Slanket Case

Slanket is the market pioneer of sleeved blankets, and by the third year since its product launch, Slanket was able to generate $5 million revenues. Slanket had first pick of marketing channels, and there was no direct competitor with Slanket in the first few years of its product arrival. Thus, in this period of time, Slanket had no limit to how to expand its product line and to which customers they wanted to target. It chose innovators as primary demand and used the price skimming strategy. It didn’t even have any marketing costs (which is excellent because most new products have heavy promotion costs), but was able to make money and get rid of inventory quickly, selling each Slanket at the price of $64.95. Slanket has always had a stable market share and has been continuing to maintain sales even after Snuggie entered the market. Slanket maintained its first mover advantage by remaining strong in the quality niche of this market, and consumers rate it with higher satisfaction than they do with Snuggies.
Slanket had key disadvantages. Optimally, it should have obtained a patent or copyright on the sleeved blankets so no competitor could take its innovative idea. Because its product was easily copied, Slanket will continue to face outside competition as the sleeved blanket becomes more mainstream. The company also underestimated the extent of popularity of the sleeved blanket; if it could have predicted that the mass consumers would adopt Snuggies as inexpensive gifts, Slanket may have rethought its marketing strategy of a high price.
Slanket had a very simple marketing strategy before Snuggie entered the market. In fact, Slanket relied heavily on the product and as a result, priced it high at $64.95 to signal quality to the consumer (2). At the same time, the Cleggs spent $0 on their marketing budget (2). The trust the Cleggs put into their