INTEGRATED

M ARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS ( G O PRO )
Jaime Nowakowski

4/29/2015

Integrated Marketing Communications

(GoPro)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Industry/Company Review ....2
Product Review/Buyer Analysis....3
Competitive Review.4
Segmentation, Targeting, and Position. 5
Communications Objectives & Budget Request .6
Creative Strategy Statement .7
IMC Mix. 9
Specific Media Objectives/Mix..11
Evaluation Program..13
References .....15

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Industry/Company Review
The GoPro video camera falls in a unique spot, an industry that is still forming for
rugged extreme sporting capable cameras while also fitting into the mature, over
150 year old, camera industry. The camera was invented in the mid 19th century
and the video camera came around, based on the Nipkow disk, in the 1920s. GoPro
separates itself from the average video camera with its rugged and lightweight build
that is durable and able to be used in extreme sports or mounted on fixtures such as
helmets or cars.

The extreme sports industry is a subset of the sports industry that came around to
the popular eye in the 1990s. With the growth of the extreme sports industry, the
demand for extreme video cameras happens in tandem. Professional
videographers essentially recorded all video capture of extreme sports in the 1990s.
Turn of the century and introduce the GoPro video camera in 2002, the camera that
allows athletes to mount the camera to their helmet or surfboard and get a
completely new first person view of the sport, unlike any other angle before.

GoPro was started by Nick Woodman, a surfer, in 2002 when he was to go surfing in
Australia and wanted to capture quality images while on the surfboard. He soon
found there wasnt practically priced equipment for photographers to purchase and
use for close action shots of him surfing. With this realization he came to the
conclusion a better camera that could be mounted for his extreme sport and others,
was what he needed. The company received funding from Nicks parents at the sum
of $2,000,000 as well as he sold beaded necklaces and camera straps out of his VW
van. With the idea in motion the company sold their first camera in 2004. Within
the last 10 years the company has introduced to their camera, HD captures
capabilities and video.

The mountable, action-capturing industry is a young, immature one with few
competitors for GoPro to fight for consumers. This industry however, is also a niche
industry, not everyone is looking to go take the GoPro out for a spin on his or her
surfboard or on his or her snowboard down the mountains. This young and fairly
small industry, there are three other leading competitors, Sonys HDR-AS10 (as well
as their HDR-AS15 and HDR-AS30V), Garmins VIRB, Xiaomis YiCamera. GoPro and
its competitors have a lot of potential for growth with a young industry. Currently
GoPro is the leader of the mountable camera industry but only time and technology
in the competing companies will tell if they stay the leader.

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Currently GoPro sells a product line of three cameras -technically four, however one
camera is the plus additional of another- the HERO, the HERO3 (HERO3+), and the
HERO4. Each camera holds the same concept, mountable and made for extreme
living photo capture. The HERO4 and HERO3+ are considered professional grade
lens and capture capabilities while the HERO and HERO3 are for the average
consumer looking to capture their backyard, winter toboggan ride. The megapixels
also double from 5mp for the HERO and HERO3 to 10mp for the HERO3+ and 12mp
for the HERO4. What GoPro may lack in company size compared to Sony, a
competitor, they make up for it in their products.

Product Review/Buyer Analysis
GoPro made the transition to a publicly held company in February of 2014. It is a
relatively new company and for this reason all financial data used will be from
February 2014 through the present date.

GoPro is in the digital camera market and is most often associated with extreme
sports videography. While GoPro has many competitors as far as the digital camera
market goes, they specialize in extreme sport experiences. Polaroid (a digital
camera manufacturer) is offering a similar product called the Cube, but thus far this
product has not become a threat of rivalry for GoPro. GoPro offers unique point-of-
view footage that set them apart from the competitors. They are portable,
attachable, digital cameras that are perfect for travelers, sports enthusiasts, etc. to
use during highly mobile activities without needing a separate photographer.

As the leader in their specific market, GoPro is seeing tremendous financial growth.
GoPros revenue for the past three years is as follows:

2012 Revenue 526K with gross profit of 227.5K
2013 Revenue 985K with gross profit of 361K
2014 Revenue 1.4 million with gross profit of 627K

GoPros profits have more than double since 2012.

GoPro is definitely a high-involvement purchase for consumers. While there is a
diverse range of prices depending on the camera the consumer chooses, they are not
inexpensive, so this is a product that consumers will spend time and effort
researching before purchasing.

The typical consumer for a GoPro will be young, active individuals. While GoPro
began as being used specifically for sports footage, such as solo filming surfing, it
has since expanded into other areas. For instance filming a canyon hike, a DJ filming

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himself scratching records, and even consumers attaching a GoPro to their dogs
collar to watch a typical day-in-the-life of their household pet. The possibilities
and uses of GoPro are limitless, and still expanding.

There are definitely certain factors that influence the purchasing of a GoPro. For
instance, a surfer in California may be more inclined to buy a GoPro than say, an
office worker in the Midwest. However, consumers are getting more and more
creative with their applications of the device (as seen above) so the geographic
factor may be less and less important as we move forward in the products lifecycle.
As far as demographics go, it is likely that we will see more sales of GoPros in
younger consumers than older. Although, once again, this factor may not hold true
going forward. Recently, videos have been released under titles such as Cooking
with a GoPro where an entire recipe will be carried out all while filming with a
GoPro, offering a unique look at a culinary art. This type of creative application of
GoPro cameras really expand the usage of the device. It is clear that GoPros are no
longer just for young athletes interested in extreme sports.

Competitive Review
Direct Competitors
When it comes to direct competitors there are two that really stand out above the
rest and those are Sony Action Cam and the HTC Re. The action cam is second when
it comes to the video camera market. GoPro currently holds about 30.4 percent of
the market while Sony has about 20.8 percent. When it comes to price the action
cam is less expensive than the GoPro coming in at 270 dollars, while the GoPro
starts at 400 dollars. The action cam is currently the second highest selling action
style camera on the market behind the GoPro Hero 4. The major benefit that the
Sony action cam has over the hero 4 is the price. Sony is also a much larger company
than GoPro so they should be able to have the power to produce a product that is far
more advantaged. Sony has made their device a little more user friendly, and the
audio in the action cam has higher ratings. But some things that Sony could improve
on deals with the screen size. The Sony device does not seem to get the exposure
than the GoPro receives. They dont really take the steps in marketing the product as
much as other similar products and that is seriously hurting them because not a lot
of people are familiar with their product.
The HTC Re doesnt sell near as much products as the action cam or the GoPro. They
seem to appeal to a user that are looking for a far less expensive product but still has
the same type of idea. The He is currently selling on amazon for 120 dollars. This is
about 280 dollars less than the GoPro and still 150 dollars less than Sonys model.
HTC Re is really user friendly and works very well with a smart phone. The price for

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this product is far lower than its competition. The device has a very minimalistic
design that is easy to handle. When it comes to the most user friendly product on the
market the HTC He is hands down the winner. But some things that the Re could
improve would include the quality of video, better durability, and better application
quality. This product as well doesnt seem to receive the amount of exposure that
the GoPro gets. This is also a device that is more targeted to customers that are not
looking to use the camera for extreme sports.
Indirect Competitors
When it comes to indirect competitors the two brands that stand out above the rest
include Nikon and Cannon. Cannon currently controls the overall market share and
Nikon follows them. Nikon controls about 29.8 percent of the market currently
while Cannon currently has control of about 44.5 percent of the overall market. Both
of these companies offer products that range in price from about 100 dollars all the
way up to nearly four thousand dollars per product. These more expensive camera
are used to shoot high-end movie productions and so fourth.
Both of these companies have similar key benefits that include global marketplace,
innovative technology, and very strong customer service.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Position
Go Pro focuses on selling their product (a high definition wearable and durable
camera) to sport enthusiasts all over the world. From professional athletes to your
normal amateur player, go pro tailors to everyone.
Because of the high quality picture and durability, GOPRO has been able to sell to
just about every person looking for a camera, not just the sports enthusiasts. No a
days it seems that just about everyone wants this camera. People use them for
family pictures, wedding captures, vacation memories and so much more.
For this project our marketing team will be using the average sports enthusiast to
market to. We will focus on this group because our Advertising firm is
Weiden+Kennedy. Weiden+Kennedy seems to segment to athletes, and usually have
high quality commercials. They recently came out with a Nike Commercial featuring
Rory McIlroy dreaming to be a professional golfer and to be like Tiger Woods. His
dream came true and at the end of the commercial Rory teed off with Tiger at a
tournament.
We want to advertise to the average sport enthusiast because this is what go pro is
all about. To take just a average player, and give them a way to get their name out
there. With GoPro all of this is possible. The high quality shots and durable case will
allow that person to capture everything the need to get their skills to go viral.

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We also want to target much more than just than people who participate in sports.
We have a goal to target people who could use this camera in everyday life. Whether
that may be throwing the camera on the back of a dog to see what a dogs point of
view is or its someone who just wants to get their own cooking channel on YouTube.
We believe that there is a much greater target market than just people who play
sports so we will get those people to buy this item.
Currently GoPro seems to position their ads through social media. We would also
like to use social media to position our ads, but to also focus on showing our ads
through mainstream TV. We are going to use all major sports channel such as ESPN
and also many regional sports channels. We would also like to position our
advertisements through regional sports channels throughout many parts of the
United States. There are many people who watch these channels for local sports, and
we believe the people that watch these channels are your average sports
enthusiast. We want to show people how much fun it is to use a GoPro, and what the
benefits of what a GoPro can be.
Social Media is a huge marketing and advertising strategy today, but it can be very
cluttered and ads tend to be driven towards peoples recent history on their
computers. So with our positioning strategy we should be able to hit a larger part of
our market and make sure that nobody gets left out on this useful camera. Our ads
on a television shall catch the consumers attention and take them to GoPros
website.
The Plan for the Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning include the following:
We want to segment to all sports enthusiasts and all people who could use a camera
for everyday life. Cooking, family parties, vacations and much more will be the
target market. We will target these people by showing them that they will want their
performance, memories, documentation and much more on a high definition
camera. Our plan is to position our advertisements though the traditional
advertising channel. We figure that because of most of GoPros already comes
through social media that we need to take it back to the traditional approach.
Through the advertising we believe that people will purchase these cameras.

Communications Objectives & Budget Request
In hoping to influence buyers into making a purchase decision of GoPro, it is
necessary to focus on the objectives of the campaign, and what steps needed to be
taken to reach that purchase decision. It is helpful to focus on certain response
hierarchies when forming these objectives and perhaps the most helpful is the
hierarchies of effects model. This model is essentially the advertising process laid
out as a series of sequential steps that consumers take from first being made aware
of a product all the way up to purchasing that product. The steps in the hierarchy of
effects model are as follows:

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Awareness
Knowledge
Liking
Preference
Conviction
Purchase

The first step, and the most crucial, is boosting brand awareness for GoPro.
Consumers cannot purchase our product if they are not even aware of its existence.
We need to focus on promoting GoPro through reliable means with a wide reach.
Expanding more into television commercials will be our next big step. We have a
fairly heavy promotional reach on the Web, but making the jump to television and
investing in advertising there is a needed step toward making consumers much
more aware of our product. This advertising effort will also supply our consumers
with the knowledge they need to being contemplating a purchase decision.
Cementing our product in our consumers cognitive processes is the first big step
that we need to be absolutely sure we are accomplishing.

With knowledge and awareness, we then need to make sure our consumers in our
target market are retaining interest. Because there are relatively few competitors in
our market, we do not need to stoop to comparative advertisements, we can focus
solely on the benefits of our product and making consumers consider all the
possibilities of a GoPro. We want to show consumers that our product is relevant to
them even if they arent at all interested in extreme sports. With GoPro being
applied to more and more situations every day by its users (think cooking with
GoPro, or filming the inner workings of a saw mill) our advertisements will highlight
the fact that there are many reasons to be interested in GoPro. Also, not having to
resort to comparative advertising will position our brand positively in consumers
minds. After building awareness, supplying knowledge, and generating interest, our
consumers will be ready to make a purchase decision regarding GoPro.

Of course, this awareness, knowledge, and interest cannot be generated without
spending the money to achieve it. However, this spending should not be looked at as
a cost, but rather as an investment. Money spent on advertising and promotional
materials will be repaid in the business and awareness it generates for our
company. We propose that the advertising budget be set at $250,000 for this
campaign, using the objective and task budgeting method. A good portion of this
should go to traditional advertising, around 60%. The other 40% will be split
between non-traditional media objectives, sales promotion, etc.

Creative Strategy Statement

Copy Platform

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Critical Information
A. Exclusive or differentiating features
1. GoPro is a very durable camera that captures pictures and videos at a very I quality
resolution.
2. The camera can be mounted on my different items in a very safe matter so the client
knows that he/she will not lose their camera.
3. Camera is Waterproof, has a very long lasting battery life.
B. Functions these features perform for the prospect
1. Athlete will be able to perform at an extremely high level while at the same time
being able to shoot pictures and videos of themselves.
C. Other features or functions of note
1. GoPro is now offering other types of mounts for animals and pets. Also GoPro is
making new advances in technology to give the athlete the ultimate filming
experience.
Who is Our Target Audience? Anyone who could use a high functional camera. Every
day users.
A. Who is our Competition? Where are they in the Mind of our Audience?
Contour, EyeSee360, Vievu Samsung. All of these companys offer a camera that
people can use to film shots of high performance. Consumers will choose our brand
because we are more reliable and structured to the high performance athlete.
B. Where would we like to be in the minds of our audience?
Most do not realize all of the things that you can do with a GoPro. For instance
football players are able to mount it to their helmets. This would allow team sports
to be able to use these cameras for film studies. We want to be a trusted brand that
can fulfill every athletes needs. We would also like to see this camera to be used by
you everyday person to capture everyday memories.
Creative Tactics
A. What is the Consumer Promise
GoPro makes it easier than ever to capture and share your world like never
before!

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B. What is the tone for this ad?

The tone of this ad will be happy, informative, and exciting.
C. What will be our Source of Communication?
We will be using television, social media, and the internet as main sources of
communication.

IMC Mix
Advertising
GoPro has the ability to advertise their products in such amazing ways because the
product was developed to capture self-made footage from the most talented people
all over the world. In order for GoPro to maximize the advertising approach the best
way to reach out and attract the most interested customers is by using other low
profile extreme sports athletes. By using athletes that are not known it can make the
customers able to relate because it develops this feeling that it is possible for
anyone. It would be easy just hand amazing athletes GoPros and have them bring
you back advertising gold. It involves little to no effort from our company but will
produce the most appealing advertisement on the market.
Sales promotion
The advantage to GoPro when it comes to sales promotion is that the products are
so much better than the competitors on the market that there is no need for sales
promotion. How many people have watched self made videos on YouTube of Sonys
hands free product that competes with GoPro, thats right, no one. When is comes to
competition GoPro doesnt need to worry about price because everyone knows that
the products our company products are hands down better than the competition.
We will sell the highest quality products for the highest price and still blow the
competition out of the water. We understand that some people will fear our price
point and that is fine because they will end up settling for one of cheaper
alternatives on the market, and will find there way to our website after they had had
a bad experience to buy our high quality products in the end. Our motto is high price
equals high quality footage.
Public relations
When it comes to spending money on marketing this is the area that GoPro needs to
invest the most about of money. GoPro doesnt necessarily have bad PR but they
dont generate enough for it to make an impact on the companys sales. We feel that
the best way to boost our public relations is by hosting more events that will benefit

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large amounts of people that are interested in what GoPro can do. We should team
up with companies such as red bull, monster, and rock star energy as a way to
promote what our products are capable of. We need to take the time to involve
audiences that are younger that have more time to use the camera because they
dont have to work forty hours a week.
Internet/interactive
With YouTube we can build this product into the most well known camera in the
world by simply selling our product to customer who are willing to upload all there
footage to a channel without paying them a cent. These willing and able customers
that want to empress everyone that clicks onto there video would be the best
marketing possible for GoPro. But GoPro has the ability to grow this into something
that would create buzz all over the world. If as a company GoPro hosted Internet
contests often that would reward the individual that uploaded the video with the
most views on YouTube a craze would form. Everyone that was into the brand
would be posting video for there change to win, and it would flood the Internet with
video of people self-endorsing GoPro products. GoPro could also capitalize of this
promotion by promoting the latest and greatest product that will be needed in
ordered to increase the changes of winning the prize package.
Direct marketing
When it comes to direct marketing the best way for GoPro tackle this objective is by
using the Internet to best of their ability. Make sure that every time someone
searches sports that an ad for GoPro is visible on the screen. Use social media sites
such as twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to promote your products. Use hash tags to
grow the awareness of your products and in return with get the users of these
media platforms involved as well. But the use of YouTube is the most important
because it gives the views the most hands on view in video form. GoPro is a product
that has to be witnesses in video form because that is the whole reason for the
product. Find ways to get involved with YouTube to ensure that your ad will pop up
every time someone tries to watch a video dealing with sports of any form.
Personal selling
GoPro needs to develop their company into a media empire that is known all over
the world as the most needed product to produce the best footage possible. Dont
use precious marketing money talking about what your product can do, show the
people in live footage. Take advantage of the customers time by instilling into their
mind that the only way to remember amazing experiences is by have hard footage of
the most amazing times people have had. GoPro as a company needs to continue to

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grow by using personal experiences that people has had with their products to give
incentives for people that have not had the chance to own a GoPro product. When
investing into this company you have the ability to catch every moment in your life
without having the hassle of holding a traditional video camera the whole time.

Specific Media Objectives/Mix
GoPros young company profile determines our plan of reach, the reach for our
integrated marketing campaign for GoPro is a large one geographically and by
consumer type. We desire to reach a wide audience and broaden the appeal of the
mountable camera to reach out to people that may not be involved in extreme
sports. Our campaign would like to also reach the social media savvy generation
that likes to integrate their social media platforms into their daily activities. By
reaching the social media lover we can gain a higher number of potential customers
who would use their GoPro to help publicize their activities on social media
platforms.
Frequency determining how often we potentially expose the consumer to our
product, we want the balance of exposure that is effective but not overkill that the
consumer selectively tunes our advertising out. We will employee an even
frequency of consistent exposure that a consumer may see our ad on the side bar of
their Facebook page once or twice a day but not all day. They will then again see our
ad the next day and the next and so on but never for the entire day. Our media will
deliver our message mainly on social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter, Vine, and Instagram. The message, as we have been saying all along, is one
that the GoPro camera is for everyone and everyday, not only the day you surf, but
the day you go for a bike ride, the day you go snorkeling and the day you walk your
dog. GoPro is more than an extreme sports video camera.
With our client being one that is born in the United States, we feel it best to have our
campaigns geographic focus be in North America. With focus in North America we
can budget for United States as well as Canada and measure our media success to
then decide the rolling out of additional campaigning in countries outside of the
continent of North America. Media will be side banners on social platforms, short
video ads before YouTube videos and short video ads displaying current GoPro
users on the GoPro company instagram account. Currently GoPro has minimal
advertising and relies heavily on word of mouth of happy consumers that use and
talk about their GoPro or publish their GoPro videos to their social media accounts.
With this in mind, we want to have a fiscally responsible and reasonable media plan

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for the company to have the most impact, return on money, efficiency and
effectiveness.
Our overall media rationale is to produce a reasonable media plan that employees
video, banner advertisements and even distribution of the thematic message that
anyone can use the GoPro mountable camera. Our campaign will be a six month
long campaign with rotating but unified advertisements that will match along all of
the media platforms used and we will budget a media plan for a six month
timeframe. We will employee the GoPro instagram account, Facebook side banner
ads, both full and half size, promoted GoPro twitter account tweets that will have
links to the GoPro instagram account advertisements and GoPro YouTube account
advertisements, and finally 15 second video advertisements on YouTube videos.
With our theme of anyone can use the GoPro camera, we will focus on the
alternative uses of the camera, such as a family cookout and backyard bocce ball or a
dog going on a walk with his or her owner in a summer afternoon with the end
message: the GoPro camera is for everyone.

*Disclaimer: this proposed chart of media pricing and length of run for media is only
an estimate and not set, can be tweaked and added to or subtracted from as the
client sees fit.
Pricing is also based on cost per click or cost per ad view for 30-day months and at
least 10,000 views or clicks. We suggest a base number of 10,000 and then can be
added to after the first three months depending on the success of the campaign on
each of the media platforms. On YouTube we suggest 100,000 views of the
advertisement per day cap. Our integrated plan is to analyze the success of the

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media plan each month to better tweak it on each platform but to start with all four
platforms to reach the largest target market initially.

Evaluation Program
The Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) plan for GoPro is the key to
successfully increase brand awareness, and build and maintain relationships with
customers. Our IMC plan guarantees GoPros reliability, therefore improving
relationships with the target market. It is important that our marketing efforts are
unified and all departments communicate in a unified voice. GoPros IMC plan is
designed to promote GoPros slogan/logo, improve relationships with customers,
and more closely monitor digital and social marketing efforts. Areas such as public
relations, direct marketing, and media (paid and unpaid) will also be include in our
IMC plan. To ensure that our IMC plan is effective and will be successful, we will run
a few different evaluations.
To determine the effectiveness of our IMC plan, we will have specific evaluations for
each objective. These objectives include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Boost monetary intake

Increase gross margin
Stay under 150 million dollar media budget (traditional and nontraditional)
Increase number of sponsorships by 20% from the previous year
Increase brand/public awareness level
Generate monthly media coverage and events
Obtain new users to the website daily
Obtain new fans on Facebook/Twitter/and Instagram each month
Increase number of YouTube videos made using a GoPro product

The first three objectives will be quantifiable and easy to calculate. A daily
assessment of cash intake, gross margin calculation, and total amount spent on the

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IMC plan will account for GoPros monetary and non-monetary revenue. This data
should be calculated and updated at the end of each month.
Awareness is vital for any developing company. Evaluation of product and brand
awareness will be determined through surveys. Because GoPro is a relatively new
company, we will provide monthly and yearly surveys to track changes in
awareness level and perception of our organization. To maintain GoPros green and
healthy image, we will save paper by offering online surveys.
Media coverage is another objective that needs to be constantly evaluated. Media is
most commonly and most effectively tracked online through sites such as Google
Alerts and Hootsuite. We will keep track of followers and hash tags that mention
GoPro. Any blogs that mention GoPro should be printed out and stored in a specific
media folder. Tracking radio and print media will require team members and
volunteers. Any articles, or listings pertaining to GoPro should be clipped and stored
in the same media folder as mentioned above.
Monitoring online website usage is also important in measuring the effectiveness of
GoPros IMC plan. We will use Google Analytics to gather statistics on GoPros
website. Through this service, we will be able to monitor traffic, where it is coming
from, what content is most popular, and what words most users are typing in to
search engines in order to locate our website. Any social media activity will be
carefully monitored to assess the amount of GoPro customers that utilize the
Internet. The compilation of web data should be tracked on a monthly basis.
It is imperative that we continuously document and evaluate our marketing efforts.
The tactics outlined above will contribute to the improvement and growth of the
GoPro brand and the Hero image. With this IMC plan, GoPro will be able to expand
its reach in the community and as is its vision. We look forward to working with you
in executing this plan and helping GoPro reach its full potential.

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REFERENCES
"Annual Reports and Proxies." - GoPro. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"GoPro - Annual Report." GoPro - Annual Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"GoPro Channel." GoPro Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"GoPro Inc." GPRO Stock Quote. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"GoPro Ramps Up Marketing With Media and PR Agency Selections." Advertising
Age Agency News RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"How GoPro Is Transforming Advertising As We Know It." Fast Company. N.p., 01
July 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"Living the GoPro Life - The New Yorker." The New Yorker. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr.
2015.
"Sony, Nikon Narrow Gap to Canon With New Digital Camera Models."
Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

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