Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Marketing - Essay Example The report then looks at how RLL can fit into the hot chocolate market using various promotional strategies as well as its existing resources. II. Customer Audit From the interview findings, all the respondents do like hot beverages and many of them take hot chocolate. Both male and female respondents across a wide range of age brackets like taking chocolate. Those who take chocolate drinks take them for indulgence reasons and other for relaxation. Most people get their chocolate drinks from supermarkets and local shops. When buying their chocolate drinks, most people are influenced by the thickness, a rich flavor and smoothness. Others get whatever is new in the market. The respondents who take chocolate said they would buy a hot beverage called Silk. III. Internal Audit A. Operating Results Tea and coffee dominate the UK hot drinks industry, which account for more than 90% of the industry’s total sales. The remainder of the sales (10%) is accounted for by other food beverage s such as hot chocolate. The hot beverage industry is worth more than ?1.5 billion. The tea industry is worth ?655 million, coffee industry is worth ?739 million while the other food beverages are worth ?125 million. The Forecasted future sales in the UK hot drinks industry is ?1.7 billion by 2016. ... 67% of those consumers with a household income of ?20,000-?24,999 use food beverages. Other high consumers of food beverages are those with household incomes of ?25,000 – ?34,999 (62%), ?15,000 – 19,000 and ?35,000 (64% each). The sales of instant chocolate and add milk chocolate increased from the year 2005 to 2007. B. Strategic Issues Analysis 1. Marketing objectives Launch a new hot chocolate product Generate over ?200,000 in the new product’s sales by the end of the first year. Increase the new product’s sales by 40% by the end of year 2. 2. Market segmentation All hot drinks customers from all age brackets prefer high premium products, which are full of flavor and exotic. They like expensive but restrained image. Their preferred brand does not have to be branded. Young C1C2 customers like convenient products that come at a moderate price. They also like branded products with standard products being the most accepted. For this age group, the kind of pu rchase they make conveys their status. Older C1C2s do not mind the price of the product as long as its quality is right. For them, taste is the most important factor when purchasing hot drinks products. They do not care much about the products image or exotic products. They normally view own label as poor quality. For the younger DEs the product’s price is very important. They tend to buy smaller packages of branded products whose quality must be good. They are also concerned about the image and they are likely to change products quite often. Older DEs mostly buy the cheapest products and they stick to those products that they know, that is, the traditional products. They also value own labels. 3. Competitive Advantage The company has hi-tech production facilities that