Sustainable Management and Marketing Analysis: Icebreaker Company

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Icebreaker's sustainable management and marketing practices. It begins with an overview of the company, its founding, and its commitment to sustainability, particularly in relation to its merino wool products. The report then delves into Icebreaker's key principles of sustainable marketing, including customer-oriented, consumer value, innovative, sense of mission, and societal marketing approaches, evaluating how Icebreaker implements each. The marketing mix is dissected, examining the product (clothing), pricing strategies, promotional activities, and distribution channels. The report assesses the effectiveness of Icebreaker's marketing mix and offers recommendations for improvement, such as enhancing customer-oriented marketing through account-based, communal, and catalog marketing. Finally, the report explores Icebreaker's marketing positioning, highlighting its competitive advantages, including its sustainable approach, use of natural resources, and transparency, and concludes with a summary of its findings and recommendations for future marketing strategies.

RUNNING HEAD: ICEBREAKER
Sustainable Management and Marketing

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Company overview..........................................................................................................................2
Key principles..................................................................................................................................2
Marketing mix.................................................................................................................................3
Assessment......................................................................................................................................4
Marketing positioning......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The research report is prepared on the title ‘Sustainable management and marketing’. It
pours light on the major aspect of sustainable management and marketing in relation to
‘Icebreaker’. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to upgrade the knowledge based on the
given title by practically analyzing the real-life company.
Company overview
Icebreaker is a New Zealand based company founded in the year 1995 by Jeremy Moon.
The company aims to develop garments for adventure purposes. It is the first company to
develop long-term contracts with key merino woolgrowers in the global world. It attains anxiety
for animal welfare. In the year 1998, Icebreaker has entered the international market. It has
initiated its first retail store in the year 2005. It provides multiple varieties of including hats,
socks and tops. It leads to the innovation of new technology named as ‘Corespun’ (Icebreaker ,
2019). It has around 4500 stores in 47 countries. Additionally, it also has its website in 23
countries (Icebreaker , 2019). Additionally, Icebreaker is one of the companies that are highly
engaged in the usage of sustainable practices in their business process (Pure Advantage , 2011).
Key principles
Following are the principles of Sustainable Marketing and its relation with Icebreaker:
1. Customer-oriented marketing: It involves developing strategies by keeping customer
satisfaction at the core. It is usually done to achieve high sales and profit margins. It is
examined that Icebreaker does not avail many advantages of customer-oriented
marketing. It is assessed that in the year 2009, it has taken the use of Email marketing to
attain higher sales and customer attention (Campanelli, 2010).
2. Consumer value marketing: it is a marketing concept that involves the adoption of
marketing practices that focuses on customer satisfaction. It is analyzed that Icebreaker is
also aiming to develop a recycling program. The basic purpose of this program is to
retain the attention of its loyal customers. This will enable Icebreaker’s customer to
participate in the product lifecycle program led by the company. It is considered as a

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consumer value marketing as it directly requires involvement of Icebreaker’s regular
customers.
3. Innovative marketing: It involves various approaches taken by the company to promote
their actual value to the customers. It is usually done by making changes in the product
design, launch of the product at a distinctive place and promotion through unorthodox
methods. It is analyzed that Icebreaker Company has availed the use of innovative
marketing by launching its transparency report. In its report, it has emphasized the usage
of natural fibers (SB, 2019). It is considered as a marketing strategy because it will
ultimately help the company in gathering the attention of the customers.
4. Sense of Mission marketing: It states that an organization must define its mission other
than being product oriented. Icebreaker has also taken this marketing approach. The
company lays high attention in sharing its mission regarding sustainability. It has also
mentioned its mission on its website. In other words, its mission states that sustainability
is not its product feature but it is a significant part of Icebreaker’s business (Icebreker,
2019).
5. Societal marketing: It is a form of marketing that states that the company should also lay
prior attention to society’s long term interests in its marketing decisions. It is analyzed
that Icebreaker is highly attentive towards societal marketing. The company is not
directly engaged in societal marketing but performing activities that are aligning with the
societal marketing. The icebreaker lays prior attention to sustainability. It aims at using
packaging that is safe for society. It is focusing on the use of fiber-based packaging to
contribute to a healthy living space. (Gordon, 2011).
Marketing mix
Product: Product is the commodity offered to the customers by the organization
(Londhe, 2014). It is assessed that Icebreaker is not a fashion-oriented company. Icebreaker
offers clothing products of multiple varieties including body fits. It aims at producing elegant
and simple clothes. Its purpose is to offer durable clothes that are of mixed-use. It offers
purposeful and natural driven clothing. It mainly relies on natural products and synthetic
materials to develop clothing. Thus, it avoids the usage of petrochemical materials and makes

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efficient use of natural resources. Moreover, its products promote sustainability (Icebreaker ,
2019).
Price: It is the amount paid by the customers in respect of the commodity received
(Brooks, 2012). Icebreaker products are generally expensive as it relies on Marino wool (Reidy ,
2017). However, it also provides timely discounts to its customers (Icebreaker , 2019).
Promotion: It involves the marketing methods adopted by the organization for the
promotion of their products in the market (Išoraitė, 2016). In order to promote its products,
Icebreaker launched a report named ‘Transparency Report: Made Different’. In this report, the
company has provided a detailed description of its products (SB, 2019). To market its products,
Icebreaker aims that its products are made differently. Additionally, it also relies on E-mail
marketing by developing effective content strategy (Campanelli, 2010).
Distribution: It is the place and the distribution channel through which commodity is
delivered to the customers (Kotler, 2015). Icebreaker has its distributors in 30 countries
(Brandworkz, 2019). Icebreaker serves its customers through physicals well as digital channels
to ensure early distribution of products to the customers.
Assessment
It is analyzed that the Icebreaker marketing mix strategy is yielding fine results for the
company. However, it is assessed that further improvement in these areas may offer more
benefits to the company. It is examined that Icebreaker is not much active in promoting its
products. It attains less involvement in the marketing of its products. Thus, it is recommended
that Icebreaker should enhance the use of customer-oriented marketing. As mentioned above,
Icebreaker has implemented this marketing principle and it had offered great product for the
company in 2009. Hence, Icebreaker should enhance the usage of customer-oriented marketing.
This will assist the company in generating demand similar to the year 2009 (Campanelli, 2010).
It is recommended that in customer-oriented marketing; Icebreaker should rely on the marketing
practices mentioned below:
 Account-based marketing: It involves targeting customers that have specific type of
account. Thus, Icebreaker should rely on this marketing to avail higher demand.

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 Communal marketing: It involves sharing customer’s stories about a product. This
marketing will provides multiple benefits to the Icebreaker. It will help the company in
building harmonious relationship with the customers. Additionally, it will assist in easily
generating new customers trust in brand. This is because customers consider communal
marketing more trustworthy.
 Catalog marketing: It is done by highlighting the products through catalogue. Icebreaker
should develop the use of catalog marketing to its regular and loyal customers.
 Consumer marketing: It is considered as direct marketing. Icebreaker Company should
rely on this marketing specifically to certain sections of society (Kotler, 2015).
Marketing positioning
Marketing positioning deals with enhancing the brand image of the product from the
customer’s perspective (Zahay, 2010). It is assessed that competitive advantages help the
company in achieving market positioning. It is examined that the top competitors of Icebreaker
are Smartwool, Ibex and North face. Moreover, ‘Figure 1’ also suggests the top competitors of
Icebreaker (Owler , 2019).
Figure1: Icebreaker competitors
Source: (Owler , 2019)

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 Sustainable approach: It is analyzed that one of the distinct features of Icebreaker from
its competitors is that it follows sustainable approach. It lays prior attention to
sustainability. Thus, it has achieved a similar position in consumer perception.
 Natural resources involvement: Icebreaker highly adopts the usage of natural resources
for its production process. Rather than availing the use of man-made fiber, it mainly
relies on the use of Marino wool. It implements the use of high-quality wool and thus
represents a higher position in the mind of the customers.
 Transparent: Icebreaker is perceived as transparent in its work process. This is because
it has launched a report named ‘Transparency Report: Made Different’. In this report, has
provided the customers with an insight into its work process. Thus, this step has helped
the company in achieving a trustworthy and reliable position among the customers
(Icebreaker , 2019).
Conclusion
The report summarizes the title ‘Strategic management and marketing’. The above
discussion concludes that Icebreaker is highly adopting the sustainable approach in its work
process. Additionally, it is suggested that Icebreaker should develop more marketing strategies
for the promotion of its products in Australia as well as in global market.

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Bibliography
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https://www.brandworkz.com/market-focus/icebreaker/
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30(5), 494-514.
Campanelli, M. (2010, February 1). Case Study: Icebreaker Breaks Records With Holiday Email
Campaign. Retrieved from Target Marketing:
https://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/case-study-icebreaker-breaks-
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Gordon, R. C. (2011). A framework for sustainable marketing. Marketing theory, 11(2), 143-
163.
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https://www.icebreaker.com/en-au/our-story/history.html
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https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/web-specials
Icebreaker . (2019, August 3). PRODUCT. Retrieved from Icebreaker :
https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/our-story/product.html
Icebreaker . (2019, September 1). SUPPLY CHAIN. Retrieved from Icebreaker :
https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/our-story/supply-chain.html
Icebreker. (2019, September 3). WHERE TO NEXT. Retrieved from Icebreker:
https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/our-story/where-to-next.html
Išoraitė, M. (2016). Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International Journal of Research–
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Kotler, P. B. (2015). Marketing. Pearson Higher Education AU.

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Londhe, B. R. (2014). Marketing mix for next generation marketing. Procedia Economics and
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Owler . (2019, September 3). Icebreaker's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees,
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Reidy , M. (2017, November 3). Benefit of Icebreaker sale to US giant lead to cheaper prices.
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https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/98519705/icebreaker-sold-to-us-giant-
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SB. (2019, August 3). Icebreaker Aims to Prove Its Apparel Is ‘Made Different’ with New
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https://sustainablebrands.com/read/marketing-and-comms/icebreaker-aims-to-
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Zahay, D. &. (2010). Marketing strategy selection, marketing metrics, and firm performance.
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