Integrated Marketing Communications Analysis of GoPro

The goal of GoPro's integrated marketing communication strategy is to spread knowledge of a product that can capture moments and accomplishments. Through social media, the GoPro marketing team has generated a natural buzz. The business understood that utilising material produced by its consumers maintained the bond with its following. GoPro, though, needed to increase its target market. The most extreme sport competitors were drawn in by the product's strength and size. Examples of the target markets for GoPro's products include skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, motocross, and mountain biking.

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The Integrated Marketing Communication Analysis of GoPro
Devon Smith
STCO – 658
3/6/2020

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Executive Summary
The combination of marketing and promotion tools, beyond traditional advertising, has
become popular. With areas like sales promotions and public relations growing, coordinating all
a company’s communications is called integrated marketing communications or IMC (Belch &
Belch, 2018). This academic paper will analyze the strategy of GoPro’s, the action camera
company, integrated marketing approach. Analyzing GoPro’s IMC strategy, strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and target audience.
The integrated marketing communication strategy for GoPro’s organization is to share a
product that can record memories and achievements. The marketing team at GoPro have created
an organic buzz through social media. The company realized using content created by is
customers continued to strengthen the relationship with its followers. However, GoPro needed to
expand the market it was targeted.
GoPro specializes in camera equipment allowing its users to capture activities. The
product’s durability and size caught the attention of the most extreme sport participants.
Skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, motocross, and mountain biking are examples of the
audience attracted to GoPro’s product. This target audience grew to any activity needing a
camera to capture point-of-view video without getting in the way; an example of additional
consumers are firefighters. Along with a focused target audience, GoPro’s marketing strengths
include creative strategy and tactics, visual appeals, and promotional tactics.
The weaknesses of this company are pricing and product expansion. GoPro has a product
that has been durable and produces high quality video; however, the it can get expensive buying
the camera and accessories needed to protect the camera. GoPro also serves a niche market and
that makes it hard to expand products and into other markets.

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Attacking weaknesses is where opportunities are. One of GoPro’s biggest opportunities is
solidifying affiliation with costumers already in the market. GoPro had success within its market
adding products like drones. Another opportunity is creating a more dedicated space for the
GoPro user community. Lastly, is the threat of competition. Competition in pricing; GoPro is
susceptible low-price competitors. Other big-name and start up brands are also attempting to
make small, action friendly cameras. Established brands like Polaroid and lesser known brands
like Garmin and Veho have very similar products available, not to mention brands like Apple
always looking to expand into different markets.
Introduction
Marketing and promotion have changed from its heavy reliance on mass media.
Companies did not focus on public relations, direct-marketing, sales promotions, or package
design as they did print, radio, and television advertising. Now organizations are buying into
coordinating all communication tools to maximize marketing and promotion opportunities.
According to Belch and Belch (2018), “firms began moving toward the process of integrated
marketing communication (IMC), which involves coordinating the various promotional elements
and other marketing that communicate with a firm’s customers” (p. 8).
A company that saw the value of integrated marketing communication is GoPro. GoPro’s
Be a Hero and There’s a Hero in All of Us campaigns are not just a series of videos for
advertising. The agencies creating these campaigns looked at a big-picture communications
strategy. GoPro worked alongside with Mediabrands, of San Francisco, California, to create a
campaign that would reach a multitude of people across a plethora of platforms (Rathbun, 2018).
The campaign was spotlighted by utilizing user-generated content. All the media used to create

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the images for posters, the videos used in commercials and highlighted on social media are
captured by GoPro customers.
GoPro’s IMC Strategy
GoPro’s integrated marketing communications strategy is appealing to anyone wanting to
capture their memories. They market to them with user-generated content and a two-way
communication presence on social media.
Before integrated marketing communication concepts, organizations looked at
communications separately. Areas like public relations, media promotions, and sales and pricing
promotions would be managed by different agencies. At times, this separation left room for
disconnection between costumer interactions with the organization. However, integrated
marketing communications allowed for more continuity between the four p’s of the marketing
mix -product, price, place, and promotion (Belch & Belch, 2018).
The product caught on and the company grew fast, but is could be duplicated. Other
companies could undercut the price, so where would GoPro better their marketing. GoPro’s IMC
strategy changed to include a broader customer market. According to Jeff Beer (2016), “it’s not
tough to figure out the reasoning behind a shift towards more traditional ad formats, positing a
sales pitch aimed at an audience well beyond the brand’s hardcore adrenaline junkie roots” (para.
2). After extreme growth the organization experienced a plateau in sales.
To defend against declining sales GoPro changed its action sports themed promotional
media to include everyday activities and low-stress adventures to target more customers. The
video is still mainly user-generation content. GoPro is very active on social media applications,
like Instagram. Where the company shares video from its users and sponsored athletes. All of

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GoPro’s communications works to include everyone in their imagery and promotion. The camera
is for everyone to record any moment in life.
Strengths
GoPro’s marketing strengths are a known target audience, creative strategy and tactics,
visual appeals, and promotional tactics. GoPro cameras became popularized as the action
camera; it was thought to be used only to capture the point-of-view of extreme sports. However,
their target audience has grown much larger. Daniel Sparks (2015) said, “While GoPro cameras
were initially known for being used to capture action sports, uses have expanded to virtually all
kinds of different types of moments, including everyday life, family events, and vlogging” (para.
4). GoPro stopped solely targeting the 20-something age range and started marketing to anyone
that wants to capture their active life. Knowing your target audience is only a part of the
equation.
The next step of the process, and another strength of GoPro’s marketing strategy, creative
strategy and tactics. According to Belch and Belch (2018), “creative strategy determines what the
advertising message will say or communicate and creative tactics for how the message strategy
will be executed” (p. 266). The There’s a Hero in All of Us campaign was made to inspire
everyone to be active and live a full life while finding new was to make a record of the
experiences, GoPro’s message behind their creative strategy.
Visual appeals are the imagery a company uses to grab the attention of its consumer.
Images of people using a GoPro Hero5 camera swimming in the oceans, possibly with text
describing a feature of the product, is what you will see at a big-box store at the GoPro display.
These visual appeals are apart of the overall promotion tactics. Promotion is considered and

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company-initiated efforts to reach consumers (Belch & Belch, 2018). This is another area GoPro
specializes in utilizing user-generated content to promote and advertise.
Weaknesses
A business cannot survive if its product is not selling. The price is just as important as the
product itself. GoPro has a great product; it is in most big-box retailers for distribution and
excels at social media promotion. The price the product sales for is a weakness. GoPro’s high
pricing strategy could be a hindrance if they are unable to sell enough of the products and
compete with the lower priced brands (Wang, Hagman, Nguyen & Nguyen, 2016).
In 2002, GoPro released the first version of the Hero camera (About Us, 2020). The
camera has been updated and made better. GoPro also expanded their product line with drone
products and an application to quickly edit videos. However, because they serve a niche market it
will be difficult to expand and grow into other markets with new products.
Opportunities
The internet and social media have been an important tool for GoPro to promote to and
interact with customers. Creating an affiliation between the costumers and GoPro is an
opportunity to solidify recurring buyers. Jim Signorelli (2014) said, when customers become
affiliated with the brand “customers are no longer customers. Now they are followers. No brand
can satisfy them as much as your brand” (p. 153). GoPro is creating relationships by engaging
their users through social media and using them in promotional videos. Which leads to the next
opportunity.
GoPro could create a social community for its users. An official forum where members
can communicate and interact with GoPro. It could be for idea sharing and collaboration. GoPro
could also learn exactly what people would like to have improved about the product. The

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company can present advertising to its most loyal users to buy directly from GoPro, direct-
response advertising (Belch & Belch, 2018).
Threats
Competitors are GoPro’s threats. A competitor’s price and brand are what GoPro is
defending themselves against. Some big-name brands are slowing migrating into GoPro’s
market. Also, other companies are making similar products at a lower price. Sony makes small
camcorders; however, its functionality losses to GoPro’s functionality. In 2014, Polaroid
announced a product that is aimed clearly at GoPro’s market (Sun, 2014). Polaroid’s Cube
camera is smaller, cheaper, and it is a magnet and clings to metal surfaces. Like GoPro, the Cube
can be mounted on other surfaces with different accessories. Polaroid’s sports camera records in
1080p for 90 minutes, very comparable to GoPro’s product.
Other lesser known companies are creeping into GoPro’s camera market. “The AKASO
V50 Pro action camera is available on Amazon for $119” (Kundu, 2019, para. 3). The AKASO
action camera comes with all the accessories needed to mount and shoot. These low-price
options will threaten GoPro’s market dominance. This means GoPro cannot rely on their past
success, especially as their target market expands from solely high action sports to everyday
activities.
Target Audience
GoPro tells its audience everyone is a hero and the acts of heroism deserve to be captured
during the “There’s a Hero in All of Us” campaign. Whether you are putting out a fire or a parent
chasing their toddler around the yard, you are a hero. This was not always GoPro’s ideology
while marketing. They used to strictly focus on extreme sports enthusiast. Luis Silva (2015)
noted, “the current market for GoPro wearable cameras is rapidly expanding into markets with

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completely unique applications” (p. 8). Applications and social media are important when
examining GoPro’s target audience.
GoPro’s audience is not best described in demographics, but psychographics can reveal a
solid explanation. Even though GoPro wants to market to a wider audience, they appeal most to
active, outdoorsy adults. People who care about the environment and technology. Camila Wills
(2019) said, “two of the features that allowed it to outpace its competition are the versatility with
which it can be mounted on almost any outdoor gear equipment, and the pairing software that
allows it to be easily used live on an Android or iOS device” (p. 14).
The Reason for Success
GoPro believed in a product that was dependable and effective. So, did Jesus while he
was on earth. In Psalms 27:14 (King James Version), the bible says, “wait on the Lord: be of
good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” The develops of
GoPro wants to reassure through communications the values that separate their products from
competitors. God taught us to be confident in him, even though he knew there would be
temptation and other things trying to compete for our attention and trust.
Conclusion
GoPro is a company that has been successful creating a marketing strategy. Knowing who
is to target in the market is a strength of the organization. They have found creative ways to
reach a large amount of people. Every company has weaknesses, like being stuck in a niche
market, opportunities, for example a collaborative space for users, and threats, like low-price
competitors. This situational analysis of GoPro explained these attributes of what the
organization should focus on or change.

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References
About Us. (2020). About Us. In GoPro Official Website. Retrieved February 16, 2020, from
https://gopro.com/en/us/about-us
Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2018). Advertising and Promotion: An integrated marketing
communications perspective (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Beer, J. (2016, November 16). Why GoPro changed its marketing strategy to go beyond the
action. In Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3065745/why-
gopro-changed-its-marketing-strategy-to-go-beyond-the-action
Kundu, K. (2019, October 14). 13 best GoPro action camera alternatives. In Beebom. Retrieved
from https://beebom.com/best-gopro-alternatives/
Rathbun, S. (2018, April 8). Campaign report III: GoPro “there’s a hero in all of us” . Retrieved
from https://steviejohanna.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/rathbun_campaignreport_3.pdf
Signorelli, J. (2014). Story branding 2.0: Creating stand-out brands through the power of story
(2nd ed.). Evanston, IL: Story-Lab Publications.
Silva, L. (2015). GoPro Marketing Plan. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from
https://lcsilvaportfolio.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/gopro-marketing-plan.pdf
Sparks, D. (2015, August 12). 2 things to know about GoPro inc. In The Motley Fool. Retrieved
from https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/12/2-things-to-know-about-gopro-
inc.aspx
Sun, L. (2014, August 13). GoPro vs. Polaroid's Cube: Should GoPro be worried?. In The Motley
Fool. Retrieved from https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/13/gopro-vs-
polaroids-cube-should-gopro-be-worried.aspx

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Wang, M., Hagman, V., Nguyen, K., & Nguyen, T. (2016, June 1). GoPro: An analysis of the
competitive environment & potential IMC strategy . Retrieved from
https://rosannathunguyen.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gopro-report.pdf
Wills, C. (2019, June). Corporate Behavior Change: Forced labor in tech supply chains-- The
Case of GoPro. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from
https://gps.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty/gourevitch/gourevitch_cs_gomezwills.pdf