leisure boats owners willing to have new sonars, or sport fishers willing to have sonars in order to increase their catches.

In this report, I will focus on the civilian sport fishing sonar market by introducing new sonars for sport fishers. This choice is justified by the fact that on this market, sonars are business to consumers advertised products and by the fact that the market is really important and expanding, justifying the introduction of new products on the market.

Extraits

[...] It will also be interesting to have advertisings on websites dealing with sport fishing such as the website of the French sport fishing federation. IV/ REGULATORY ISSUES: As France is a member state of the European Union, both the community laws and the national laws have to be applied in terms of advertising regulation. Concerning the National laws, advertisings in France is under the rule of the General directorate on competition, consumption and fraud repression. This directorate has the responsibility to enforce several laws on advertisings: No. 86-1067 September 30th 1986 : Law on freedom of expression Law No. [...]

[...] It will suffer the competition from three important companies: Furuno, Wesmar and Koden. (See: Addendum). In order to achieve a successful launch on the French market, a complete advertising campaign has to be designed by answering to several questions: DEFINE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE: The product is a sonar designed for the sport fishing market. Its function is to detect, visualize and track fish schools. These sonars allow sport fishers to have a clear underwater vision, to know where to fish and to subsequently increase their catches. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, thanks to its nature, the products do not suffer from specific restrictions on advertisings. At the European level, the legal set of rules is very similar to the French body of law. Indeed the European rules also forbid false and misleading advertisings, strictly controls the comparative advertisings, and strictly controls advertising on dangerous products such as Alcohol and tobacco. At the European level the European commission is the judicial body responsible for controlling advertising within the European Union, it also has the authority to sue and punish any company or advertising agency breaking the European regulation on advertising. [...]

[...] For this driver it is necessary to show the benefits of the products for the fisher. It will be necessary to insist on the fact that with this device, the fisher will be able to catch more fishes or to track the pieces of fish he always dreamed of. It will be necessary for the SEATECH Company to take into consideration these two drivers for its advertising campaign, in order to reach the audience and to transfer it the will to purchase the products. [...]

[...] As the product is not a mass consumption product, and does not attract the overall part of the population; it is advertised on specialized release. There are advertisings and customer reports on specialized press, specialized web sites for the different countries where the product is present. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this advertisement? This advertisement is heavily focused on target customer through publication events and web sites specialized in the leisure activities and in sport fishing. Nevertheless it can fail in attracting people interested in Sport fishing and who are not users of this kind of press This is where comes from the importance of on sales site advertising. [...]