JL Racing Case Study

Equally important JL Racing uses celebrity marketing as most recently in their cycling line Nicky Haden. Celebrity endorsement is a highly effective strategy to gain consumer interests and brand loyalty in a cluttered marketplace. Furthermore, as stated in (Hung, K. 2014) celebrity endorsement literature in three ways. First, it delineates aspiration and play as two main types of motives consumers hold toward celebrities in the entertainment process. This complements current studies that regard celebrities as opinion experts and credible spokespersons in their buying decisions. Second, It centers on the encounters between the consumer and the celebrity in various media contexts, such as movies, shows, and games. As studies on celebrity worship

reveal, consumers form parasocial bonds with favored celebrities who shape their lifestyles,attitudes, and behaviors. Third, this approach builds a bridge between the literatures in media entertainment and brand endorsement. It complements studies that conceptualize the celebrity as a “promotional tool” or “valenced percept” that helps transfer embedded affect onto an endorsed brand. Although the use of a celebrity in marketing and brand recognition a company has to make sure their product matches the celebrity. When a product or brand seemed like a poor match with a celebrity, consumers only associated the celeb’s negative traits with the goods being advertised (Tuttle, 2012). This could be detrimentally in creating positive brand recognition with the use of advertisement.
In addition, they reinforce their relationship with the customer with uses of direct exporting with advantages including knowing your customers, in return the customers know who you are in which the customer feels more secure in doing business directly with you, and the customer can give faster and direct feedback about products and their experiences (Delaney, 2015). In addition JL Racing finds other advantages with direct exporting internationally in regards to still generating sales during seasonal changes.
JL racing has also created strategic alliances with companies like Adidas to help reach out to more customers internationally.

In doing so they are still able to maintain their logo inside the clothing well the logo for Adidas is placed outside of the clothing. A strategic international alliance is a business relationship established by two or more companies to cooperate out of mutual need and to share risk in achieving a common objective (Cateora, Gilly, & Graham, 2011). Furthermore the strategic alliance of Adidas and JL Racing opened up a market for Adidas in which it was weak in well increasing competitive strength with the JL Racing logo. The competitive strengths are that the company’s distinctive competence and product profitability are over those of competitors (Liu, W. K. 2009). Furthermore, in creation with the alliance a company can begin to have access in markets where it has not been able to enter yet. In addition companies could access to the resources and technologies easily with the form of strategic alliance. More over the advantages of a strategic international alliance there are some disadvantages for reasons of as stated in (Liu, W. K. 2009) a strategic alliance is the form of cooperation with their current or future competitors, companies would worry that the strategic alliances provide their competitors convenient way to acquire low cost of technologies and access market. Strategic alliances would strengthen the capability of their competitors and

decrease their own competitive advantages.
International sales affect JL Racing domestic business in a positive way.

Expanding internationally has helped in increase sales and profits, well providing stable operations and new product designs. Therefore, JL Racing does not believe in laying off their workers, in order to be successful in refraining from laying off they are able to continue with production outside of the American rowing season due to the different rowing seasons internationally. Furthermore new product designs have entered into the American market where colors where boring there is a trend of the use of pastels and more vibrant colors that the Europeans use in the American market. JL Racing major concern is the exchange rate between the different countries, the added cost incurred by exchange rate fluctuations on day to day bases should be considered when pricing products (Cateora, Gilly, & Graham, 2011). Failing to recognize the risk can lead to the risk of a company’s market value changing from unexpected exchange rate fluctuations. When the currency exchange rate rises or falls, the cost of production and sale price can be affected by the change which may in turn affect profits (Hou,

2013).
In conclusion my research reflects on the different challenges of small businesses looking to bring sale internationally. In doing so a small business has to do more than make a website and offer international delivery. A business should first do the research on international law and tax codes above else in addition to cultural differences. Furthermore, applying the correct marketing strategy in regards to use of a celebrity or a face to face strategy including other tools involved like a website. The key is to appeal to the customer and to keep them satisfied in order to gain repeat business and free marketing through word of mouth. Finally a company can use what they have learned from different cultures and apply it to domestic sales.