Hyman Golden, Leonard Marsh, and Arnie Greenberg introduced the brand name Snapple in 1972 as a 100% natural apple juice. The three high school friends distributed the product to health food stores in Greenwich Village. The target of this business on health promotion beverages attracted the attention of consumers and by 1980 the brand had gained high market acceptance and recognition in the coasts of the United States.
The business took 15 years to achieve peak in its success. The success of the brand name attracted the interest of potential investors. Quaker purchased Snapple in 1994 at a cost of $1.7 billion with the vision of combining the brand name with Gatorade, another successful brand name to build a powerful business unit of beverages. Quaker made changes that destroyed the image of the brand leading to a decline in the company’s sales.
Quaker sold Snapple to Triarc in 1997 at $300 billion. Triarc worked out the strategy of developing and rebuilding new communication to restore the image of the brand. The communication messages would reconnect the brand with the customers to rebuild good relationships, loyalty, and success of the brand in the target markets essential for future stability of the business.
Internal and External Factors in the Market Environment of Snapple as a segment of Triarc’s Business Portfolio
Internal Factors
These factors create competitive advantage and help Snapple differ from the competitors in meeting the demands of the target market. Snapple’s success in creating competitive advantage arises from its ability to offer a variety of flavors to build a strong heritage of natural healthy ingredients, and to create a well-established brand. These factors guarantee success and sustainability of the brand name in the future.
Triarc manages the brand portfolio to ensure that the communication messages differentiate the products from those of competitors and that the messages create influence on potential consumers. Triarc had to overcome the gap created after the discontinuation of Wendy Kaufman and Stern that led to more losses in brand loyalty and decline in the financial performance of Snapple.
Triarc improved communication with distributors and consumers to improve their purchasing power. The company ensures a consistent brand transformation in image, reputation, and perception to survive in the competitive market of beverages. Snapple also strives to understand the nature of the market and implement marketing tactics, such as competitive pricing to make a business successful.
External Factors
The external marketing environment creates opportunities to help achieve organizational objectives. Snapple entry in the market was successful because there was low competition on health promotion beverages in the market. The success of the brand attracted the interests of new entrances and development of existing ones in the industry leading to high competition for market share.
Consumers have a buying behavior that involves recognition of the need, search for the product that satisfies the needs and available alternatives of the product, make the purchase, and evaluate the post purchase. The decision-making process of the consumer can involve influence from family, friends, and outside resources, such as media.
Triarc focuses on the teenagers or young adults. Therefore, Snapple has to acquire high acceptance in the target market, and this means high investment in media and peers because they are the major influencers on this target segment.
The company had to ensure high quality products, product features, designs, prices, and costs of production to improve brand loyalty, image, and equity for Snapple to be in the consumer purchasing decisions. The increase in competitor products and demand for health conscious beverages in the market have led to price sensitivity because consumers can easily switch from one brand to another with less differentiation on the products.
The teenagers don’t have high levels of income lowering the market potential of the target market. Triarc had to enlarge its target market segment to the professionals to increase return on investment. The company also invests in meeting the market demands by developing customer focus on experience and satisfaction to improve profits, sales, and market share. Snapple faces stiff competition from Sobe, Ocean Spray, Arizona, and Lipton.
Target Markets
Consumer Behavior
Snapple established non-carbonated beverages in the United States and has continued to dominate despite the high competition in the market. Consumers have different tastes and preferences making it essential for Snapple to have a variety of flavors. Snapple was introduced in the market as a healthy beverage attracting the interest of the market in which there was a high demand for such a product.
Customers switched from competitors increasing the financial performance and market share of the company. The success of the brand led to new entrances into the market with similar product features. This created a high competition in the market. Triarc had to apply unique strategies to attract customers during their decision-making processes.
Consumers tend to purchase products that have good images and reputation. Triarc had to make better its image through vivid promotions and improvement in quality and variety of its products to survive and maximize profits. Moreover, Snapple is a leisure product and the changes in the economic conditions reduce the purchasing patterns of consumers leading to higher competition for market share.
Market Segments
The Young Adults/Teenagers
The brand targets students in schools at the age of 13 to 22. The brand offers the students youthful, sweet taste and quirky image. The media and peers easily influence students making it necessary for Triarc to heavily invest in television advertising. Triarc targets this segment because it makes the larger market share for beverages.
Professionals
The brand offers the professionals or working class convenience at lunch breaks, quick options, and healthy image. Triarc had to integrate marketing efforts to ensure that the products are available at the flagship metropolitan stores where most of the working class spends their lunch breaks. The company focuses on this market segment because they have high disposable income to spend on the products.
Recommendations for a Strategy Implementation Plan
Product Renovation
The brand owner should establish new product lines and label designs. The ability to offer a line of quality and unique flavors improves the brands image and differentiates the brand from the competitors in the target markets. The brand owner should concentrate on innovating new and developing the existing products toward a healthy brand image.
There is a high demand for healthy products in the market and the creation of healthy drinks interests and attracts the attention of the market to the product helping attract and maintain large market shares in the target markets. The brand owner should use the natural energy boosting ingredients to create products that compete efficiently in the target markets.
Promotion
The brand owner should establish a label design contest and allocate a larger budget on television advertising. Snapple should introduce television advertising and engage the young viewership during the quirky shows. The brand communication messages should focus on value creation in the products to influence customers to purchase them. The promotional activities should gear at achieving a strong brand image in the target markets.
This will make it easy for the business to create high recognition and perception of quality and satisfaction to customers. The company should invest heavily in label design contest to re-engage customer base essential for building good relationship with customers and attracting customers’ interest and attention for the brand.
To succeed in this strategy, the company needs to create a new look for its products, especially on packaging to attract customers. These strategies will help the company improve its profits, competitive advantage, and market share in the short-run to avoid the downfall or losses of the company.
Placement
Triarc should supply Snapple to schools and metropolitan flagship stores to ensure availability to potential customers. The wide distribution will help attract customers from competitors and maintain its customers from switching to competitor brands. The new sale channels influences consumers to try the brand, as it is available. Constant supply of the products is essential to maximize satisfaction to customers.
The company will introduce school vending machines to appeal to parents and school boards to introduce the beverage as a healthy alternative in the saturated market of soda products. This will enable the potential consumers to have a choice on the beverage to take with Snapple in mind. The company’s target on the flagship metropolitan stores will be to integrate marketing efforts in improving sales.
The company will make the information about the brand available in the flagship stores to create awareness and attraction on the brand. The company’s messages on the distribution activities should be effective to differentiate the products from those of the competitors and have the potential of influencing and attracting customers to the purchase and use of the products.
Pricing
The current prices of the brand should be maintained in order to prevent customers from shifting to competitors and to satisfy customers. Snapple should constantly review its pricing strategy to ensure that its remains competitive in the target markets and that the prices match the value it creates to consumers.
Control of the Strategy Plan
The company should prepare for the label design contest and the product line renovation as it is the first strategy to attract the interest and attention of potential consumers in the target market.
The company should introduce the television advertising and vending machine to boost the impact on consumers of the products. The company introduced the Snapple brand in stores to make the products available to customers. These actions of the company will be the root to the success trying to improve performance in sales, profits, and market share in the target markets.
Conclusion
Triarc takes time to understand the target market, its segments, and customer demands to make effective strategies. The company ensures quality brand management that is necessary for acquiring understanding and knowledge of essential elements of improving the brand image and equity. It ensures effective communication and building of strong customer and supplier relationships for sustainability of the business.
Triarc relies on wide range of flavors, health promotion beverages, and quality customer services to succeed in creating competitive advantage. Snapple has a good chance of influencing on consumer buying behavior to sell its products. It targets at teenagers and professionals who have high influence from the media and peers. The company has to take advantage of this market segments to maximize its profits.