Proposed New Marketing Strategy for Home Improvement Retailer: Case Study of MR.DIY Indonesia

: MR.DIY is home improvement retailer from Malaysia which expanded to Indonesia in 2017. “Always Low Prices” is the company’s slogan which means always provide product at affordable prices accordance with quality. MR.DIY offered more than 18.000 items divided into 10 categories for the needs of all family member. Currently, MR.DIY already has more than 350 stores across Indonesia and will continue to grow. However, the brand awareness of MR.DIY has not meet yet the company’s target and there is gap communication between company and customer perceive about MR.DIY. It show in the questionnaire result in this research, from 179 respondents 67.6% have not choose MR.DIY as the main choice for shopping home improvement needs and only 7.8% correctly perceive MR.DIY as home improvement retailer. Therefore, this research aims to proposed new strategy to increase brand awareness and educate public about MR.DIY appropiate position. The method use in this study are qualitative and quantitative with type of descriptive research. General analysis use SWOT analysis to know about business condition. Then the brand awareness pyramid used as thematic analysis. From the results of the analysis, the authors propose an integrated marketing communication as MR.DIY strategy to increase brand awareness and educate the public the MR.DIY positioning.


The Awareness Pyramid
The pyramid awareness introduced by Aaker in 1991 to measure brand awareness of company stands. There are 4 level of stage which are Top of mind, brand recall, brand recognition, and unaware of brand. On stage unaware brand customers not aware at all with brand presence, next stage brand recognition is the condition where customer can recognize brand with assistance in the from of logo, slogan, product and other attribute [8]. The third stage is brand recall, on this stage customer remember about the brand without any assistance, for instance, when we mention about category of product, customer can remember more than one brand to be choosen [9]. The final stage Top of mind define the brand comes to customer mind when think about specific goods, object, product, or service.

Integrated Marketing Communication
Based on Kotler Integrated Marketing Communication Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is marketing strategy to communicate the same message across all marketing channels [10]. IMC tries to maximize the communication process with positive messages in order to smoothen the relationship between brands and customers. A strong, consistent, and clear message is an important key in marketing. So, one of the main benefits of IMC is that companies can effectively increase brand awareness. There are 5 major tools communication in IMC which are advertising, sales promotion, direct and digital marketing, public relation and personal selling.

METHODOLOGY
This research were use quantitative and qualitative methodology. Quantitative research focused on numerical analysis of data collected [11]. The data can be gathered through polls, questionnaires, and surveys. In this research online questionnaire was created using google form and its get 179 respondents. The qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data for example text, video or audio to understand concept, opinions, or experiences [12]. On qualitative, the information can be obtained from observation, in depth-interview, open-ended questions, case study, or more. Qualitative in the research collect the primary data trough interview with head of marketing and assistance brand and public relation managers as representative from MR.DIY. In addition, The secondary data will use journal, article, news, book and observation.

Conceptual Framework
There are two conceptual framework of this research analysis; general framework and thematic framework. For the general framework using SWOT. The result of quesitionnaire will be use for thematic framework which is awareness pyramid. Then integrated marketing communication will be use for business solution. MR.DIY has more than 350 stores throughout Indonesia so it's easy to be found -Spacious store size with an average of 1000m2 making for a comfortable shopping experience -Complete product categories for home improvement retailers with up to 18,000 types of goods sold at affordable prices -Employees are the valuable asset it proves by they provide training centre and regulary held training to its employees -Opening more shops requires more workers, thereby reducing Indonesia's unemployment rate -MR.DIY still on early stage development business therby need more awareness -Business model that is easy to imitate because there is no significant difference except size and price for a store -Thin profit margins because mostly products of MR.DIY are cheap. Only a few high price product. -With slogan "always low prices" means MR.DIY communicate the products are cheap. Sometimes, price determines quality. Its difficult for people who buy products based on quality to come to MR.DIY and prefer choose other retailers.

Opportunities
Threats - The presence of e-commerce can benefit MR.DIY in order to increase profits and reach many customers. -Due to the easing of PSBB, promotional activities can be maximized -Expansion to small areas in Indonesia can open up opportunities for MR.DIY become the top of mind local communities of looking for the home improvement equipement because not many other retailers can expand the store as massively as MR.DIY -Tight competition in the digital era not only opens up opportunities for MR.DIY but also poses a threat, based on data, people are starting shifting to shop online. -Government regulations to establish a modern store depends on the respective regional policies. This is a threat to MR.DIY in its store expansion throughout Indonesia -Many local shop or SME dares to sell product at very low prices with the same type like MR.DIY -Threats from people's purchasing power due to unstable economic factors such as the pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine which caused world economic activities disrupted that make inflation occurred in several countries.

Thematic Analysis
179 respondents were participate in the questionnaire, one of question regarding the respondents perception about MR.DIY store 34.64% said they don't have idea, 22.35% said MR.DIY is furniture store, 12.3% department store, 9.5% are interest and had various items, 8.4% said accessories store, 7.8% said home improvement store, 4.5% said building material store, and 0.5% said competitor of ACI. It can be conclude only 7.8% are correct perceive MR.DIY as home improvement retailer. The other question are applied on the pyramid awareness, as follow:

Unaware brand stage
This stage is first level of awareness means customers not aware at all with brand presence. In the figure below, 70.4% recognize MR.DIY the rest respondents are not aware (29.6%). Respondent mainly knew MR.DIY from entering to the store, then family/friends, social media and the last from website.

Brand recognition
In this stage it can be said the customer have a memory about the brand. The respondent shows that logo of MR.DIY are most memorable (40.8%), next is the product price (25.1%), jingle music (14%), their slogan"Always Low Prices" (11.2%) and services (6.1%). Some of them also remember the product availability in the store. MR.DIY has reach brand recognition stage.

Business Solution
How to increase brand awareness and educate public about MR.DIY appropriate positioning? The solutions that author proposed is Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). There are 6 step to make IMC effective for MR.DIY which are set target audience, determine communication objectives, design the message, choose communication channel and media, select the message source and collect the feedback. 1. Set target audience Brand should set the clear target audience to ensure the brand communication message are attractive to them. MR.DIY set target market to all family member, men and woman with low to middle income all over Indonesia with the bullseye target is mother since mom still be decision maker on family.

Determine communication objectives
The companys objective not only to make customer move to buying the products but also make a positive engagement and active awareness that lead to long relationship between brand and its customers. Since the problem faced by MR.DIY are lack of brand awareness and brand gap communication. Therefore, the communication objective of MR.DIY are enhace the awareness and educate public about appropriate positioning. 3. Design the message MR.DIY can make a message with suggest tagline #SolusiMurahUntukRumah which means MR.DIY provide solution for all home needs with affordable price. The theme use emotional type because nowadays the content that gets a lot of attention and goes viral are the content that is driven by the emotions. In addition, message structure present product strengths and strong arguments can be place in the beginning ads. meanwhile, either print or video ads must unique and attract the audience.

Select the message source
The impact of a message depends also on how the target audience perceives the communicator. Its important to choose the communicator of message. A more credible communicator is usually more persuasive and highly trusted by customers. MR.DIY already has brand ambasador representing happy family which Dona Agenisa and Darius, also Indy barends that repesent mothers. Suggestion for MR.DIY is use influencer or artist that more popular in the year that still represent happy family or mother. MR.DIY can collaborate with Ayu ting-ting, Tasyi Athasyia, Titi Kamal and Christian Sugiono. Ayu tingting is multitalented artist in indonesia, she can be dangdut singer, presenter, comedian and youtuber. No wonder she has more than 50 milion followers on her instagram, she like to show up with her kids named Bilqis and her father Ayah Ojak. Content in Ayu ting-ting channel youtube mostly about her and family. This profile match with MR.DIY which shows the happy family. Tasyi Athasyia is social media influencer who like to review foods and home improvement stuff. She has strong mom personalities and had influence many people to buy the product that she used, it shows in their followers testimonial on her instagram. Titi kamal and Christian Sugiono are such couple goals indonesian artist, have two kids, and like to upload the family photos. They inspired followers trough their harmonious family.