82% Mark101 assignment on NutriGrain PDF

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Download 82% Mark101 assignment on NutriGrain PDF

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Contents Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2 Introduction................................................................................................................................2 Key Marketing Concepts and Principles....................................................................................4 Demographic market segmentation........................................................................................4 Psychographic Market Segmentation.....................................................................................5 Geographic Segmentation......................................................................................................6 Marketing Mix Considerations..................................................................................................6 Product....................................................................................................................................6 Place.......................................................................................................................................6 Price........................................................................................................................................6 Promotion...............................................................................................................................6 Socially Responsible and Ethical Issues....................................................................................6 Information Communication Technologies................................................................................7 Marketing Plan...........................................................................................................................8

Executive Summary Breakfast cereals is a well-known market that all Australians are familiar with and most purchase on a regular basis. This report contains detailed information about one of the most successful brands of breakfast cereal – Nutri-Grain. Nutri-Grain’s success is largely due to

their smart and effective marketing. This report details the specificities regarding NutriGrains effective marketing, which is largely due to the brands ability to position itself as one of the leading options of high protein cereals for active individuals. In addition, the brand’s hastiness in responding to social and ethical issues has ensured that the brand appears to be adaptive to changing social values and is mindful of the health of Australian consumers. Nutri-Grain heavily promotes their sporting competitions on their social media sites, however apart from this, their social media sites serve little-to-no other purpose; this is a large missed opportunity, which may be improved upon through the implementation of certain marketing schemes. Introduction Nutri-Grain is a brand made under the Kellogg Company. It is primarily sold as a breakfast cereal in Australia and New Zealand and is unable to be bought at major grocery stores in other countries; however, in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Nutri-Grain is the name of soft baked breakfast bars. Each piece of the cereal has a brick-like design with three holes in them, as depicted on the cover of their packaging to the right. The Nutri-Grain 290g breakfast cereal (NutriGrain) is available for purchase at most major Australian grocery stores, including Woolworths, Coles and IGA. Nutri-Grain’s slogan is “iron man food”; the message they send with their marketing campaigns is that if a child/young-adult were to eat this food then they would grow up to be strong and healthy. Nutri-Grain exists in quite a competitive market. Although having the third largest brand shares in Australian cereals, Weet-Bix doubles the amount of brand shares that Nutri-Grain has and Uncle Tobys almost triples Nutri-Grain’s brand shares. Uncle Toby’s main marketing strategy is not to target healthy individuals; therefore, Nutri-Grain’s main competitor is Weet-bix. This is because Weet-bix targets active Australians through frequently partnering with various sports players in their advertisements – for example Steve Smith (Australian cricket player) and Tim Cahill (Australian soccer player). This is unfortunate for Nutri-Grain as Weet-bix has already

established themselves as the leading Australian cereal brand for active individuals. As a result, Weet-bix has more disposable funds and is able to sponsor Australian athletes that are more famous than those that Nutri-Grain can efficiently afford. Nutri-Grain has not sponsored athletes close to the fame of Tim Cahill and Steve Smith, many young Australians look up to these role models and upon seeing them in advertisements eating Weet-bix, would be incentivised to follow in these athlete’s footsteps.

Breakfast Cereal Brand Shares % in 2019 16.0

14.0

12.0

10.0

8.0

6.0

4.0

2.0

0.0

Uncle Tobys Kellogg's Sultana Bran Sanitarium Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Goodness Kellogg's Crispix Kellogg's Special K Food For Health Pureharvest Thank you Quaker

Weet-Bix Kellogg's All Bran Kellogg's Coco Pops Milo Kellogg's Mini Wheats Jordans Kellogg's Froot Loops Table Of Plenty Kez's Free Dick Smith's

Source: Euromonitor International

2019

Nutri-Grain Vita Brits Carman's Kellogg's Just Right Sustain Morning Sun five:am Be Natural Abundant O&G

Freedom Foods Kellogg's Corn Flakes Lowan Rice Krispies Hubbard's Arnold's Farm Muesli Monster Sun Sol Brookfarm Nesquik

Key Marketing Concepts and Principles Demographic market segmentation Before recent controversies, Nutri-Grain had marketed primarily towards males. Nutri-Grain heavily promotes their above average protein content and assumes that males would be the primary consumers of protein related products. For example, in 2010 Kellogg released a commercial which features a young man riding a bicycle, then cuts to an older teenager riding the same bicycle, accompanied with the voice-over of “Nutri-Grain is a high protein cereal, so it has what it takes to build them into iron men”, shortly after, the older teenager states “thanks mum”. This advertisement is simultaneously marketing towards young males that want to be athletic, healthy and sporty, as well as marketing towards mothers, as the advertisement implies their sons will be thankful of them for feeding them food that will make them into “iron men”. The Eurobarometer survey led by the European commission found that in 2014 in Europe 74% of men aged 15-24 exercised or played sports at least once a week, compared with 55% of women in the same age group (Women and Girls in Sport, Active Recreation & Physical Activity, n.d.). Since majority of Nutri-Grain advertisements feature the mention of some form of sports, it is smart for Nutri-Grain to target the main demographic that participates in sports, which is men. In targeting this demographic, it makes sense to have males play the main role in advertisements and to be displayed on the cereal boxes. However, by targeting males for advertisements that cater towards sport players, ethical issues have arisen, as will be discussed later. Psychographic Market Segmentation Kellogg chooses to target individuals that prefer high protein content in their cereals. It is well known that individuals who participate in physical activity more so value the protein content of food than those who do not engage in physical activity. This is simply because if these active individuals care about the muscular development of their bodies, then they would consume protein to support this development; non active individuals do not have this incentive. This presumption is utilised by Kellogg, as it is made clear in most advertisements that Nutri-Grain has a high protein content – for example the “20% PROTEIN” text present on the 290g cereal box. By placing this text at the top of their cereal box in addition to it being capitalised, being the 2nd largest font on the box and also appearing in front of a yellow background which contrasts greatly with the black text,

Kellogg absolutely captures the attention of consumers and therefore makes it well known that there is a large protein content in the cereal.

In addition to clearly portraying Nutri-Grain’s protein content – which alone would attract active individuals – many of their advertisements include someone participating in some form of physical activity, further incentivising active individuals to buy this product as they may feel like the product is made specifically for them and their lifestyle.

Nutri-Grain also hosts many sporting tournaments/competitions such as the Ironman/Ironwoman series, highlights of these and constant reference to them are given on almost all their social media platforms. These competitions imply to consumers that the athletes participating in these tournaments consume Nutri-Grain, and therefore if you want to be successful at your sport, eating Nutri-Grain may give you the upper hand.

Geographic Segmentation Nutri-Grain breakfast cereal is only available for purchase in Australia and New Zealand. By geographically segmenting the product to only be available in these regions, Nutri-Grain can focus on marketing towards the behaviours and attitudes of these sole countries. Australia dominates world titles in surfing – as of 2018, Australia has won 13 world titles since 1982, 2nd place is USA winning 4 times – this is likely due to a larger amount of Australian residents being located near a beach compared to other nations, and therefore Australians would be more likely to participate in water sports such as surfing. Nutri-Grain utilises this geographic knowledge by featuring surfing in majority of their TV advertisements. In addition, NutriGrain AU & NZ’s YouTube page features a large amount of surfing competitions and clips of professional surfers surfing large waves. By only making this product available in Australia and New Zealand, Nutri-Grain can focus on featuring surfing – a sport well known to many Australians – in majority of their advertisements and will therefore appeal to the many Australians that are invested in this sport.

Marketing Mix Considerations Product The Nutri-Grain breakfast cereal product has more protein than most competing breakfast cereal brands. As a result, Nutri-Grain heavily advertises this property of their cereal and therefore attempts to appeal to active individuals, who would be the most likely consumers of high protein products. Nutri-Grain comes in a variety of sizes: 290g, 500g, 805g. By offering the product in numerous sizes, numerous purposes are satisfied. The small, cheap 290g size allows for newcomers to the product to experience Nutri-Grain without feeling as though their purchase is too large of an investment. Meanwhile, the 805g size offers loyal consumers to continue purchasing Nutri-Grain’s products in a cost-effective manner. The middle 500g package may be useful for a consumer whose wants are somewhere between the two aforementioned purposes. However, the presence of this middle option may also inadvertently cause consumers to be more likely to buy the larger 805g value pack; consumers may reason that if they are to purchase a larger than usual cereal box, they may as well go the full length, and purchase the one with the most value. Since the 290g is priced at $4.95 and the 805g is priced at $8.50, the 805g box is roughly 1.6 times cheaper per gram. This provides excellent incentive to fully invest in the value pack, and also rewards loyal purchasers of their brand with an efficient value deal. Place Nutri-Grain is available for purchase in most Australian grocery stores, including Woolworths, IGA, and Coles. Nutri-Grain is also available for online international purchase through other retailers, such as The Australian Food Shop and Tasteful Delights, however shipping prices will be expensive for those not in Australia. Although easily accessible in Australia and New Zealand, consumers outside of these countries would need to spend excessive amounts of money on shipping costs to be able to access these products. Price Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain 290g is reasonably priced, with it being $4.95, $1.71/100g. However it is slightly more expensive than its competitors. Weet-bix 375g is priced at $2.90, $0.77/100g and Uncle Toby’s Fruity Bites 500g is priced at $5.50, $1.10/100g. If consumers are super mindful of costs, then Nutri-Grain may not be an option. Nonetheless, Nutri-Grain is not

overly expensive as the difference of a few dollars would not be too detrimental to a product’s success. Promotion Nutri-Grain mostly promotes their products on television advertisements and on their social media. Their most famous campaign includes a series of advertisements with the “iron man” slogan. These advertisements features young boys playing sports, and over the course of the advertisement, these boys would transition into older, visibly stronger teens and young adults, competing in various sporting events. This campaign effectively targeted young males by implying that they will become an “iron man” by eating this food.

Nutri-Grain also frequently hosts various sporting tournaments, as part of their “iron man (and recently iron women)” series. Highlights and results from these tournaments would be shared across their social media platforms, enticing young individuals on social media to also compete in these tournaments. By hosting these tournaments, consumers are led to believe that the Nutri-Grain cereal is partly responsible for the athlete’s success, further promoting purchasing of their products.

Although partnering with many water sports and BMX athletes, Nutri-Grain would benefit from sponsoring athletes from other popular sports in Australia, such as Soccer, Rugby, and Cricket. Weet-Bix has a greater variety of athletes that they sponsor and has seen far greater success than Nutri-Grain has. Nutri-Grain should follow the footsteps of Weet-bix and sponsor sporting athletes not related to water sports.

Socially Responsible and Ethical Issues Kellogg had recently been heavily critiqued for their apparent “sexist” values in regard to Nutri-Grain’s advertisements. As discussed previously, Nutri-Grain had predominantly featured males in their advertisements and on their cereal box. If there were females present in Nutri-Grain advertisements, they would generally play the role of a mother who simply provides the Nutri-Grain for their son. Below are three examples of packaging featuring only males.

8-

year old Daliah Lee wrote a letter to the brand stating that “this morning I noticed that on the back of the box there are only pictures of boys doing something awesome… Girls can do something awesome too…” This letter garnered a large amount of media attention, with many agreeing with the young girl. A Kellogg spokesperson had responded to this request stating “we’ve decided that we will update the back-of-pack imagery with images of both females and males”. Shortly after this statement, Kellogg had released new packaging (shown on the right) which features female athletes. Despite being heavily criticised by the public, Kellogg managed to turn the situation around in their favour by being responsive to criticism and appearing adaptive to changing social values. Nutri-Grain had also been criticized for being norotiously unhealthy, mostly due to its high sugar and salt content. Despite majority of their advertisments implying that this food is made for healthy, active, “iron men”, many health experts found the contrary, as it was previously ranked 2/5 stars on the Health Star Rating System. However, in 2015 Nutri-Grain had decided to revamp their Nutri-Grain recipe. According to Catherine Saxelby of Foodwatch.com, Kellog had informed her that salt content dropped 25% and sugar dropped 17%, resulting in a 4/5 star rating on the Health Star Rating System.

Information Communication Technologies Kellogg’s has its own website, by clicking on the “food” tab, one may select Nutri-Grain and will be directed towards a Nutri-Grain related webpage which provides lots of information for consumers. One of the first things that a visitor to this site would see is “our products”, which is a list of all Nutri-Grain products available for purchase. If a consumer were to be so invested in the Nutri-Grain brand to visit its website, it would be likely that this consumer would be open to trying other Nutri-Grain products that they may not have previously known about – this further promotes the Nutri-Grain brand by informing consumers of other similar products which may suit purposes other than as breakfast cereal. For example, if a consumer had previously been eating Nutri-Grain for breakfast, however due to limited time had stopped eating breakfast cereals altogether, this advertisement may entice the consumer to have a Nutri-Grain Bar in the mornings, rather than a competing brand’s product such as Up n Go.

By scrolling further, there are three embedded YouTube videos in the webpage. One video relates to the BMX sport, and the other two feature surfers. These videos are inspiring as they feature dangerous and brave sporting performances that the ordinary person would not be capable of achieving, this gives consumers the idea that Nutri-Grain is a factor in making a person brave and talented in these sports.

A further analysis of Nutri-Grain’s YouTube videos reveals that majority of their YouTube content is related to water sports – primarily surfing. Although many Australians do play these sports, Nutri-Grain does not have the same sport diversity in their advertisements as Weet-bix does, which may be a reason why they are less successful than Weet-bix. Weet-Bix sponsors a surfing learning class “Surf Groms”, as well as sponsoring famous Australian cricketers and soccer stars, whereas Nutri-Grain largely features surfing and BMX in majority of their advertisements. Clearly Weet-Bix is more well-rounded in their advertising campaigns. If Nutri-Grain wishes to be more competitive in the market, changes will need to be made, including sponsoring a wider variety of sport stars.

Marketing Plan It is evident that Nutri-Grain does not have a large social media presence, for example: The last Facebook post by the Nutri-Grain Facebook page that has reached 100+ likes was on August 10 2019, however this post is an outlier as majority of their posts do not reach even 10 likes, this raises concerns especially considering they have 200 000 followers on Facebook. This highlights the fact that although many Australians are seeing Nutri-Grain’s posts on their Facebook feed, a small portion are interacting with what is posted. This is a major detriment to the brand and is a missed opportunity, especially considering the prevalence of social media marketing in the current age. To engage consumers more with the brand and promote discussion amongst consumers, a “challenge” should be set on Facebook. This challenge will involve anyone willing to participate to post some form of food involving Nutri-Grain as an ingredient and tag the Nutri-Grain Facebook page in the post. The winner may be determined on multiple factors including, creativeness and aesthetics, however obviously taste cannot be a factor in who wins. The winner will receive either large amounts of Nutri-Grain products or money. This challenge will bring attention to the various uses of Nutri-Grain, for example being used as a sweet crunchy base of a baked good such as a cake. Although on paper this marketing strategy strays far away from Nutri-Grain’s general target audience of healthy, active, young individuals, upon a deeper analysis it plays into this easily. Although children and young teens have nagging power, which influences the purchases of the adults of the family, largely the parents have majority of the spending power. Because of this, in many Nutri-Grain advertisements Kellogg had advertently targe...