Developing Markets

New Solutions recently built up a cluster analysis for one client, mail order film processing company Nashua, which owns the Truprint and York brands.

Strong competition from new mini-labs was forcing Nashua to adopt aggressive price discounting, not a viable long-term strategic option. New Solutions carried out a detailed breakdown of the film processing market, of which mail order holds only 11 per cent.

The main options for development were either to attract and keep more of the current mail order users, or, more attractively, to seduce some of the larger number of non-mail order users.

The consultancy wanted more of an insight into the different types of people buying film processing and built up a cluster analysis. This was then overlaid with a breakdown of how much film each type purchased and a rich seam of potential users emerged.

New Solutions called this group “hobbyists” – keen amateur photographers who buy good-quality film in a range of different specifications and who demand a correspondingly diverse and high- quality processing service.

In order to get them to change existing perceptions and consider mail order processing New Solutions suggested a premium service, called York Excel, offering a range of developing processes and a quality guarantee.