Everyday Sunday - Marketing Survey - Case Study Example

Marketing Survey Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Executive Summary Everyday Sunday is an Australian soft drink headquartered in Victoria. The drink has three brands; Citrus Crush, Tropical Punch and Berry Bliss. They have no artificial flavors, colors and preservatives that are disliked by many health sensitive consumers. The product is made to help people reach a state of calm and improve on sleep. The survey study conducted showed that customers were impressed with quality and satisfaction from its use. The product is positioned as a relaxation drink and is taken as exciting and refreshing drink. The results showed that companies invest in success factors that ensure customer satisfaction. The pricing strategy for Everyday Sunday includes price cuts and discounts for bulk sales with regard to cost based pricing. The main distribution strategy is retailer shelf space or retail distribution. The methods deployed in this case are; branding, packaging, online presence, advertising, PR activities, sales presentations, printed materials and trade show appearances. The organization of marketing optimizes on attributes such as product category, country and reference currency. Markets research explores data needed to be collected and analyzed to deduce attributes that create value. The Everyday Sunday brands have relevance, are factual, and credible. The map of the market captured the sporting population who are attracted to a relaxing drink. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 PART A: SURVEY 4 Company Background and Industry 4 Objectives and Issue Analysis 4 Survey Analysis 5 Marketing Strategy 5 Positioning Everyday Sunday 5 Product Strategy 6 Pricing strategy 7 Distribution strategy 8 Marketing Communications strategy 8 Marketing Research 10 Marketing Organization 11 Conclusion 12 PART C: REFLECTION 13 Reflection 1 13 Reflection 2 14 Reference list 17 PART A: SURVEY Company Background and Industry Everyday Sunday is an all natural relaxation and refreshing soda manufactured by Rockwell Beverages. The company is situated in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. It produces drinks, impulse lines, soft drink, natural products, convenience and the latest product, Everyday Sunday. The company operates in the manufacturing industry of soft drinks. The company supplies the whole of Australia, South East Asia and New Zealand with its attractive and price friendly products. Manufacturing industry constitutes 12% of Australia’s Gross Domestic product after Mining and Agriculture. The industry has declined from 30% in the last 40 years. Rockwell Beverage Company has invested in leadership, automation, time honored focus and commitment to investment (Australia Food and Grocery Council 2010). The company supplies most of its products to major cities in Australia like Perth, Canberra and Sydney while others are exported to New Zealand and Asia. Objectives and Issue Analysis 1. To establish the perceptions of consumers to Everyday Sunday brand within Australia since it was introduced to the market 12 months ago. 2. To evaluate the preferences of customers to each individual brand of Everyday Sunday product range in the last three months 3. To assess the success factors making Everyday Sunday brand to win 15% market share within Australia in the one year 4. To find out the best promotional and distribution avenues of Everyday Sunday within Australia each year Survey Analysis The respondents who were students provided the following line of responses. About 35% of the respondents said that the initial impression about Everyday Sunday brands was ‘refreshing’ while 55% said it was ‘relaxing’. 10% of the respondents termed it as ‘exciting’. 65% of the respondents strongly agreed that they wanted to try the brands while 55% said the brands looked different from the other soft drinks. According to Pearson Chi-Square on preferences, the results were; 19.263 Berry Bliss, 2.263 Citrus Crush while 0.640 Tropical Punch. 44% think of buying the brands regularly, 38% think the cans were attractive while 56% thought that the brands were relaxing. 40% would like the brands to be taken with breakfast while 55% would take it after playing sport. 60% agreed that they found information about Everyday Sunday drink was from the internet while 25% learned from elsewhere (friends). 15% learned about it from Deakin University. Marketing Strategy Positioning Everyday Sunday Positioning Everyday Sunday is creating an image in the minds of its customers that it is a relaxation product. The can of each product forms the mental picture of the customer that it relaxes after a rigorous sporting event seen from the pictures of someone surfing, relaxing in a hammock and taking the drink after a morning shower (Collis 2008). The brands have relevance, are factual, and credible. The map of the market captured the sporting population who are attracted to a relaxing drink. The product is placed above the existing brands since they are refreshing and relaxing which is not found in Coke, SunVally Orange Juice and Red Bull. The positioning statement for Everyday Sunday is a ‘relaxation drink’ while the benefits derived are ‘sparkling and refreshing’. This implies that when customers think of sea surfing or sporting and park visits, they think of Everyday Sunday. It is also positioned to help customers capture the feeling of Sunday every day (Weinstein 2004). Product Strategy Everyday Sunday is a relaxation drink that contains the natural sweetener, Stevia and a small amount of sugar (17g/250ml). It has natural herbs and plants with rejuvenating and calming properties. The flavors are Citrus Crush, Berry Bliss and Tropical Punch. It has no artificial flavors, colors and preservatives that are disliked by many health sensitive consumers. The product is made to help people reach a state of calm and improve on sleep. This product is a result of innovation and creativity which saw a design of a whole new natural, carbonated and relaxing beverage (Datamonitor 2005). The product targets all people who desire to be less anxious and more relaxed. The target market includes amateur sportspeople, professionals and students among others who highly appreciate the benefits. The brands are packaged in attractive 250ml cans which are close to the 300ml bottles of Coke. The cans are disposable and can be recycled which may not cause much harm to the environment. This kind of packaging maximizes space and not subject to great damage like bottles. The product is a combination of ancient formulations to engender modern version of function and fun. The product is aimed at gaining an important niche which takes the best of students, sportspeople and professionals (Creighton 2012). The product is a healthy drink which besides harnessing the soothing characteristics contains essential minerals for body growth and development. The appeal in the product is derived from the packaging and design of the can. It is attractive and one is tempted by the shape and descriptions across the can. The product is produced in different flavors to win customers range of preferences like citrus, orange and strawberry flavors (Hein 2004). Pricing strategy The pricing strategy for Everyday Sunday includes price cuts and discounts for bulk sales with regard to cost based pricing. The selling price was based on cost of production and distribution. This means that all the variable and fixed production costs were factored in the final price (Euromonitor 2010). The uniformity of price in all the three brands meant to position the product as ‘price favorable’ and ‘value for money’. The current prices stand at $ 2.85 for a 250ml can for all the three brands. The company slashed the prices of all the three products from $3.40 to $2.85 so as to increase the sales by 72,000 consumers in 2013. In the competition, 6-pack Gatorade goes for $5.48, Mount Franklin Spring Water 600mL goes for $2.79, SunValley Orange Juice $3.12 and Diet Coke (24 x 330ml Cans) go for $10.80. The pricing strategy is a win-win situation for both customer and company since it not only relaxes but refreshes compared to those drinks offered by the competition (Healey 2008). The other strategy used is price skimming where the company fixed the prices quite highly at $2.85 before the other competitors come into the market. Since this product will face little competition, Rockwell Beverages becomes an early adopter as customers pay higher price for the best and latest product. The price cuts were critical in a competitive ground given that the rivals are pressing for a niche in sporting and entertainment industry. The prices of Gatorade are way down per unit while the contents are similar to that of Mount Franklin Spring Water. Everyday Sunday has a competitive edge given that it blends various ingredients for a favorable price. Discounts on special offers and seasons were meant to draw the best of holiday sales when many are out of formal work to relax and have a good time (Henry 2008).   Distribution strategy The main distribution strategy is retailer shelf space or retail distribution. The retailers offer shelf space and enjoy margins of between 15 and 20% of Everyday Sunday products. For the bottom-line, the margins are very significant. Since the market has been dominated by Coke and Red-Bull, it is quite difficult to convince customers in this case (Jeannet 2001). In this case, the strategy involves selling to the retailer or stores who eventually avail the product to the consumer. The company also has an option of online sales or factory direct to the public. The two are most convenient means of obtaining the products to consumers. The level of customer service standards expected is very high. The firm also uses agents or distributors to deliver into territories like Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra. These methods are also used by competitors like Gatorade and Coke though they prefer network bottling. The products are not perishable but have a sell by date that consumers would want them delivered on time (Kelsey et al 2006). These products should also pass through a shorter channel to lower delivery and storage costs which would weigh heavily on the final destination (customer). Marketing Communications strategy Marketing communication is part of Everyday Sunday marketing efforts. These include all the messages and media used to communicate with the market. The methods deployed in this case are; branding, packaging, online presence, advertising, PR activities, sales presentations, printed materials and trade show appearances (Lewczak 2010). The marketing message is specifically fronting Everyday Sunday as a ‘relaxation drink’. This is to provide a framework to plan the marketing message across the technology adoption lifecycle. Marketing targets the strong influencers like students and amateur sportspeople. They are opinion leaders who maximize the methods and processes by word of mouth marketing in the market place. Since the brand is still new in the market, a marketing communication for an early market is adopted through traditional media like CBN and ABC. The focus is on how to tailor the message to obtain the best of visionaries and technology enthusiasts. Marketing communication is intended to help sales cross the Bowling Alley and the Chasm. Everyday Sunday marketing communication intends to create and sustain preference and demand (Weinstein 2004). It also desires to shorten the sales cycle. Though a long- term effort, creating preference deploys communication tools to position the product and that of the company in the minds of target consumers. Building and positioning this brand may take about two years which requires consistency in communication efforts and those of pricing, distribution and product. This ensures commitment to the company. Building on the Everyday Sunday brand establishes preference and increases its markets share over 15%, profitability by 10% and access to talent which is a long-term value to the company (Philip, Ronald & Turner 2003). Communication helps to define the product, explore benefits, evaluate effects and describe motivation. Marketing communication shortens the sales cycle of the product through identifying, engaging and delivering a customer. This is maximized through online sales and channel partners. Conversations with salespersons and market research ensure that marketing communication staff identifies how to escalate the process. This does not involve a lot of customer education in the early phases of the process. In Everyday Sunday, Marketing communication create, packages and delivers the ‘relaxation drink’ information to buyers across the purchasing process so that sales meet the education need (Murray 2006). Shortening the sales cycle is naturally more tactical that building the brand. The company balances the two objectives of creating preference and shortening the sales cycle through the help of customer facing channel partners and sales front. Marketing Research Everyday Sunday managers require information to create value in the mind of customers through value. Data needs to be collected and analyzed to deduce attributes that create value. This aspect is to provide direction and facts on essential marketing decisions (Bogdan & Biklen 2007). The value of information will be affected by willingness and ability to act on it, accuracy, level of indecisiveness owing to lack of information, degree of variation, level of risk aversion, reaction to competitors and time and money cost of information. Marketing research involves taking customer preferences and buying power through surveys. The research helps to define the problem, establish the research design, identify data sources and types, collection methods, sample size and plan, interpretation and analysis and preparation of the research report. The survey used in this case was meant to establish preferences and influence of competition to the soft drink business (Weinstein 2004). The decision problem will be obtaining the impressions of the customers and whether the market is accepting the new product. The survey is basically a descriptive research that describes the users, establishes the proportion of the population using the product and predicts future demand. The survey defines several aspects of market research; who are the potential customers, where are they found, when are they likely to buy and use the product, why do they prefer the product over others in the competition, and how the product impresses them. The cross-sectional study measures the population at a point in time like cohort studies that tracks the aggregate of individuals experiencing similar events within same intervals over time (Creswell & Clark 2007). Everyday Sunday employs primary data through definition of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, lifestyle and psychological characteristics, opinions and attitudes, knowledge and brand awareness, intentions, motivations and behavior. The data is basically obtained from questionnaires to students and professionals within Australia in writing. The survey questionnaire attributes were designed in ordinal scale with higher scores of reliability and validity. The attitude rating scale used was Likert method of summated ratings while the sampling method was random. Data analysis used was largely cross-tabulation since the technique divides the sample into sub-groups to help show variation of dependent variable from the various sub-groups (Hein 2004). Marketing Organization Marketing organization in Everyday Sunday brand is an attribute of campaign and marketing plans. It maps the marketing logical enterprise structure to the units in the organization. The organization of marketing optimizes on attributes such as product category, country and reference currency (Murray 2006). The product category is used to describe the brand since the company uses organizational units on brands. It is different from sales organization and used for marketing plans and campaigns only. The marketing organization attribute in this case is sued for automatic entry to provide default entries to various marketing fields, marketing partner determination by way of appropriate marketing manager, workflow routing in campaigns for agent determination (Just-food 2010). Marketing organization in Everyday Sunday assists in cost planning and reporting where it splits key figures across multiple dimensions. It distributes costs of marketing campaigns throughout the marketing organizational units. Reporting communicates the success of various organizational units. Conclusion The company producing Everyday Sunday is a success since it has positioned some of its products in the local and overseas markets. The desire to establish success factors and customer preferences that determine the customer purchase decisions are influenced by the company’s quest for innovative and creative products (Kolish & Peeler 2008). The company has obtained that through marketing research it obtains valuable information on the preferences of customers towards certain brands. It found out that customers prefer Berry Bliss more than the other two brands. It also obtained that the internet and physical presence in campus makes customers to be closer to their products. The positioning of Everyday Sunday as a ‘relaxation drink’ has improved the perception of customers to this brand. Though the data showed that some may not have used the product, majority showed that they have heard about them and are willing to try (Kotler 1991). The pricing of the product is convenient and favorable to middle and low class consumers who are price sensitive to various items. By fixing the price at $2.85 for all the brands, it showed that they have standardized their products to reflect similar quality and quantity. It also established that product innovation and creativity attracts new customers. The method of distribution used was appropriate in reaching the vast regions in Australia and ensuring delivery of products within the customer order time. Marketing research has been essential in providing vital information on customer preferences, attitudes on the marketing mix, and the influence of marketing organization and communications. PART C: REFLECTION Reflection 1 The survey has provided vital and crucial lessons to me. I learned that companies should conduct market research to obtain attitudes, opinions and preferences. I felt that brands and product lines are winning their customers due to advanced level of inclusiveness. Products are highly innovative and creative in a way that meets the preferences and likes of various customers around the world (Porter 2008). I came to know that companies are maximizing on the changing attitudes of the customers, the reason they keep conducting customer surveys. I obtained that currently, customers are sensitive to their health more than the price. They are willing to spend the extra cent to buy a healthy product with less fat and sugar. This to me is a learning point in winning the market from competition and satisfying the customer. I also learnt that companies need to invest more on the marketing mix; product, price, distribution and communication. I observed that different ways of communicating to customers depend on how they will react to the product and eventual decision to buy or not. I am confident that the surveys are important tools to achieve that end. I found out that customer have value on certain experiences whether from their friends, personal or reported in the mainstream media. I felt that Everyday Sunday had secured the market of the relaxation drink by closing in on the niche of the mass market who happens to be students, sportspeople and professionals (Philip, Ronald E & Turner 2003). I also realized that the pricing of this products were optimal both to the customer and the company. By fixing the pricing and engaging in price cuts, the company has been able to derive the best from customers and become a leader in relaxation drinks. I learnt that making a lasting impression on the minds of customers starts with the formation of mental maps which are characteristic of the customer’s environment. This helps in leading the customer to understand what is desired at every activity. I now appreciate the effort of branding products through categories and standards. I realized that the company had introduced several flavors to hit on the diversity of customers, preferences on colors and taste. For instance, I noted that the introduction of Berry Bliss was to win the Asian market that mainly prefers the red color. This can only be obtained through market research and the desire to harness their tastes but not imposing the product on them (Subhash 2006). What impresses me most is the value the company derives from innovation, creativity and automation. I learnt that to produce standardized products, the company must innovate and produce products with appeal and flavor. I realized that marketing research is potential to maximize on the level of competition, market share and profitability. To me, surveys have brought out the best of brand competition within the company and also with the rivals. I observed that Rockwell Beverage is a fairly new company as opposed to Coke and Gatorade. To become a leader, I learned that it is vital to get certain things right concerning the purchasing patterns of customers. Reflection 2 In this survey study, I have learnt that certain niches are lucrative especially those who have the potential to buy and can create high demand for the product. I noted that Everyday Sunday customers are keen on the physical and psychological merits of the product. Many prefer products with superior features from those they already know. I realized that the survey was essential in providing information regarding the perceptions of existing and potential customers on their feelings about the three flavors; Berry Bliss, Citrus Crush and Tropical Punch. I realized that asking the customers about the time they would like to have their product was important in determining their tastes as well as establishing compliments that can go with the product. For instance, if the product is taken with breakfast, it can be sold as bundle sales with Cornflakes or cereals. This helps to position the product as a breakfast item besides being a relaxation drink (Thunderbird 2001). I also noted that the company values the mode of promoting and advertising its products. For instance, I realized that internet is common medium of advertising. This was drawn from the commonality of students and professionals getting information from the internet since they have a 24 hour access to high connectivity. I felt that marketing organization and communication have been strategic to help the company win more customers who could have been drawn to the competition. The firm has a website with a number of online staff to respond to customer queries. Since technology has changed, mobile telephone and internet have become formidable mediums to reach the vast customer landscape (Young 2005). I have learnt that companies have a lot to learn and gain from market research. I learnt that choice of data collection method and design has a lot to do with the nature of data to be collected and analyzed. I noted that survey takes the best of attitudes and opinions of social scientific research. In order to achieve on the objectives, the research must devise a methodology that addresses changing customer preferences (Weinstein 2004). I have learned that a successful marketing strategy starts with positioning the product to the customers before the price. I noted that when customers value the product they will not mind the price. I feel that price cuts and bundle sales are a win in the short term since they attract customers on special occasions through the special offers. I have also learnt that placing the product way ahead of competition depends on the leapfrog or guerilla strategies used. I noted that Everyday Sunday brand was a result of leapfrog strategy through innovation and automation. The company has invested a lot in internal processes of manufacturing which should be transformed into sales through tactical sales processes. I learnt that marketing research is a most effective way of winning the market share and increasing profitability. Reference list Australia Food and Grocery Council, 2010. State of the Industry 2010. Canberra. 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