Table of Contents
Development of the genre and innovative product is necessary for the organizations to attract a larger number of customers and increase sales. Marketing is required to make the customers aware of the products and gain competitive advantage in the market. In this report, marketing processes of a new breakfast product that is created by a local food manufacturing company of the UK namely Quattro Foods. For this purpose, PESTEL of the breakfast market and marketing mix of the company structured to successfully accomplish B2B and B2C marketing.
Marketing Environment and Planning Process
a) Introduction to new breakfast product and explanation of the components of the marketing planning process and marketing context
It is identified that in the recent times, breakfast market of the world faces a high competition and the breakfast market of the UK faces the same consequences (Sych et al., 2015). Therefore, development of the new product is necessary for the companies to attract a large number of customers and enhance their sales through obtaining competitive advantage. The new breakfast product that is generated by the local food manufacturing company in the UK, Quattro Foods is sea salt caramel oat bars. As oats is the healthiest corn in the world, most of the people of the UK attract to this healthy food. Seal salt caramel can increase the tastes of oats bar and make oats bar healthy.
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Marketing planning process includes setting of marketing objectives, formulation of strategy, and development of the actions and implementation of the strategies after completion situation analysis (McCamley and Gilmore, 2018). Quattro Foods determines their marketing position through situation analysis which is not good as the company does not have a large customer base and has low sales that ensures low market share. It is required for Quattro Foods to follow market orientation business model to fulfil desires and needs of production. Adopting a marketing orientation and its application is necessary for increasing customer satisfaction, sales and business volume. Product concept market orientation and context has been adopted by the food company in which the company determines the dynamics of their products and develop products which have maximum features and best qualities (McDONALD, 2016).
The components of marketing planning process are:
- Market research
- Positioning
- Market strategy
- Budget analysis
- Target market segmentation
- Competitive advantage
b) Environmental audit through PESTEL analysis for the new breakfast product
PESTEL Analysis
Factors Impact
Political Political condition of the UK is stable and corruption free that helps the companies to operate business and manufacture product successfully. Corporate tax rate has been increased to 19% in 2018 that has increased costs of investing in a new product for Quattro Foods.
Economic Quattro Foods needs to consider competitive pressure, pay level of the workers, energy prices, supply and demand and credit costs. Inflation rate of the UK has been decreased from 3.6% in 2017 to 2.7% in 2018 that has reduced the price of raw materials for food development (Ons.gov.uk, 2019). Low interest rate that is between 0.5% to 0.75% helps the company to obtain maximum monetary support from the banks to develop new products and improve marketing capabilities. However, increment of minimum wages for the labour to £7.83 from £7.50 can increase labour costs for product development.
Social Lifestyle of the people of the UK is high enough to buy packaged breakfast products. As 29.5% of the UK population belong to the age group of 18-39 years and most of the young people interested in the healthy foods, it can enhance sales of Quattro Foods. As power distance between people is not high in the UK and the people have 99% of literacy rate, development of healthy foods can fulfil the demand of the customers and increase profitability (Thøgersen, 2017)
Technological The storage and material handling techniques for inventory management is good in the UK that can help Quattro Foods to successfully manage their raw materials and finished products. As the UK is one of the technologically advanced countries, the breakfast industry can use advanced techniques for manufacturing and packaging food in sustainable manner (Graf et al., 2015).
Environmental Environment Act 1995 and regulations for carbon emission rate helps Quattro Foods to reduce carbon footprint in manufacturing. Organic foods manufacturing, hazardous waste management and green economy of the UK influences Quattro Foods to operate business in environment friendly manner.
Legal Fair Trading Act 1973, Employment Act 1996, Consumer Rights Act 2015 are useful for the food manufacturing industry to successfully trade with other businesses. It is essential for meeting the consumer demand and provides the best quality products and treating consumers fairly. Health and Social Care Act 2012 helps Quattro Foods to provide healthy foods to customers. Equal opportunities and fair wages for employees can increase the employee interests and motivation to generate best quality breakfast products for health conscious people of the UK (Garthwaite et al., 2015).
Competitor Analysis
Micro-environmental aspects are evaluated to gain competitive advantage in the market. Analysis of the competitors is necessary for Quattro Foods to identify the products that are provided by the competitors to the customers. It can enhance the possibilities of Quattro Foods to enhance success of product development as the company can develop the products which are not developed by the competitors. It is necessary for the organization to identify the demand of the consumers and develop best quality products to meet customer satisfaction.
The competitors of the company are Associated British Foods, Richardson Milling (UK) Ltd, United Biscuits, Metcalfe’s Food Company, Golden Wonder and Crimpy. Most of the competitors of the company are snacks manufacturing companies of the UK. There are not many companies that manufacture and package oatmeal based products. Therefore, competition that manufacture and package oatmeal based products. Therefore, competition in the market is low, but Richardson Milling (UK) Ltd produce oat meal based products in the UK as well as Associated British Foods provide packaged foods in retail and these companies are dominant competitors of Quattro Foods. Associated British Foods Plc has high market share in the UK. Sales of grocery products of this company have been increased by 3% after developing products like Twinings Ovaltine.
c) Marketing mix with 7Ps and marketing planning for the new product
Marketing mix is important for companies to determine the suitability of their products and services after focusing a particular target customer base (Liu et al., 2017). It can help Quattro Foods to identify their market position after identifying different aspects of market such as product, price, promotion, and place along with people, processes and physical evidence. It is essential for the company to identify the best marketing techniques that can be taken by the organisation after determining their current position through different aspects. Unique brand value can be identified by Quattro Foods that can foster the brand to gain competitive advantage.
Different aspects of the marketing mix can help the company to identify their products and customer demand in order to develop a marketing plan for a new product. As sea salt caramel based oats bar is tasty and healthy for the people and other oats bar do not have good taste, this new product can be beneficial for Quattro Foods to reduce threats of substitutes and competition and gain more consumers in order to enhance sales. Therefore, strong and coordinated marketing mix should be developed by the organisation to develop and distribute the product to the customers after maintaining employee satisfaction (Datta et al., 2017).
Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning
a) Explanation of the way by which the market for the new breakfast product could be segmented for consumer (B2C) and business (B2B) markets
Segmentation of the market is necessary for Quattro Foods in order to improve the market planning. In this process, the companies divide the customers in smaller groups or cohort based on the characteristics. Both the B2B and B2C market segmentation is necessary for businesses to make the customers aware of the products and discrete the market based on the product specifications. In the B2B market segmentation, Quattro Foods could and should segment their customer base on the basis of the goals and objectives. There are different types of market segmentation in B2B market segmentation those are,
- Values based segmentation
- Need based segmentation
- Firmographics segmentation
In value based segmentation, customers are divided on the basis of the economic value of the organization in terms of potential and completed sales. Need based segmentation is fulfilled when the customers have a need for the products (Liozu and Richardson, 2019). Segmentation of the customers is completed based on industry and company size in firmographics segmentation.
On the other hand, in the B2C market segmentation, the customer base of the business is divided into the marketing perspectives in which the characteristics of the customers and their purchasing behaviour are considered to segment the customers (Stormi et al., 2018). Different types of B2C market segmentation are,
- Demographic segmentation
- Psychographic segmentation
- Geographic
- Behavioural segmentation
In the demographic segmentation, it is required for Quattro Foods to segment their target customers based on age, annual income, gender, race, religion, education and occupation. The customers are segmented based on their location and products and services companies are offered based on these locations (Mencarelli and Riviere, 2015). In the psychographic market segmentation, the customers are segmented based on knowledge, awareness, loyalty, interaction in social media and purchasing patterns. Open the other hand; customers are segmented on the basis of their lifestyle, personality, social class and values.
b) Targeting methods for B2B or B2C market and primary target
Targeting refers to the segmentation of the customers properly for selling a new product. Targeting of the marketing is essential for the company to improve branding, customer experiences and business operations. Primary target is essential for the company to determine the best strategies for marketing and developing new products (Karjaluoto et al., 2015). Henceforth, both B2B and B2C marketing styles need to be used by Quattro Foods to segment their customers. In B2C market segmentation, the company should segment their target customers based on the behavioural and psychographic segmentation. The people of the UK who purchase the foods like oatmeal and the persons who are health conscious can buy these products. Therefore, it is essential for the company to provide the product to health conscious properly who have aged between 21-45 years and regularly buy healthy food.
On the other hand, in B2B marketing, it is necessary for the companies to divide the customers on the basis of the need based segmentation. In this process, Quattro Foods can determine the necessity of the products like sea salt caramel oat bars for the customers from the market analysis and analysis of the customer demand. As most of the people of the UK becomes health conscious in recent times, they become attracted to the healthy breakfast products (Fuller, 2016). Therefore, there is a necessity for these products among the customers which is effective for Quattro Foods to generate profit in the UK market. Health conscious people and the persons like both salty and sweet products are the target customers for this product.
c) Positioning of new breakfast products in consumer or business market
Positioning is the procedure of establishing identity and image of a product and brand in the market in a certain way on the basis of the consumer perception. In market positioning, a company needs to determine their existing position and develop a strategy for improving the market position (Heinberg et al., 2019). For this purpose, a breakfast product namely sea salt caramel oat bar is developed by Quattro Foods to make their products long lasting and reliable.
The product like sea salt caramel oat bar should be developed by Quattro Foods for the health conscious people of the UK and the persons who regularly purchase healthy breakfast products. It is identified by the company from their market analysis that the existing oats bars are not tasty which reduces the sales of oat bars. Therefore, the company plans to develop seal salt caramel based oats bar to make it tastier which can attract more number of customers. On the other hand, it is identified that salted caramel is healthy and influence food choices which is also important for increasing sales of this product. New breakfast products
Product
Quattro Foods has different services like food manufacturing, retail, wholesale and food services. It is observed that the company has speciality in the menu development in the NHS sector in which the company provides highly nutritional food to the customers and other food retailers (Quattro Foods, 2019). Ambient foods are also produced by Quattro Foods that reduces preparation time. Vegan products are also provided by the company. The company intended to manufacture new breakfast product like sea salt caramel oat bar along with their existing products to develop new breakfast product to grab breakfast market and increase their number of products. It can also attract the healthy customers and increase company sales. Tasty and healthy product is developed by the organisation as per the market trends and gain competitive advantage.
Place
The company needs to distribute the products to the areas of the UK in which population density is high. The company can open new stores in the highly populated areas in different cities of the UK. As in the recent times, most of the people purchase products through online media and they are comfortable in buying products through this media, the company can take online distribution strategy to reach more number of customers in a small amount of time.
Price
Quattro Foods can take competitive pricing strategy and analyse the pricing strategies of their competitors and set prices according to it. In this process, the company can take flexible pricing strategy and changes the price of their products based on the competitor’s prices and prices of raw materials. Seasonal offers and discounts can also be provided by the company to attract a large number of customers.
Promotion
The organization should use electronic media and social media to provide advertisement for their new product. They can also provide paid advertisement to different websites to make the customer aware of the product. As per marketing communication mix, the company can follow some stages for marketing their products such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations and direct marketing (Todorova, 2015).
Video advertisement can be provided to the customers along with the description of the benefits of the breakfast item. Sales promotion can also be provided by the organisation in which seasonal offers and discounts can be provided to grab consumer attraction. For this purpose, AIDA model can be followed by Quattro Foods to determine the customer preferences and take a strategy that can attract them by changing their behaviour (Hassan et al., 2015). Direct marketing to the customers can also be conducted by the company through social media
People Skilled and experienced marketing staff needs to be hired by the company to improve marketing qualities. Training needs to be provided to the employees regarding the consumer behaviour, handling of the customer demand and importance of value in maintaining brand image. For this purpose, Freeman’s stakeholder theory can be followed by Quattro Foods to manage business entities like employees, suppliers and local communities. It is necessary for increasing collaboration, knowledge, skills and experiences of the employees (Jones et al., 2018).
Physical evidence Healthy and suitable logo is created by Quattro Foods in food development to enhance trust among the customers. Sustainable packaging can be used by the company for their products to enhance sustainability.
Process Simple supply chain management system can be implemented by Quattro Foods in their business that helps the company to maintain proper online and offline distribution of their products. Resource based theory can be followed to manage inventory and deliver the products as per the inventory status (Hitt et al., 2016). The company should develop a proper e-commerce system for distributing the products online. Besides, online ICT based payment system needs to be developed by the company to make their payment process secure and consumer friendly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a UK food manufacturing company, Quattro Foods develops a breakfast product namely sea salt caramel oats bar for the health conscious people who also like tasty foods. It helps the company to attract a large number of customers to their product as well as a new range of products helps them to increase their sales and brand awareness. For this purpose, the company can use need-based, behaviour and psychological market segmentation to sell their products. It is necessary for identifying health conscious customers and improves brand positioning. Advertising through social media, simple supply chain management and competitive pricing strategy can be taken by the company to improve sales and gain competitive advantage in the market.
