Carolina Pad Business Analysis

In 1945, with the proper amount of finances and equipment, Joseph Hall Jr. and several business partners decided to start-up a company in Charlotte, North Carolina that made basic school supplies (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p. 467). First starting out the company was named Hall & Morris, and then later changed its name to Carolina Pad. Carolina Pad manufactured and supplied basic essential school supplies to different school districts in the Carolinas and Virginia. According to Lawrence and Weber (2014), “As a manufacturer, Carolina Pad offered composition books, notebook paper, primary tablets, pencils, crayons, and other school supplies” (p. 468).

Later in 2000, Clay Presley became president of Carolina Pad (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p.468).

In 2003, Jacqueline McFee joined the Carolina Pad company as their new designer (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p. 468). According to Lawrence and Weber (2014), “With a focus on latest fads, the company developed new lines of stationary that included popular text messaging phrases to publicize environmentally friendly messages (p. 468). The company business later expanded into other countries. Lawrence and Weber (2014) stated “Company sales grew from $30 million in 2000 to $104 million in 2008” (p.

468). With businesses embracing the world of blogging to advertise their products, companies started offering free products, and some companies paid cash as a compensation. April’s job at Carolina Pad was to create packages of the company’s products for bloggers to evaluate (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p. 470). Her main target was a blogging group called the mommy bloggers. In July, April had developed a bond with a few of the mommy bloggers who gave Carolina Pad’s positive reviews on their new product line (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p. 473). Soon, April was faced with a dilemma. According to Lawrence and Weber (2014), “In July, she received e-mails from four mommy bloggers requesting financial assistance ranging from $75 to $1000 to attend the upcoming bloggers conference” (p.473). April had to make an important business decision. Lawrence and Weber (2014) stated “April firmly believed the promotional considerations these bloggers were offering could provide a significantly higher rate of return for Carolina Pad than the company could receive from other, more traditional forms of promotion, such as advertising” (p. 477). April took the matter to the vice president of the marketing department at Carolina Pad, who only agreed with her analysis of the promotional benefits that the company could gain if they decided to follow through with the