Situation Analysis Recap
Discuss about the Marketing Plan of Nexba’s Beverage Company.
Nexba is Australian Beverage Company.It has revolutionized soft drinks by launching naturally sugar free cola, orange and lemon sparkling infusions.Nexba was founded by Troy Douglas and Drew Bilbe in 2010.The vision is to transform lives by providing natural beverages which will help people to make their lifestyle choices better (Egger & Stevens, 2014). The story of Nexba began on Mexican beach. Drew Bilbe was enjoying a glass of homemade tea. This inspired him to produce his own natural, low calorie ice tea to share with his family and friends in Australia. After returning home, he met his high school friend Troy and shared his idea. Soon they set up canning line and launched ice tea and watermelon was the first flavor. The consider themselves as s naturally brave brand and natural sugar free product innovation. The company has huge potential .But there are market leaders like PepsiCo who might need to be challenged. Also company needs to create brand awareness not only locally and globally.
There is growing demand for natural sugar free beverages. Many companies like Dominos are updating their menu as per these changing customers’ requirements (Owens, 2014).Nexba has edge here because unlike its competitors their innovation is a naturally sugar free soft drink that taste exactly the same as full sugar soft drink (McDarby & Byrne, 2018).The company is able to provide products which satisfies the consumer. The biggest challenge in the brand is many people are still unaware about the brand. So the company is looking forward to create awareness about their product (Barreda & Okumus, 2015).The company is looking forward to continue to innovate with big customers nationally. Currently the company has tied up with corporates include Coles, Alde, 7-Eleven and Woolworths. The company is also rewarded with the 2017 Product of the Year in the beverage category by Nilsson. In the coming year, company looks forward to grow nationally and internationally, introduce new product, engage in more partnership and efficient operations (Marion & Deeds, 2015).
There is preference in the market for authentic product. The family’s sugar consumption needs to be cut, there is need for healthy alternatives that taste good. There is importance of low prices for healthy alternatives and label of food that are easier to understand.
Nexba is a healthy beverage company. The company has outsourced its most of its operation so they could focus on the core i.e. providing healthy alternatives to the Australians without compromising the taste. They are not targeting particular audience. Instead they are changing their packaging to attract different kind of customers (Mohebbi, 2014). The products are low calories and low sugar. They are partnering with big customers nationally or internationally and releasing different products. Most of soft drink beverages have sugar which leads to increase in obesity and other cardiovascular diseases (Malhotra & Phinney, 2015).This has increased attention of many customers to choose healthier options (Stanhope, 2016).
- Strengths
Problem Statement
The company has wider product range in different flavors. They have tapped major retailers like Coles supermarket, Coles Express ,Alde, 7-Eleven, Woolsworth, United Petroleum. This will not only increase their reach to wider audience but also adding to the bottom line. The product is authentic with no added preservatives. The Nexba technology and flavors add to the strengths of the company. The products uses non-GMO ingredients and sweetened with stevia leaf extract and erythritol. Nexba products are naturally sugar free i.e. no artificial sweetener is added to replace sugar (Hartigan & Boutelle, 2017) .The Company has excellent shipping and return policy. The company solely focuses on product development and branding. It has outsourced its operations like retailing etc.
- Weaknesses
Nexba is 6 year old company. It still does not have much capacity to meet the requirements. It depends upon Diageo to meet the production capacity requirements. Also the brand awareness about the product is low. Also many of its operations are outsourced so it is necessary to handle channel conflict.
- Opportunities
People are concerned about health so they generally opt for healthier products. So this gives added opportunity to the company to showcase their innovation globally. Its recent partnership with Dominos’ to launch exclusive health drink Next Gen will give an edge to it. Also the company can promote its product locally by depicting themselves as local brand. The supermarket partners can help increasing the visibility of the company. The company is trying to differentiate themselves by bringing different flavours in the market.
- Threats
The competitors are really strong .Their revenue is more than doubled than that of Nexba. Companies like PepsiCo are cooing with healthy variant. So those customers are still unaware about Nexba will try these competitors .Like many start-ups, Nexba might struggle for its existence in the long run.
Nexba promotes itself as major player in fight against calorie or sugar. It considers itself as fastest growing global brand. It promotes its natural sugar free brand. There is no artificial constituent added to make it sugar free. The company promotes its products by being naturally brave brand. They highlight themselves through sugar free product innovation. They position themselves different from competitors by producing the product which has no sugar, has stevia, erythritol, natural flavours, no sugar fruit extract and strictly nothing artificial. All this is done without compromising the taste. Their offering can be part of healthier diet and the company’s next step would be eliminating sugar completely by being zero-sugar drink. The company also claims to develop unique range of products for different markets.
Potential market segments
The company wants to own the health and fitness category in beverages. This will help them in becoming really large player and there is no single brand who owns it till now. He Company also looks optimistic in partnering players like fast food outlets. The company wants to leverage its partnership with Dominos for creating Next Gen, exclusive natural and sugar free soft drink range. The companies is also planning to produce best naturally sugar free alternatives. The company is also looking forward to strategic retail partnerships with national retail, food chains and super market. It will help in the long term growth and increase brand awareness. The company does not see itself as niche product but wants to be accessible to mass market. The company wants to continue delivering innovation to the market and increase brand awareness. They are looking at launching product in different packaging to open themselves up to new customers. The company also wants to efficiently use all resources.
The company started by selling out of van in 2011.It has its own small canning line in Sydney. Nexba has crossed $2 million turnover already in the past financial years. In this financial year the company looks forward to grow revenue by more than 300 per cent. The turnover has grown three folds. Nexba is forecasting to hit $8 million to $10 million in the financial year 2018.
The company has made mission to become part of healthy living. One thing which it is targeting is sugar or calorie. The products are sugar free and natural. The product constitutes stevia, erythritol and natural fruit. The company is not targeting a niche market (Armstrong & Brennan, 2015).However through change in packaging it is trying to capture wider audience. It presents itself brave organization. The employees are young and highly energetic. All of them focus on their core. For example designing team deals with just packaging (Rundh, 2016).The basic strategy which company is opting is bringing more retailers on board. The retailers are renowned and give more visibility to the brand. The advantages for retailers are that they understand the changing dynamics of market well so they are supposed to update their shelf with healthier products. From customer point of view also, parents are looking for something healthy for their children who are not easy to give up on taste (Perry & Magarey, 2017) .The Company has also outsourced most of its operation in order to bring efficiency. So its retailing and bottling operations are handling by the third part. It is also looking for production facility of some other players to meet the existing demands. It has online portal which is easy to use and provide relevant information. The SEO ranking of its page is also good. All these things prove that company is taking enormous steps to handle the operations.
SWOT analysis
The growing trend towards healthy living and sugar free diet has enormous growth potential. In terms of strategies company is using differentiation strategy to compete other players… The company makes its presence in the events which promotes healthier lifestyle.The company also focuses on building relationship with the channel partners (Gummesson, 2017). The needs of retail partners are analysed and specific products are marketed for them (Metin & Kizgin, 2015). The company will use CTD for marketing and has third party logistic service provider (Australia, 2015). The company does not believe in vertical integration. Instead it focuses on the core product development and branding. From An off Matrix, we can say that the company is going to invest its resources in market penetration, product development, market development and flavours in the same market. For market penetration it is tying up with food outlets to cater to multiple audiences. The company is also trying to expand globally through online and offline channels which help in product development (Ostapenko & Ginevi?ius, 2017). The company is also tying with global players like Dominos’ by bringing new product in the new market.
Nexba is product based company .So following 4Ps will describe its marketing mix (Beke & Bach, 2017).
Product: The products are natural and sugar free. It does not have any artificial content. It has natural fruit, stevia and erythritol. There is no compromise on taste. The first product was ice tea. Later on soft drinks like cola, sparkling infusions were brought on board. The company however looks forward to bring more products in the market so that it could rule beverage industry (D’souza & Krishna, 2016). All of its product will remain sugar free and natural. The company is investing a lot of resources in product development.It constitutes bringing new flavors like watermelon etc.
Price: The Company has set up its price as per other beverage players in the market. It wants to cater large amount of audience. It provides value to customers at affordable price. The company offers discount in case of bulk orders. In that case, the customers can place order on their web site and avail the discount. Even company provides discounts to its retailers and distributors. The margin will help retailers to push the product in the market.
Place: The Company has tied up with large number of retailers, café, restaurants to distribute its products. The company has also made its presence online. Its website provide shopping facilities. So people in and outside Australia can place the order.Even shipping and return policies are easy.
Target Market Positioning
Promotion: The main objective of company this year is to create awareness. Since most of its competitors who are giant is bringing healthier options in the market, so it is necessary for the company to communicate its authenticity.The company will leverage online media to create awareness. It will sponsor events which promotes healthy lifestyle. Also the company will do sales promotion in terms of providing discount to customers. It has already partnered with many retailers, so good margin for them to keep Nexba products on shelf.It also put special attention to packaging.
The company will use different matrix to implement the strategy. Every department has experienced employees and executives. They will take care of specific operations. Regular meetings will be part of this year agenda. The quality is given prime importance. The customers would be interviewed to get an insight of their changing requirements (Sasmita & Mohd Suki, 2015). These requirements will then be analysed in terms of their practical and economic feasibility. The products will be introduced in the market by proper pilot testing. The whole purpose of this kind of product development is to provide better value to the customers and gain above average returns. The promotion of executives will purely be based on performance. Innovations will become the culture of the company. The great enthusiasm is expected from every employee. The company is small so no beauracracy and employees are highly empowered.
Nexba products are used to communicate to wider audience. Sales promotion, discounts and offers are used to push the sales of product. Various hoarding, television advertisements and free samples are used to put the products in market. Newspaper, free schemes, social promotions will attract and retain customers.
Type of Promotion |
% allocation of budget |
Key platforms |
Social Media Advertisement |
35% |
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter |
Traditional Advertisement |
25% |
Newspaper, Banners |
Sales promotion |
40% |
Discounts, coupons, offers |
Conclusion
From this marketing plan, we conclude that Nexba is still a start-up company who has taken a good take off. Now, this is the growth stage of company so it is necessary company considers every aspect to grow and compete both nationally and internationally. Dominos is big opportunity for Nexba .If this partnership could flourish then it will give good visibility to the company. Meanwhile, company will concentrate on developing new products, creating awareness and developing retailer relationships (Zhang & Dant, 2016).The innovation is main focus of the company.
References
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