Introduction
Nodan is a type of off-brand yoghurt manufactured by a local company that sells milk products. The product is available in several stores in the U.S where the company has business partners willing to sell the yoghurt alongside other branded products like Chobani and Cantaloop among many others.
According to consumers, Nodan Yogurt is similar in quality with the branded products, and its flavors are rich enough to compete with the other products. The store manager also claimed that the product has developed some loyal customers, mainly because of its prices. Nodan is one of the off-brand products that can easily take over the competition in the industry.
The Product
Nodan is a low involvement product. Yoghurts and other milk products attract customers because of the quality and prices. Nodan is one of the many yoghurt products that the store sells, and the management has realized that some consumers have developed the habit of purchasing Nodan exclusively.
Others select the product just because it goes for slightly lower prices than the other products. There is also a large customer base that selects their yoghurt by simply picking the nearest product, or the first product they see regardless of the brand, and Nodan is doing great in the competition.
Nodan’s high quality and low price are the main strengths of the product with reference to its perceived quality signals. According to some of the consumers, one cannot tell the difference between the branded products and the off-brand yoghurt.
The producer has simply provided consumers with quality yoghurt at a fair price that beats other products. This competitive advantage indicates that given the right kind of product marketing strategy, Nodan can fetch a larger market share.
Nodan needs a unique marketing campaign that will distinguish the product from a competing product. Companies like Chobani have developed expensive marketing strategies that are incorporated in their producing company’s CSR programs, but Nodan is in the initial stages of entering the market; hence, a low budget marketing strategy will be appropriate.
The strategy should avoid mimicking the approaches used by other companies to bring out the uniqueness associated with the product. This strategy will raise curiosity among the potential consumers, and promote sales for the product.
Size of the market segment
Low involvement products like yoghurts are mainly purchased by families. In a homogenous market like in the United States, a product like Nodan would make more sales through families doing their house shopping. It is apparent that the majority of the people in the population belongs to a family that does its shopping ones in a while.
While some people may not be yoghurt consumers, it is fair to assume that more than half of the 321,130,000 Americans in the 2015 population projection will create demand for milk products like yoghurt. This statistic means that with the right brand marketing strategy, the product can harness a large market share.
The strategy should assume a long-term approach toward meeting the objective to make the brand a nationally recognized product. The product is independent of age group variations in the population because of its status as a low involvement product, and people in different age groups consume the product.
Over the next ten years, the population of the United States will have increased by 0.64%, and this growth in population will translate to a similar growth in sales for the brand (Population Projections, 2012). One of the factors that may affect any market segmentation is the growth rate expected from the market segment.
The family segment in the United States is bound to expand with time as indicated by population growth projections by the national census. As the population grows the demand for milk products like yoghurt increases, and this would be a good thing for Nodan. Tastes and preferences are also factors that affect the family segment in their consumption of low involvement products.
While some of the consumers may develop a habit to consume specific products like Nodan, it is possible that some families may opt for other products exclusively.
This freedom of preference means that the marketing strategy must persuade the consumers to become loyal to the product in order to predict their behavior in purchasing a brand. The sustainability of the segment depends on the competitiveness of the brand in terms of quality and prices.
Reference groups influencing the segment
Normative and comparative groups in the society are influential in the development of consumer behaviors and attitudes toward different products (Bandyopadhyay & Martell, 2007). In the family market segment, the tastes and preferences of the parents are influential in developing attitudes about products on the part of their children.
For instance, some parents purchase specific products because their parents taught them to consume the specific brands since their childhood days. Nodan must appeal to parents and their shopping groups to gain a loyal consumer base. The appropriate diffusion rate for the product is a stochastic model.
Most of the elements associated with the diffusion of low involvement products are not definite; hence, the marketing strategy should operate on a probabilistic approach toward introducing the product on a national level.
The Crossing the Chasm model would help in targeting specific groups in the family segment to promote sales on a national level. Consumer reviews can build or destroy a product; hence, Nodan should maintain its high-quality standards (Lee, Park & Han, 2008).
Promoting the product
For the marketing strategy for Nodan to pay off as intended, it is important to highlight the required blend of product features that will enhance its chances to gain market shares on a national scale. The current behavior in consumer goods reveals that most customers settle for products with high quality and reasonable prices.
The sales in the store indicated that most customers opted to purchase Nodan over the rest of the popular brands because Nodan is rich in quality, and its price is lower than other products with similar quality standards. The brand will be associated with high standards of quality and significantly appealing prices to connect with the potential buyers.
This strategy will potentially develop sufficient demand for the brand across the nation. Price setting and product promotion should form the core of the marketing dimension for Nodan Yoghurt. The company already knows that consumers want cheaper quality products, and it should work toward providing the same to the national market.
Promoting a brand is the important part of the marketing strategy. The promotion-focused strategy should incorporate broadcast advertising and endorsements to popularize the brand (Hawkins, Mothersbaugh & Best, 2013).
Learning need for the product
The product lies in the low involvement category of consumer products because the potential customers do not have to spend a lot of time deciding whether to buy Yoghurt (Russell-Bennett, McColl-Kennedy & Coote, 2007).
It is one of the usual family shopping products in the United States. The marketing strategy should provide consumers with information about quality and pricing for the product to create the need for customers to purchase it.
Impact of lifestyle on consumer behavior
Consumer behavior is dependent on the lifestyle assumed by the individual customers. For instance, when people shift from one economic status to a higher level of income, their tastes and preferences in consumer products are likely to change. In the same capacity, when people adopt healthier lifestyles, they change their consumer behaviors (Hawkins, Mothersbaugh & Best, 2013).
Nodan yoghurt is bound to encounter changes in consumer behavior, especially on issues concerning healthy eating. The producer should provide consumers with a variety of healthy products to maintain high sales. For instance, Nodan could develop low-fat products to meet the demand for people who opt for healthier milk products. Consumers in the current world want to be associated with quality products (Solomon, 2009).
Evaluation of the campaign
The selected campaign will be effective in developing a promotion-focused approach to market the product. Its target is to achieve national sales for the product, with high competitiveness against the existing brands. It also has the potential to identify problems in the future for the products because of the chosen diffusion rate.
Working through a probabilistic approach will help the marketing team predict the potential levels of success and failure, and also help in preparing for solutions in case of failure in the strategy.
References
Bandyopadhyay, S., & Martell, M. (2007). Does attitudinal loyalty influence behavioral loyalty? A theoretical and empirical study. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 14(1), 35-44.
Hawkins, D. I., Mothersbaugh, D., & Best, R. J. (2013). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy with DDB Data Disk (12th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill / Irwin.
Lee, J., Park, D. H., & Han, I. (2008). The effect of negative online consumer reviews on product attitude: An information processing view. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 7(3), 341-352.
Population Projections: 2012 National Population Projections: Summary Tables. (2012). Web.
Russell-Bennett, R., McColl-Kennedy, J. R., & Coote, L. V. (2007). Involvement, satisfaction, and brand loyalty in a small business services setting. Journal of Business Research, 60(12), 1253-1260.
Solomon, M. R. (2009). Consumer behavior: buying, having, and being. New Jersey: Pearson Education.