Discussion questions-managerial marketing

The impact of recalls can be disastrous to a firm as individual consumers begin to lose confidence in the health and safety that a given business entity promotes. If such a lack of faith is evidenced, this can directly translate to lower sales. Once a company finds itself in such a position, it must engage in an aggressive strategy to re-brand as a means of shedding this low quality image that has been impressed upon the market. As a result of the negative publicity and exposure that toy-making firms such as Fisher-Price and Mattel have had to face the past several years, there are few options available to these companies as a means of seeking to reintegrate with consumers and provide a positive brand image. However, this should not be understood to mean that these firms are necessarily destroyed and the image is beyond reclamation. With regards to the specific case study and the question which was posed, it would be the choice of this particular student to integrate with a rather costly and far reaching outreach to consumers. Whereas few firms are willing to integrate with such an approach due to the fact that it is exorbitantly expensive, it would be the argument of this student, representing a key stakeholder within Mattel, that such an approach would ultimately reap long-term rewards due to the fact that consumers would have any and all fears that they might hold assuaged with regards to the best practices that the firm is able to integrate and the level to which it seriously considers the shortcomings of the past and looks positively towards the rewards and betterment of ethics and responsibility in the future. By seeking to integrate with consumers based upon these lines, a message and level of appreciation for their business and forgiveness can ultimately be achieved. Metrics must necessarily be provided to the stakeholders within the firm as a means of encouraging them to expand the necessary money; however, it is the police of the student that once these metrics are provided in the stakeholders are able to see the long-term rewards that such an approach could provide, they will be more than willing to integrate with such a public outreach program.