The case study is related to the marketing affairs of the transnational corporation – Nestle – and its strategy conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It can be said that the company’s country director Herve Barrere developed and guided this strategy appealing to the core cultural and business peculiarities of the region (Hooley et al., 2019). By communicating with “mummies on the table tops,” who are the crucial element of the local chain of markets, Mr. Barrere distinguished the required approach to be successful. Maggi squares’ sales – Nestle’s product promoted in the country – subsequently demonstrated growth at 30 percent a year.
It would be rational to claim that Mr. Barrere utilized a number of marketing strategies that led the campaign to such achievements. In particular, he was likely to provide the target consumers with superior services (Hooley et al., 2019). The essence of this approach is to make a business customer-orientated, taking into account as many specific features as possible. For example, Barrere went into people’s homes to figure out how women cooked and what families preferred to eat. This understanding was used to adjust Maggi’s tastes to the local preferences.
Then, Barrere was also able to adhere price positioning strategy – low-pricing, specifically. He assumed that selling the squares at just 50 francs (three pence) would be a proper choice, considering the buying capabilities of the potential consumers (Kenton, 2021). The crucial point here is to lure as many buyers as possible to increase sales. Moreover, Barrere used promotional differentiation to reach the broadest range of customers (Datta, Ailawadi and van Heerde, 2017). Particularly, the squares were advertised differently in Kenya, Nigeria, and DR Congo, respecting local cultural and historical backgrounds. Finally, Berrere was likely to utilize segmentation and comparison in terms of the marketing strategy (Tarver, 2021; Félix, Moura and Clifton, 2017). For instance, he did not follow the same selling patterns in different cities – like Lubumbashi and Kinshasa – of the country after the comparison of the identified groups of buyers.
Reference List
Datta, H., Ailawadi, K. L. and van Heerde, H. (2017) ‘How well does consumer-based brand equity align with sales-based brand equity and marketing-mix response?’, Journal of Marketing, 81(3), pp. 1–20.
Félix, R., Moura, F. and Clifton, K. J. (2017) ‘Typologies of urban cyclists: Review of market segmentation methods for planning practice’, Transportation Research Record, 2662(1), pp. 125–133.
Hooley, G., Pierce, N, Nicoulaud, B., Rudd, J. and Lee, N. (2019) Marketing strategy and competitive positioning (7th ed.). London: Pearson.
Kenton, W. (2021) Low-cost producer. Web.
Tarver, E. (2021) What is market segmentation?Web.