A skincare brand operates in a $12 billion Total Addressable Market (TAM), with a $2.5 billion SAM focused on anti-aging products.

The brand currently holds 8% market share of the SAM.

A new competitor enters with aggressive digital targeting and quickly captures 2 points of share from the brand.

The marketing team proposes broad TAM-level advertising to “reclaim our audience.”

Which strategic insight best guides the brand’s IMC response?

Question

A skincare brand operates in a $12 billion Total Addressable Market (TAM), with a $2.5 billion SAM focused on anti-aging products.

The brand currently holds 8% market share of the SAM.

A new competitor enters with aggressive digital targeting and quickly captures 2 points of share from the brand.

The marketing team proposes broad TAM-level advertising to “reclaim our audience.”

Which strategic insight best guides the brand’s IMC response?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Contextualizing the case: the brand operates in a $12B TAM with a $2.5B SAM focused on anti-aging, holding 8% of SAM. A new competitor takes 2 percentage points from them. The question asks which IMC insight best guides the response, so we evaluate each option against the aim of defending and reclaiming share within the attainable segment.
Option 1: The brand should abandon the SAM and shift toward mass-market products where competition is lower. This approach ignores the reality that the brand already has a defined, targetable SAM with share at risk. Abandoning the SAM forfeits the current, defendable customer base and undermines the premise of reclaiming lost share within the reachable segment that the brand can most efficiently defend. In short, it sacrifices value the brand already owns rather than addressing the competitive loss directly.
Option 2: The brand should focus IMC efforts on the SAM segments where share was lost, using targeted messaging, retargeting, influencer partnerships, and loyalty programs to defend and rebuild obtainable share. This option aligns with a precise, cost-efficient strategy: allocate resources to the exact portions of the market where risk occurred, craft messages that address the reasons for the loss, re-engage shuttered or tempted customers, and reinforce loyalty with incentives. It leverages targeted channels and tactics that are well-suited to reclaiming share in a defined, reachable market, rather than spraying broad messages across the entire TAM.
Option 3: Expanding spend across the entire TAM is the best way to overwhelm the competitor with reach and awareness. While broader reach can matter, this ignores the efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio of IMC. The attacker’s gain is concentrated in the SAM; a mass-market approach may dilute impact, waste budget on non-relevant audiences, and fail to defend the lost share where it matters most. In practice, this is less strategic than defending the vulnerable, high-potential segments.
Option 4: Market share will normalize without intervention because TAM growth benefits all competitors equally. This is a passive stance that ignores the deliberate tactical needs after a share drop. It assumes uniform growth and neglects the asymmetric impact of the competitor’s aggressive targeting, thereby missing an opportunity to defend and recapture share through focused IMC actions within the SAM.
Thus, after weighing the options, the recommended approach emphasizes precision defense in the vulnerable segment, leveraging messaging, retargeting, partnerships, and loyalty, rather than broad repositioning or passive expectations.

2025FA_IMC_402-0_SEC20 Final Exam

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