Sealed Air corp business 2 bus marketing

1. Sealed Air Corp Group 6 Prashant Shukla [21] Yashvardhan Naudiyal [35] Siddharth Prasad [29] AbishekRajan [3]

3. Distinctive feature of AirCapproducts is the barrier-coating of each individual bubble using saran. This barrier coating and related customer benefits have been the central sales theme for the last 10 years. AirCap benefits, as illustrated in their advertisements, relate to ‘cushioning’, ‘protective wrap/interleaving’, and ‘void fill’

4. AirCap, the closed-cell lightweight cushioning material, has recently encountered some unanticipated competition from small regional producers who have invented around the Sealed Air process patents and offer cheaper versions of the product in the U.S.

5. Sealed Air has licensed its technology to Astro Packaging; Astro manufactures both a barrier coated bubble (using Nylon instead) as well as an uncoated bubble

6. 1980 U.S. sales for both AirCap and Astro were $25.35 million and $10.5 million respectively

7. Until 1980, only Astro was a significant in the Uncoated Bubble Packagingplayer with approximately $5 million in sales. And has 15% market share of uncoated bubbles

8. In 1981, GAFCEL in New York generated $ 1 million in sales on the account of uncoated Bubbles, and several of AirCap’s distributors have taken up the GAFCEL products as well

11. Option II: Do not introduce the uncoated bubbles at this point of time and increase the marketing support to Aircap.

12. Option III: Introduce the uncoated bubbles in The US only

13. Option IV: Introduce the uncoated bubbles in European Markets onlyConsidering Uncoated Bubbles can be produced as cheaply as the competition, within a month and with no major capital investment with a corresponding volte face on their current stand

14. Product Evaluation Matrix Index: Industry Sales- Bubbles Packaging Material Company Sales- Coated bubbles Market Share – Coated Bubbles/ Bubbles Packaging Material C/B (E) – Coated Bubbles in Europe C/B (U/S) – Coated Bubbles in The US

16. Coated Bubbles Sale in The US in 1980 has been $30 Mn against the overall Bubble packaging sales of to $35.85%, thus giving the share of 83% to the coated Bubbles. (Ref: AirCap cushioning and its competitors Para – 1)

17. Buyers in the U.S. realise the benefits of a better Quality packaging material , though a certain section still values price as a more important criterion. (Ref: Buying Influences)

19. According to the Product Evaluation Matrix ( PEA) the product stands in totally different positions in Europe and The US, hence any decision regarding the introduction of uncoated bubbles has to be location specific

20. Option II – Do Not Introduce Uncoated Bubble at all

21. Considering the steadily loosing market share in the European Markets that option is also ruled out if one has to remain competitive there

22. Option III – Introduce the Coated bubble in the US Markets only

23. Considering the market conditions in the US and the product position in the PEA the option can be ruled out