Executive Summary

The following is a report for a project to develop new products assigned to us in the subject
MKT 421 marketing concepts and practices. In this project, we learn about the new product
process. There are 7 stages to identify business opportunities which is new product strategy
development, Idea generation, product screening and evaluation. assigned to build a
prototype based on green marketing according to the balance small business web, they
define that green marketing is referring to products or services that environmentally friendly.
A huge part of marketing means interpreting the data to understand the target and to
channel to the right segments of the audience. Knowing how to find and interpret data about
our stakeholders means that we will better understand our business and how to make the
most of it and if possible to expand the business. Technology and the way we do business
have changed beyond recognition over the past decade; marketing also changed and must
adapt at a rapid pace. Traditional marketing skills still have value, but a modern marketer
has to develop new skills to respond to change and cope with the current marketing trend of
the businesses.

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Company Profile

Logo

Company Names

Dio Sdn Bhd manufacture of Didour pads, Odor Eliminating Shoe, Inserts Made from 100%
Natural Ingredient and disposable packaging

About Company

Created DiOdour pad, a designer, and manufacturer of odor-elimination solutions for

footwear and shoes. Our slogan is Odor-Destroyer, eradicate smelly shoes and make your
shoes odourless. Founded in 2015 by 6 students from University Teknologi Mara Malaysia
with registered capital amount RM500,000. It located at Seksyen 7 Shah Alam, Selangor.
The core business is manufacturing DiOdour Pads. The nature of business is manufacturing
and importing shoe pads products.

Mission & Vision

Dio brand's mission is aim to be a pioneer in shoe odor elimination solution and to make our
product long-lasting and top tier quality.

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Product

DisOdour is an odour-elimination solution for footwear and shoes. The packaging fits in the
pocket, Small yet it packs a punch, it fits easily into any shoe type or size, and so ultrathin
that you won’t know they are there. The secret to the effectiveness of the pads is the three
layers. The bottom layer is a proprietary adhesive that keeps the pad from slipping or
bunching up. The middle layer is an odor-absorbing carbon. The third a moisture-wicking
liner. Each little pad is capable of absorbing the odor from an area the size of a tennis court.
Do some of your shoes seem too pungent to be salvaged? Not so. Insert the pads and the
odor will be cleared away in a matter of seconds.

Patented, made in Malaysia DiOdour Pads, last for around 7days. You’ll know to replace
them when you see the pads wearing down or when you notice a bit of odour. No worries
when you do need to replace them. They peel off easily without leaving adhesive behind and
without damaging the insole of your shoe.

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New Product Strategy Development

Dio Sdn. Bhd is a new startup company. Thus, with the idea of making the product for
footwear health and hygiene, we have come out with several ways to think of the methods to
sell the product. Thus, on the first layer of planning, we have decided to use the SWOT
Analysis method to determine the strength and weaknesses of our internal factors and the
opportunity and threat from the external factors that might influence our marketing planning.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Uniqueness: We stand out as a unique alternative to the market as being the most
affordable and straight forward solution to shoe odour. Our product is one of the kind and
product straight forward solution to an active lifestyle person who has bad odor shoes.

Marketing: Aggressive and focused marketing campaign with clear goals and strategies.
With lots of capital, we manage to put a huge consider amount of budget towards our
marketing campaign to compete with our competitors.

Weaknesses

Quick expansion: There are a lot of new hires to train and organizational structures to learn.
We are a startup company a lot to learn and catch up, as we grow we need to hire as well as
train new employee, learn along with the growth result in make a lot of mistakes.

Lack of reputation: We haven’t established ourselves and still new in the markets. Lots of
exposure needed to make our company well known, it takes time to make our product well
known in the market.

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Opportunities

Packaging: New generation of customers appreciate the green concept of packaging. We

use recycled paper, box, and biodegradable plastic. Our product concepts are green
products, public nowadays aware and insist on using the environment-friendly product.

Research and Development: Several potential partners, including University Malaya, have
expressed interest in conducting research with us. We continuously improve our product
over time, with this partnership helps to boost our quality as to the next level.

Threats

Competitive market: Expensive new marketing campaign. The new product needs lots of
exposure, campaign usually expensive as we use advertising on many channels to let the
prospect know and remember our product

Being unprepared for opening numbers: Initial poor service or product quality could
discourage customers from returning. We need to grow with as well as provide good service
to our customer, being a startup we trying our best to provide good support, making sales as
well as improve product quality.

Apart from the SWOT analysis, we also have made some research on the two main
competitors that are not a direct competitor but are doing a similar genre of product namely
- KIWI
- SCHOLL

Although the competitor is selling almost the same product to Dio Sdn. Bhd., but we have
decided to innovate the product to be much more green in the technology and can give out a
different field of market share wherewith the existing market share, we can also target the
product to the green tech crowd that is more concern on the environmental issues as well.

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Idea Generation

The idea to innovate the product comes from the grown market share in selling out shoes.
Shoes are essential for almost all individuals especially for working people and sports
people. Just imagine the people that uses shoe every day that lead a hectic lifestyle (those
that uses public transportation) or uses shoe every day for their active lifestyle (running or
working out in gym) will be prone to foot hygiene issue and will lead to smelly foot almost
every day. Thus, the idea of innovating one product to help the active people and the
working people to keep their shoe hygienic and fresh is crucial to prevent foot sickness and
makes the people feel great.

The source of information that we use when generating the idea is the internet, surveys and
real life observation. In the internet, the information that we seek is more on the statistics
and the problem that the people who wears shoe everyday face. The statistics of how many
people who are working in Malaysia can be obtained from the official website of the
Department of Statistics Malaysia (www.dosm.gov.my). This will co-relate the size of the
future market that can be catered by our product.

Apart from that, we also use surveys and real-life observation where many people are
actually suffering from ‘Bromodosis’ illness which makes your foot become stinky and
eventually makes the person all around the patient including the patient himself feel
uncomfortable and itchy. The survey was done by the health organizations that focus on foot
hygiene. Plus, with our previous experience where we often smell foul odour in public places
where people are required to take off their shoe (such as Muslim’s prayer room in shopping
malls), in the cinema where people normally put their crossing their leg while watching the
movies or either in offices where in normal Malaysian culture, the worker will have to take off
their shoe while in the office. These are all the real-life observations where we as a group in
the company has often seen and experienced.

Thus, by also using the market research on products that can help people with foot problems
such as this, we come out with the product and idea of promoting our brand ‘Disodour’.

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Screening and Evaluating Ideas

What factors should be considered before your idea is moved forward to the project planning
stage?

As the screening and evaluating ideas are in stage, there is a few factors we already
considered to move forward to the next stage, as per list below:

1. A great idea

We are believed that the project of DiOdour are a great ideas and it is almost non-exist in the
current market which we believe, as an apprentice of this new product in the market, it could
be a great success to see either we can survive or not.

2. Funding and budget

The next important factor that should be considered is funding. With DiOdour and a very
small cost of production, we would manage to produce a lot of the products to cater with a
very big audience as given from our objective.

3. Analysis of competitors

After a research, there is not products that are similar to our products which mean we
already overcome one challenge that are initially would stunted the product development.

4. An effective business plan

No business can develop fully in the absence of a business plan. Writing a business
plan can help to determine the idea whether it is feasible and provide direction. With a
business plan that already created, DiOdour management team will be able to know every
next step that should be taken.

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Business Analysis

 How will the product meet definite customer needs?

We will make sure to meet the needs of the customer, we will go through FOUR
step procedures, as listed below:

 Identify what our customers need from you through keyword research, focus
groups, or survey.

 Distribute the information to relevant stakeholders in especially research and

development team.

 Craft product features or create content that speaks to our customer’s needs.

 Collect customer feedback on how our efforts meet their expectations.

 Will new product require a lot of new machinery to produce?

As listed, we need three new machineries to produce DiOdour:

A) Mixer Machine

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 B) Compress Machine

C) Wrapping Machine

 Can the new product be protected with a patent or copyright?

Yes, the product will be register under the Patent Acts 1983 that will handle by
Patent Registration Office (MyIPO) as soon as the products enter the market.
This DiOdour new invention are need to be secure and to be protected.

The application forms involves include No 1 and No 2(A) for starting of the
application.

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Test Marketing

Test marketing is a tool used by our company to check the viability of our new product and
marketing campaign before it is being launched in the market on a large scale. The market
test carried out to ascertain the probable market success in terms of the new product’s
performance, the level of acceptance of the product, customer satisfaction, and the
efficiency of the marketing campaign. Through test marketing, we ascertain the success ratio
of the new product and the marketing campaign. We can plan the marketing mix ( Product,
price, place, promotion) very well before its official launch.

Product Testing: Sample

We join and set up a booth at several Sports Fair and Marathon events to distribute our
sample products, our participants are required to sign in our DiOdour Sample Program. They
will provide a form and submit their feedback in 7 days. They will reward 30 days of supplier
DiOdour if they completed their task. We collected almost 5000 participants in total and
receive useful feedback to refine and improve our product before the final product delivery.
We also gain customer information that we can apply to our marketing campaign.

Market Testing: Soft-Launching a Product

We partner up with brands such as Al- Ikhsan shoe store and Football Association of
Malaysia to provide exposure as well as testing the real-time market of our product. We
lunch a 1 Month campaign to sell our product with the collaboration of Al Ikhsan store. Our
product is put up a display in front of the premises to gain as much exposure as it could.

Football Association of Malaysia helps us to access Stadium and sports center across
Klang Valley to provide direct access to our prospect who has an active lifestyle to buy
DiOdour Pads. Their feedback will be collected and will be analyzed for upcoming official
lunching

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Commercialization

Feature-Benefit Chart

Product: DisOdour ‘Odor-Destroyer`

Product Feature Customer Benefit

Essential oil for aromatheraphy. Customer shoes will become fresh without
any unpleasant smell

Fragrance of green tea leaves, charcoal, Absorb the bad odour of the shoe and
eliminate the smell.
Lemon and cinnamyl is to eliminate the
unpleasant smell of the shoe.

How did you come up with your brand?

- The main idea of the product is to eliminate unpleasant smell and any discomfort
odour of the shoe. Therefore the name of the brand is ‘DisOdour’ with the slogan
‘Odor-Destroyer`

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Picture of product

Front Packaging Back Packaging

DisOdour Shoe Pad

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Marketing Goals & Objectives

Our company Dio Sdn. Bhd has set our goals and objective to market the product to the
crowd of people that are mainly living an active lifestyle such as sports person and have put
our secondary target market to a broader crowd of working people such as those who are
working in an office lifestyle and needs to wear formal shoes almost every day.

The reasons of choosing the target market are as such:

Target Market Reason

- Will be using shoes extensively and
generate a lot of sweat that will lead to odour
in the shoe
- Normally will seldom wash out the shoes or
disinfecting the shoes after each use
- Increasing market size where people now
Active People
will often buy more than 1 pair of shoe and
the time to wash out the shoes will become
lesser.
- Sportsman or sportswomen are normally
influential people where they play sport as a
team and have many friends (Referrals)
- Bigger market size but random people with
sweaty foot
- Have longer duration of time wearing shoes
since working hours is normally 8 long hours
without taking out shoes except certain
occasions.
Working Crowd
- Have a higher tendency of ‘Bromodosis’
illness since working under pressure and
stress are the source of ‘Bromodosis’
- Can target a bigger crowd where volume
game is able to be played in marketing the
product

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Apart from that, we have also made a basic market research by tapping into the social media
of the two most influential brands in foot hygiene namely Kiwi and Scholl. From the likes and
the people who really see the promotional and uses the product, we are able to generate a
figure of around 178,000 people that are actually aware of foot hygiene and the rest of
Malaysia is the secondary market crowd that needs education on foot hygiene. Thus, from
there we assume that 178,000 people is the total market share of people that uses a similar
product.

Considering the 25% budget from our projected sales can be allocated to marketing the
product (RM2,561,598), there are four (4) main marketing objectives that we have put into
planning:

Product Exposure Educate

100,000 People 100,000 Prospect

6 Months Plan 6 Months Plan

Sales Feedbacks
10,000 pairs 30,000 people

10% from 100,000 30% from 100,000

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Apart from the main marketing objectives set above, the marketing goal that we have set for
the next year’s projection:
NUM TYPE OF GOALS
1 Forecast Profit
2 Pricing Strategy
3 Forecast Sales
4 Market Share
5 Quality
6 Customer’s Satisfaction
7 Employee’s Wellfare
8 Social Responsibility
9 Nitch Market
TARGET
RM 0.90 per pad = 900% profit
(Cost is RM 0.10 per pad)
RM 15.99 for 16 pads
RM 4.99 for 2 pads
RM 10,246,392 in year 2020
30% out of 178,000 people
Improving shelf life
Less than 10% complaint lodge by customer
Giving bonuses and reward on yearly basis
Giving out Free shoes for orphan / needed people
Office people & Active lifestyle people
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Product description.

Ingredients.

a) Essentials oil ( why use essential oil? )

 Essential oils are most commonly used in the practice of aromatherapy, in

which they are inhaled through various methods.
 Certain essential oils also have the ability to balance out moisture
and alleviate the itchiness of skin rashes.
 Suitable essential oil for Disodour is lavender, cinnamon and geranium.
 Also because the fragrance will make the shoe smells fresh without any
unpleasant smell.
 The fragrance of green tea leaves, charcoal, lemon and cinnamyl alcohol is to
neutralize the unpleasant of the shoe.

Instruction on the use of the product.

 Wipe surface of insole clean with a damp rag and allow to dry. Peel DisOdour Pads
and place on the top of the insole.

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Marketing Strategies :

1. Identification of target market

Primary Target :

Disodour primary target audiences are for active people who love to do sports activities like
Jogging, cycling, football and more. Disodour is shoe odour destroyer product to helps active
people who have sweat leg problem to make their shoes more comfortable. Disodour well
design to eliminate smelly odour from people's shoes. This is because today people in
Malaysia are more exposed to a healthier lifestyle, they love to join marathon and fun run to
keep their body in good health. But they also love to buy branded and expensive sports
shoes this will be a great combination to keep their shoes odourless.

Secondary Target :

The secondary target market is the next market that most appeals to the company for its
promise and potential. Disodour secondary target is for professional people like an office
worker. This is because professional people use their shoes mostly 5 days in a weeks,
this will make their shoes become more smelly day by day. They also work in an office
that is limited with air circulation that their office gets smelly because of their shoes odour.
Disodour as a odour destroyer really helps professional people on their daily working
basis. Not only in the office, Disodour also helps to keep their shoes from being smelly
when they use public transport.

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2. Product

Product description :

Ingredients.

b) Essentials oil ( why use essential oil? )

 Essential oils are most commonly used in the practice of aromatherapy, in

which they are inhaled through various methods.
 Certain essential oils also have the ability to balance out moisture
and alleviate the itchiness of skin rashes.
 Suitable essential oil for Disodour is lavender, cinnamon and geranium.
 Also because the fragrance will make the shoe smells fresh without any
unpleasant smell.
 The fragrance of green tea leaves, charcoal, lemon and cinnamyl alcohol is to
neutralize the unpleasant of the shoe.

Instruction on the use of the product.

 Wipe surface of insole clean with a damp rag and allow to dry. Peel DisOdour Pads
and place on the top of the insole.

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Product Features :

Style

Disodour is a rectangle in shape that will fit perfectly in people's shoes. Disodour color
style is in black, this is because the black color looks more stylish and comfortable for
many people.

Disodour also contains a fragrance that helps people to keep their shoes from bad odour.

Function

The function of Disodour is to keep people's feet from a bad odour this is because
disodour contain special ingredients of fragrances such as green tea, lavender,charcoal,
lemon and cinnamyl alcohol that could counter the odour from every people feet. Other
than that Disodour also will help a shoe collecter to keep their shoes in good smell.

Experience

Before Disodour makes the product launching they do a testimony to selected people to
get their preference. From what we observe, the testimonial gives good feedback and
reason why they love Disodour. They said that Disodour helps their feet getting less odour
and they love it, other than that they also can keep their shoes in good quality. Disodour
also helps them with their daily working in an office that have bad air circulation, its help
them to walk with a more confident spirit.

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Packeging and Labelling :

Brand name is Disodour. The meaning of this brand is a combination of Destroyer (Dis) and
Odour (odour).

The content of this packaging is 1 pair of Disodour shoe pad. That lasts for 7 days.

Disodour ingredients are Essential oil, water, green tea, leaves, charcoal, lemon, and
cinnamyl alcohol. This ingredient helps Disodour product become useful to destroy the feet
odour.

The weight of this product is just only 1 gram. That make people easy to bring it everywhere.

On the packaging had a caution told that “keep away from children, consult a doctor if
ingested” this is important for people to precaution in using this product.

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Price :

Pricing objective :

Profit Margin Maximization :

Disodour objective is to aim at making as much money as possible. Disodour had set its
price in a way that more current profits can be earned. They also had set the limit of the
price so that the price will still be reasonable. The cost for one pad is only Rm0.10 and
the profit per pad is Rm0.90 this show Disodour profit is up to 900%.

Sales Growth :

Disodour is set to increase sales volume. It sets its price in such a way that more and more
sales can be achieved. It is assumed that sales growth has a direct positive impact on
profits. Disodour planning is to sale 10% from 100,000 pad in a month. The percent of sales
will increase month by month until they achieve the 100,000 pad in a year.

Signal Quality :

Buyers believe that a high price is related to high quality. In order to create a positive image
in customers' minds, Disordour had made a different design and price from the Competitors
which is Kiwi and Scholl. Kiwi and Scholl use the same material of product which is Odour
spray and the price of this product is around Rm27 to Rm28. Disodour creates a different
style of product where they make Odour Destroyer just using a pad that more lighter in
weight and easy to carry. Disodour price is also more affordable than the competitors where
it just Rm15.99. This will bring customers more attract to by Disodour.

Pricing constraints :

Disodour also has a challenge in making it affordable. Firstly, it's hard to find a factory
that could give a cheapest price with good quality to produce the product so they struggle
to find the right price to sell to people. With the Malaysia policy that has Tax and SST, it
hard for Disodour to make a competitive price different from market Price.

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Competitors price :

Examples of Disodour competitors are Kiwi and Scholl. These two brands are really
famous worldwide. Kiwi and Scholl use spray ordour while Disodour use just a sticker.
The price for Kiwi Odour spray is Rm28.00 and lasting for 25 days, Scholl Odour spray
price is Rm27.00 also with lasting for 25 days. While Disodour sticker price is Rm15.99
which is in one packet of Disordour contain 16 pieces of the sticker where 1 sticker lasting
for 7 days. This show Disodour price are more affordable and the long-lasting rate are
more better than Kiwi and Scholl.

Introductory pricing policy :

Penetration pricing is a pricing strategy that is used to quickly gain market share by setting
an initially low price to entice customers to purchase from the company. Such a pricing
strategy is generally used by new entrants into a market. An extreme form of penetration
pricing is called predatory pricing. Disodour use penetration strategy because they want to
make a product that affordable to many people. Disodour aimed to gain high sales so with
the low price will be an easy way for people to buy.

Place

Dio Sdn Bhd uses indirect marketing channel where Disodour will be distributed from the
manufacturer based on Shah Alam, through distributors to wholesaler and the retailer store.
The purpose we use indirect marketing channel to control product prices beside we could
reduce marketing costs because customers already know the wholesaler and retailer. We
restrict to have only three intermediaries because if more are created, the profit margins will
decrease. Among the companies that have made a memorandum of understanding as the
wholesalers such as Giant, Mydin, while the retailer such as Watson, Al-Ikhsan, JD Sports.
With the selection of this company as wholesaler and retailer, it will make it easier for the
customer to reach the products because the companies operate throughout Malaysia. This
product will be placed on fragrance racks within sports section.

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Promotion

Disodour is a shoe freshener product, so we target an active person such as a runner,

football player or even an adventurer. To reach this target audience, there is 5 marketing
communication mix including advertising, personal selling, public relation, sales promotion &
direct selling. Dio Sdn Bhd has decided to use advertising, personal selling, sales promotion
and direct selling as our marketing communication mix. The main reason we use advertising
is because it reaches a larger audience as we want to make awareness to our product. We
use a combination of traditional and modern advertising channels for example; YouTube
ads, Instagram, billboards, magazines, etc.

In addition, there are many ways to generate customer interest to our products. Therefore,
the most efficient way is using personal selling and direct selling. By using this marketing
communication mix, Disodour use email marketing and also provide merchandisers and
promoter so the target is narrowed to the specific customer. Eventually, the most important
part is to makes the customer purchases our products. In line with our goals and objectives,
sales promotion is the best marketing communication to create urgency. Dio Sdn bhd offers
the customers, if they buy 2 pads the price is RM4.99 but if the customers get a bundle
which contain 16 pads the price will be RM15.99.

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Implementation

Dio Sdn Bhd intends to launch "disodor" through soft launch to limits the audience to gather
data and feedback, to test the functionality of a product, and to allowing adjustments to be
made before a wider release and marketing efforts are implemented. We have appointed a
company to distribute our products to wholesalers and retailers. Customers will buy it at
retailers or wholesalers such as Giant or Mydin. We also provide promoters at Giant
Wholesalers to facilitate the delivery of information to customers. In addition, we have
sponsored two people from different fields, Mr. Zahari Khuzaimah, also known as The
Malaysia Nomad. He is world solo traveler and mostly travels with his bicycle. He also has
his own documentary segment at RTM1 called “Lensa Kamera” and Al-hijrah channel called
“Dengan basikal aku menjelajah”.

Another personality is Syaidatul Afifah Badrul Hamidi, National Bowler of Malaysia. The
reason we choose to sponsorship her because of her active to promote our brands in her
social media. Choosing both of them as our sponsorship partner is in line with our marketing
objectives. Our manufacturer gets a certificate from GMP. With GMP (Good Manufacturing
Practices) Certification, our products are manufactured in an environment that complies with
the guidelines determined by the Malaysian National Drug Control Authority.

Furthermore, to maintain this certification, the facilities are periodically inspected and audited
to ensure continuous compliance in the areas of Personnel, Manufacturing Plant, Grounds,
Sanitation, Equipment, Quality Operations, Production and Process Controls, Warehouse,
Distribution, and Post-Distribution Practices. In order to keep a relationship with customer,
we aim to get 30% of our 100,000 customers to respond to our products or services.

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Evaluation & Control

There's no one rule to define or formula to calculate product success. It eventually

boils down to the objective that we started with and figuring out how well our product scores
on them. As stated in our marketing goals and objective, our target is to expose our brand to
100,000 people in a year and get at least 30% from existing market share which around
53,000 users in a first year. Another metrics to indicate of our successful is we could achieve
our targeted sales RM 10,246,392 in a year sale.

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