BANTER GAMES SNACH BUSINESS PLAN

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BANTER GAMES SNACH BUSINESS PLAN
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Business Concept Our mission here at Banter games
will be to bring an exciting, new game to the toy
and sports industry. In this industry it is
essential that you offer something new, or
unique. Otherwise you go for a small market share
of the existing products. What we have is both
new, and unique! The results of our market
research were phenomenal. It quickly became
obvious our product had major league potential.
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The toy industry is undergoing changes in its
demographic buying behaviors, and we intend to
capitalize on these new buying trends. Kids are
getting older faster and leaning toward video, or
sports related items. Sports, more specifically,
at earlier ages than ever. Our products will fill
the sporting end of this cultural change. This
change has been researched and documented by the
very industry that continues to push traditional
games towards kids yearning for new activity.
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Current Situation By way of invention, patents
and trademarks, I am currently in possession of
the new game called SNACH?.
SNACH? is a challenging new game of two-hand
catch, with several appealing selling points. The
game itself is fun, addicting and very
competitive. But can also be played casually in a
non-competitive fashion, similar to Hacky Sack?.
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The rules lend themselves to tournament style
play. This creates a very powerful marketing
tool. Our research has proven the ability of
SNACH? tournaments to generate a huge amount of
interest in this product. Sales have skyrocketed
at EVERY demonstration weve held, whether it is
a simple beat the inventor promo at MVP sports,
or an actual tournament at a mall. (See RD) The
wearable game bag is self-promoting. The kids
will wear the game on their belt loop or
backpack.
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Objectives   1.      To steal the summer of 2004
with the hottest new game of the season. 2.     
To create an activity frenzy surrounding this new
game through a creative media campaign, coupled
with very public demonstrations. 3.      To see a
positive ROI by September 2004. 4.      To expand
to a nation wide market by the summer of
2005. 5.      To create an adventurous work
environment to attract and hire dynamic young
talent. 6.      To become an exciting new force
in the business of marketing toys.
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Marketing strategy My research shows a strong
market for this game/sport. If we manage just a
curiosity sale to 8 of our targeted audience, we
stand to sell 62,000 games over the course of six
to eight weeks. Although the 12 market is
actually 3,836,500 in this geographical area, I
am only using 755,000 of 12 to 24 teens, specific
to WAAF, to calculate the 8. Obviously this
demographic will spill out. When the campaign
takes off, that number would increase
significantly.
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The 12 to 24 year old age group has enormous
buying power. Just the males in this category
spend over 35 million per month, and over 9
million monthly at the type of stores I intend to
have our games placed in. Our strategy will be
to place this game heavily in convenience stores,
toy, and department stores in a 30-mile radius of
Boston. This is the geographical reach of WAAF,
the radio station well be advertising through
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We will be organizing and running tournaments
throughout the targeted area. Much like Frisbee,
this game appeals to most people over 12 years of
age. Its so affordable that parents will buy it
for, and play it with, their kids. Kids will
buy it out of pocket. In our market research
this product had broad appeal while selling at
6.95. Our price will be 4.95!
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This price is enormously significant! It moves
this game into the impulse buy category.
When a product sells for under five dollars
people will buy it without even thinking. This is
a well-known marketing fact. This also gives it
registry area placement, which drastically
increases sales!
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Promotion   Promotion will be happening on many
levels. Radio advertising, mall and beach
tournaments, co-op advertising, way cool web
site, and trade shows. We will also be promoting
this game through the Scholastic fundraising
venue. Our strategy is pretty simple. Kids make
their own fads, (in their minds) not adults.
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Our tactic will be to let the kids hype this
game. Through a very unique, creative marketing
campaign. We will give the kids an opportunity
to be heard on the WAAF Snach-Masters
Update on a tri-weekly basis, and allow them
to interact in an aggressive animated format on
our web site.
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We will entertain them with their own statements,
along with creative links, and comical phrases
like our false disclaimers. They will
participate for prizes, and bragging rights at
our tournaments in front of a large audience of
their peers. Caution playing snach in public
may cause elation. Avoid playing snach where
prohibited. Pregnant women should play snach.
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Radio media Radio media will be very influential
to our demographic. Nobody goes out into the
streets like WAAF. We will have a front-page
link on WAAFs web site. This site gets over
1,170,000 hits per day! WAAFs very influential
DJs will be pumping up the game as a cool new
game that the kids brought to their attention.
The radio personalities will be bragging as to
who beat whom at the station as well. This is
powerful stuff!
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We will be attending some of their events, with
thousands of spectators at each! And well have
inter-active booths going at all of them. They
also include banners, and other graphic
assistance in their proposal. WAAF is a monster
hit for us. We will be offering the kids a chance
to be quoted on air or to have their names
announced as Snach-Masters three times weekly
during our campaign. Being heard on the radio
may cause instant popularity. Snach is not
responsibly for popularity in any way Avoid
popularity where prohibited.
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Tournaments Tournaments will be the crux of our
public promotions. Our tournaments have drawn so
much attention, and sold so many games on site,
that Im determined to run them as often as
possible. We have held tournaments with 64 people
participating in the past, (surrounded by over
200 onlookers) but when coupled with the radio
pre-event advertising, it should be a
extraordinary spectacle! Held right in the heart
of a major mall, or at a beach or other location
popular to our demographic.
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Web Site   Our web site will have a front-page
link on the WAAF web site. Their site receives
over 1.7 million hits a day! Our site will be
very interactive with product information and E
commerce ability to allow people to purchase the
game right on the site. It will be a constantly
changing environment, including live updates on
current tournaments and archives of our past
tournaments including video clips. It will
include a message board for players to
communicate and a bulletin board announcing
future events. We will be constantly seeking
co-op links with our own site. I will be
working with young aggressive talent in this
industry.
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Strengths  We have a strongly attractive unique
new product. It has exceptional promote-able
attributes catchy trend-setting name,
challenging competitive new game of catch, a
unique collectable carrying bag, and a
self-promoting key clip for kids to carry
(advertise) the game on their person or backpack.
They will be carrying this game much like the
cowboys carried their 6-guns, ready for a
challenge anywhere, anytime! With a suggested
retail of 4.95 this game has excellent product
placement capability, and impulse buying
strength. We have an amazing 450 mark-up. This
allows us to be flexible with larger sales
accounts. We will have a low cost inventory.
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Growth Potential We will be targeting one small
geographical market area, namely Eastern
Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. After
the initial success of SNACH in this market, we
would set things in motion to go nation-wide by
next spring. We will offer limited edition colors
to the line as we progress. Initially, we will be
presenting the game and its attributes in one
color. We will also move into the scholastic
fundraising market in the fall, while starting
the preliminaries for that immediately. This
would include the negotiations for running school
tournaments. Scholastic funding alone has huge
potential for this product.
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Sales Strategies We will be using an outside
sales force for our accounts. The rep group will
be obtained through research provided by MRP. MRP
(manufacturers rep profiling) is an in depth
sales profiling research company, which weve had
impressive success with in the past. Orders will
be received and processed through us, and the
terms will be 48 games minimum, 30 days net, plus
shipping. We will be allowing a 15 commission to
our outside sales agents. The rep group will
initially concentrate on the geographical area we
intend to promote. The rep group will have
extensive experience in their profession, and
some major store chains in their repertoire, such
as 7-11, and Tedeschis, and a large, mall
imbedded chain store. Sales will begin
immediately through brochures and will be in full
swing when the games are delivered in mid June.
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Staffing   Thomas Walsh will oversee all
operations for Banter Games. Doug Harwell will
be the financial handler, managing all financial
matters. Kathi Walsh will maintain databases,
and perform or consult on other sales support and
administrative tasks. We will hire a web master,
and a small promotional staff to work our
tournaments and booths as well.