Introduction
Prior to venturing into a certain market, it is vital for a company to formulate an effective strategy. The strategy would help in addressing some of the difficulties that the company would face. Anticipating these problems would improve the stability of the company or product. In addition, the strategy would help in the coordination of various activities that strive to improve the competitiveness of the company or product.
All activities should help in reinforcing the objectives of the company or product. Dairy Farmers intends to venture into the boutique take-home gelato market. This market is experiencing tremendous growth. Therefore, successful venture into this market would guarantee the future growth and profitability of Dairy Farmers.
Background
Dairy Farmers is one of the major Australian companies that engage in the manufacture of dairy products. The company has been operational since 1900. During its formation, the company had 65 members. The farmers wished to join their efforts to help market their produce to city dwellers. Since then, the company has grown gradually to become one of the most trusted brands in the Australian market.
The company supplies various products to local and international markets. Throughout its history, Dairy Farmers has undertaken various acquisitions to improve its competitiveness. Dairy Farmers currently has 11 processing facilities. To ensure that it maintains its growth, it is vital for the company to undertake various strategic decisions that would help in improving its competitiveness.
Dairy Farmers has various brands that are popular among its customers. The company produces various brands of cheese and milk. Increased health awareness threatens to reduce to reduce the demand of various indulgence products.
However, the demand for these products is still very high. Increased snacking is due to the increase in the number of time-poor consumers. These consumers strive to balance their lives with healthy eating habits. Therefore, it is vital for companies to formulate innovative products that would enable them to capture this market segment.
Ice cream is one of the major indulgence products whose demand is increasing steadily. The boutique-take home ice cream market is one of the fastest growing sectors in this market. Companies usually target high-income adult consumers. This market segment is less sensitive to changes in the price of the product.
This market segment values the quality and taste of the product. In addition, the comparatively low price of boutique take-home ice cream makes it affordable even during times of economic hardships. Therefore, it is vital for Dairy Farmers to venture into this market.
Successful venture into this market would have great financial benefits to the company. Dairy Farmers intends to venture into this market using ‘Euphori Gelato.’ The company would launch the product in October. This would enable the company to gain a considerable number of customers before summer, which is the high season.
Situational Analysis
The Australian take-home ice cream market would experience considerable growth in the near future. However, the quest for healthy food may have a negative effect on the growth of this market. Therefore, it is vital for companies to ensure that they incorporate various healthy ingredients into the ice cream.
In addition, the quest for healthy foods necessitates companies to formulate various innovative products. Innovation helps in improving the competitiveness of various ice cream brands. Various companies strive to portray their products as natural. These companies do not add artificial color or preservatives to their ice cream brands. Most consumers consider preservatives and artificial color as unhealthy ingredients.
Various brands are dominant in this market segment. Nestle S.A., Unilever Australia, and Regal Cream Products are some of the major companies in this market segment. Unilever Australia is the major company in the Australian ice cream market. The company has a market share of 34%.
Unilever has various brands that are dominant in the take-home, bulk dairy ice cream, ice cream deserts, and the impulse ice cream market. These include Paddle Pop, Blue Ribbon, and Viennetta. The company has various innovative strategies that help in improving the competitiveness of these brands.
In addition, Unilever uses multichannel advertising campaigns to improve the competitiveness of these brands. The availability of various ice cream brands of Unilever helps in improving the competitiveness of the company. Major supermarket chains, boutique hotels, and restaurants usually stock these ice cream brands.
Generally, young adults accounts for the largest sales of ice cream. Women are the major consumers of ice cream. Therefore, it is vital for companies to use an advertising strategy that would portray taking ice cream as being fashionable. A unique brand name helps in attracting customers in this market segment. In addition, the packaging of the product may help in attracting customers in this market segment.
SWOT Analysis
Campaign Objectives
The main objective of this campaign is to raise awareness about Euphori Gelato from 0 to 30% within three months. In addition, the campaign would strive to increase attitude towards Euphori Gelato from 0 to 20% within three months. Dairy Farmers would use multichannel advertising campaigns to achieve these objectives.
The company would use print media, radio, and an official website to market Euphori Gelato. Dairy Farmers would create three posters to market Euphori Gelato. The company would create various competitions on the official brand website to improve customer awareness.
The company would create competitions that reward customers who determine the missing ingredient of the brand. In addition, the company would encourage customers to share personal stories about Euphori Gelato on the website. These strategies would help in attracting more visitors into the official website of the brand. This would ultimately help in improving brand awareness and appreciation. Dairy Farmers would ensure that various details of the advertising channels help in reinforcing the brand image of the product.
Communication Strategy
The primary target of the Dairy Farmers’ advertising campaign would be professional women who are between 25 and 45 years old. Asian immigrants living in Sydney and Melbourne would be the secondary target of this advertising campaign.
Dairy Farmers would use ‘Escape with Euphori’ as the theme of the advertising campaign of the product. The company would use emotional appeal to market the product. This would help consumers of the product to develop an emotional relationship with the product.
Using the emotional appeal to advertise the product would be advantageous to Dairy Farmers. Advertisements that use emotional appeal are more vivid than other types of advertisements. Therefore, it is easy for customers to remember these advertisements. These advertisements strive to recreate scenes that are relevant to customers.
This helps the customers to create an emotional attachment to the product. Recreating relevant scenes reduces counterarguments and resistance from customers. Therefore, emotional appeals may elicit immediate interest from customers (Tellis, 2004). This increases the effectiveness of this advertising strategy.
Dairy Farmers would strive to use emotional appeals to market Euphori Gelato. The company would strive to create an image of freedom and choice in various advertising campaigns. This would help in increasing interest from the target market. This is because people in the target market value their freedom and independence. In addition, the company would strive to ensure that the advertisements portray Euphori Gelato as a high quality product.
Therefore, Dairy Farmers would design various advertising campaigns that portray Euphori Gelato as a product that is desirable to classy women. The company would include urban elite women in various advertisements. In addition, the company would strive to get endorsements from various celebrity women. This would help in increasing the competitiveness of the product.
Creative Strategy
Creative strategy helps in determining the right type of advertising that a company should use in an extensive advertising campaign. Creative strategy helps in the formulation of advertisements that are relevant to the theme of the marketing campaign of a certain product.
Prior to the development of the creative strategy, it is vital for relevant parties to understand the marketing environment and the consumer learning abilities. Creative strategy helps in identifying suitable methods of satisfying the needs and wants of consumers. Therefore, creativity is very important in the formulation of an effective creative strategy. In addition, companies should avoid having unrealistic imaginations. This is because unrealistic imaginations may repel potential customers (Tyagi & Kumar, 2004).
A company should use a creative strategy to inform, persuade, and remind consumers about a product. Therefore, the formulation of a creative strategy requires hard work, an open mind, and curiosity.
The creative strategy helps in selling a product by communicating with prospective customers. The creative strategy helps in stimulating interest about the existence of a product. In addition, a creative strategy helps in the development attitudes and behaviors that would improve the sales of a product (Tyagi & Kumar, 2004).
Most Asian immigrants and professional women who are between 25 and 45 years old value their freedom. These people try to juggle their professional and personal life. Therefore, it is vital for a brand that targets this market segment to include the professional and personal life of these people.
This would be the major aim of the advertisements of Dairy Farmers. The details of the Euphori Gelato’s logo, slogan, postcards, website, and radio advertisement would reinforce each other and help in building a strong name.
Logo
A logo is a visual representation of the core values of a certain brand. The logo helps in communicating the brand and image of a product using unspoken words. A successful logo should capture the brand offering and answer the mental questions that customers may have (Ferrell & Hartline, 2010). Euphori Gelato would use a logo that incorporates the rough image of an ice cream.
However, the logo would replace the position of the ice cream with a handle that resembles the handle of a picnic bag. This would enable customers of the product associate the product with picnics, which are usually romantic. In addition, the company would use yellow as the color for the logo since it is warm, pleasant, and peaceful. This would help in creating a happy feeling in the customers’ mind. Therefore, color and design of the logo would help customers to create an emotional attachment to the product.
Slogan
Slogan refers to the spoken image that customers usually associate with a certain brand. A slogan usually emphases various attributes of a product that help in differentiating the product from substitutes (Avraham & Ketter, 2012). Therefore, it is vital for a company to design a unique slogan.
This would enable the customers to associate the slogan with the product easily. Dairy Farmers used ‘Euphori Gelato’ as the brand name of the boutique take-home ice cream. The unique name would help customers to identify the product easily. Use of the term ‘Euphori’ in the brand name helps customers associate the brand with feelings of happiness.
In addition, the company would use the slogan ‘Escape with Euphori.’ This would create an image of freedom in the customers’ minds. This would help customers to develop an emotional attachment to the product.
Print Advertisement
Dairy Farmers would use print as one of the major advertising channels. One of the major advantages of using print advertisements is that they enable a company to reach the target market of the print media. This may be the primary target market of the company (Hiam, 2009).
Dairy Farmers would place several advertisements in lifestyle magazines that target women who are 25 to 25 years old. This would enable the company to reach its target market more effectively. The print advertisements would use various urban elite women who are eating Euphori Gelato.
This would enable customers to associate with the product. In addition, the advertisements would include women in exotic or serene environments. This would enable customers to associate the products with freedom, which is the slogan of Euphori Gelato. Therefore, print advertisement would help in reinforcing the image of the product among potential customers.
Postcard
Dairy Farmers would also use postcard advertising to advertise Euphori Gelato among potential customers. The company would design three postcards. The first post card will try to create an image of freedom. The postcard would include a young woman who is jumping. The postcard would show that consuming Euphori Gelato brings freedom.
The second postcard will include the image of a woman in a serene environment enjoying ice cream with her male partner. The third post card would include five women enjoying different flavors of Euphori Gelato. The postcard would include the slogan ‘freedom to choose.’ This would highlight the wide variety of flavors of Euphori Gelato. In addition, it would enable customers associate the product with social events.
Website
The official website of Euphori Gelato would have five main icons. These include home, about, contact, flavors, and ‘The Euphori Experience.’ ‘Home’ would provide customers with information about the product. In addition, it would provide information about new flavors. ‘About’ would provide a brief history about the product. It would provide customers with information about the development of the product.
‘Contact’ would enable customers to contact the company or leave comments about the product. ‘Flavors’ would describe the flavors of the product. The company would go to great lengths to explain the deliciousness of various flavors. In ‘The Euphori Experience’ page, the company would strive to create emotional attachment to the product. The company would narrate various emotional stories about Euphori Gelato. In addition, the page would also include various promotional events of the product.
Radio Spot Advertisement
Dairy Farmers would use radio spot ads in various radio stations to market Euphori Gelato. Radio ads enable customers to listen to the ads and form mental images of the products. Therefore, it is vital for the company to use spoken word effectively to enable customers form a good image of the product.
The radio spot advertisement would include a conversation between two young women. The advertisement would highlight various competitive advantages of Euphori Gelato. The advertisement would portray Euphori Gelato as a ‘rich, creamy product that contains organic ingredients.’
Media Strategy
Media strategy refers to a structured plan of how an organization would use the media to pass advertising messages to customers and potential customers (Hewett, 2009). Media strategy enables a company to achieve its marketing strategy. This is because it outlines how the media would help in the accomplishment of the marketing objectives (Tyagi & Kumar, 2004).
However, it is vital for the media strategy to ensure that the advertisement gets exposure among the target market. Therefore, media strategy should add value to the brand, provide presence, and create awareness about the brand (Yeshin, 2006). The media strategy helps an organization to determine when and where to advertise.
In addition, it enables an organization to determine the media it should use in advertising its products. Dairy Farmers will first use billboards to advertise Euphori Gelato. The company would then use newspapers, magazines, internet, and radio to advertise the product. Effective use of the above advertising channels would enable the advertisements to reach the target audience.
Dairy Farmers would use billboards to elicit interest about the product. Prior to the official launch of the product, the company would place advertisements on billboards in various popular locations in Sydney and Melbourne. The billboards would include phrases that elicit interest from customers. ‘Freedom is coming’ is one of the phrases that the company would use to elicit interest from potential customers.
The billboards would use yellow, which the official color of the product. The advertisements would highlight the competitive advantages of Euphori Gelato. After the official launch of the product, the company would run advertisements on the side of various buses in Melbourne and Sydney.
Dairy Farmers would also use newspapers to elicit interest about Euphori Gelato. The advertisements in the newspapers would contain messages that are similar to those in billboards. The company would run a special feature in various newspapers during the official launch of the product.
This would help in creating a thrill about the product during its launch. After the official launch of the product, the company would run four full-page advertisements in ‘Mx Newspapers.’
Magazines would be one of the most important advertising channels that Dairy Farmers would use to advertise Euphori Gelato. One of the major benefits of magazines is the fact that they target a specific audience. However, newspapers target all members of the public. This increases the efficiency of magazines in advertising products to a certain group.
Therefore, Dairy Farmers would place eight full-page advertisements in various magazines that target Asian immigrants and professional women who are between 25 and 45 years old. This would enable the company to tap into the market of these magazines. In addition, association with these magazines would help in improving the competitiveness of the product. Dairy Farmers would also use postcards to advertise Euphori Gelato. The company would put postcards in various newspapers and magazines.
Radio would be the principle means of advertisement of Euphori Gelato. This is because radio has a wider reach than all other advertising channels. Most people listen to radio in their cars, homes, or places of work. Therefore, this advertisement channel would enable the company to reach a large number of people. However, it is vital for the company to place advertisements in the right stations.
Dairy Farmers would place advertisements about Euphori Gelato in 100.3 FM and 105.6 FM. These are the most popular radio stations in Melbourne and Sydney. In addition, the company would ensure that the stations air the advertisements during shows that are popular with Asian immigrants or professional women who are between 25 and 45 years old.
Euphori Gelato’s website would also help in advertising the product. ‘The Euphori Experience’ would use emotional appeal to advertise the product. The page would provide personal stories about various people to elicit interest about the product. Dairy Farmers would also advertise the product in various popular websites. The websites would provide a link that would take people to the product’s official website. This would increase the number of people who visit the website. This would ultimately increase customers of the product.
Alternative Media
Dairy farmers would also use social media to advertise the product. The company would use a Facebook fan page and Twitter handle to advertise the product. The ability of the company to interact with customers using social media is one of the major advantages of this channel.
Conclusion
The main objective of this advertising campaign is to increase brand awareness from 0 to 30% within three months. In addition, the advertising campaign strives to increase brand attitude from 0 to 20% within three months. To achieve this, it is vital for the company to use the right message in various advertisements.
The company would strive to create an emotional appeal to attract the target market. Using the right advertising channels would enable the company to reach the target market. Dairy Farmers would use magazines, newspapers, billboards, radio, and the internet to advertise the product. The media strategy of the company would enable it to achieve the marketing strategy. The media strategy would enable the company to attract and maintain customers. This would guarantee the future growth and profitability of the company.
Reflection
The pitch project enabled our group to create a marketing campaign for Euphori Gelato. The project enabled us to apply various theories. The application of the theories enabled us to determine some of the problems that managers face in implementing various theories. The complex nature of the real world of management makes it difficult for managers to apply various theories efficiently.
The pitch project enabled us to appreciate the fact that efficient implementation of various theories requires people to undertake extensive research. However, this does not guarantee the successful implementation of the theory.
The pitch project also enabled us to apply group dynamics. Teams undertake most functions of any modern organization. Therefore, it is vital for people to know how to work in groups. The pitch project enabled us to determine our individual strengths and weaknesses that may facilitate or hinder the efficiency of a group. This may be vital to our future productivity in the real business world.
The pitch project enabled us to determine the importance of working as a team. The group provided us with different views that helped in enriching the quality of the project. In addition, the group enabled the members to focus on areas of their choice. This helped in making the pitch project an enjoyable experience. Teamwork was vital in designing advertisements in various channels.
However, the pitch project enabled us to experience some of the shortcomings of teamwork first hand. In some instances, we were unable to agree on the most suitable content. This is because individual members of the group had their own views on various issues. This increased the time that the group took to achieve its objective.
References
Avraham, E. & Ketter, E. (2012). Media strategies for marketing places in crisis. London: Routledge.
Ferrell, O.C. & Hartline, M.D. (2010). Marketing strategy. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Hewett, G. (2009). FCS: Advertising & promotions. Cape Town: Pearson South Africa.
Hiam, A. (2009). Marketing kit for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Tellis, G.J. (2004). Effective advertising: Understanding when, how, and why advertising works. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishers.
Tyagi, C.L. & Kumar, A. (2004). Advertising management. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.
Yeshin, T. (2006). Advertising. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Appendix
Table 1: Estimated budget.
Radio spot advertisement script
- Girl 1: Hi, what is that ice cream you are eating?
- Girl 2: This is the new ‘Euphori Gelato’ ice cream.
- Girl 1: It looks so delicious. Does it taste as good as it looks?
- Girl 2: It tastes even better. You can have a taste.
- Girl 1: Wow! I have never tasted such delicious ice cream.
- Girl 2: The best thing about the ice cream is that it is made from organic ingredients.
- Girl 1: Really. I love organic foods. How many flavors does it have?
- Girl 2: Peppermint, chocolate, and vannila.
- Girl 1: I will definitely start buying Euphori Gelato ice cream.