Overview of the product and current market position
The objective of this report is to present a marketing plan for a spicy snack Mama vegetable Crisps, which is going to be positioned in the market as healthier alternative of oily and spicy snack Mala. On behalf of brand manager of the new product venture, this report will further evaluate critically the current position of then product and recognise the problematic areas in order to improve the business. In order to ensure long-term sustainability and competitive advantage that various key elements of marketing strategy will be considered. Justification will be there to support the selected strategies to mitigate existing issues. Further customers’ perspective will be regarded to predict the future market response and the product has be adjusted according to customers’ preferences.
Mama vegetable Crisp has been produced to cater the audiences who love to eat spicy snack in between meals and little health conscious as well. Acknowledging the global issue of obesity and the changing food habits of global audience the organisation has decided to launch Mama Crisps with additional range of five spicy levels to serve every age groups. Besides, according to Powell and Gard (2015), children, who are one of the biggest target market of snacks, are under serious threat of obesity. People have started to consider Mala as oily, spicy and less of variety. On the other hand, unlike potato chips Mama Crisp is healthier choice of every age group, who wants to experiment with their taste buds by consuming a less spicy and less oily formula. It has a transparent packaging to highlight the goodness inside it. Vegetable crisps has a longer shelf life as those are prepared in a de-hydrated method, which further minimize the necessity of using preservatives.
As per the recent market report, a trend among the Singaporean customers has been noticed to consume egg snacks yet consumers feel the opportunity of flourishing healthy snacks in the market. Additionally, when it comes to snacks people do not think much before acting. However, the changing food habits are needed to address to gain a unique selling point. On the announcement of launching Mama’s Crisps, a buzz has been noticed among the health conscious customers. Apart from that, the smart zip lock packaging and variety of tastes will be able to serve customers better.
Strength of this product is it is capable of serving greater demographic area and at the same time serves their health requirements along with various taste buds. With these strengths, the product can serve increasing demand of newly flavoured snacks, which is healthy too. On the contrary, considering the study of Ahmad, Mallick and Schroeder (2013), it should be kept in mind that the product is entirely new and still needs to create a strong brand image to enter into customers’ preference list of snacks. Target market is restricted among health conscious people. As mentioned before, Singaporean people are more interested to have egg crisps now a day. Although, health conscious population will be interested still it will be highly competitive for the product to create its brand identity by offering different tastes and generate revenue.
SWOT analysis
Determining the target market, a business organisation decides four central marketing essentials in order to promote the product successfully in market. While doing that product specification, price, place and promotion are considered as the chief components of marketing mix.
- Product: Considering the scarcity of healthy snacks in market other than egg snacks, this product is going to be introduced in market infused with Mala flavours. The brand name Mama Crisp itself delivers a sense of homemade goodness to attract the fitness and health conscious people. It comes in five different flavours in order to cater different taste buds. Additionally, expectation is goodness of vegetables will be accepted among people who wants to eat healthy even when consuming snacks. As per the study of Mohamad, Baharuddin, and Ruskam (2015),transparent packaging and halal certificate ensure its quality and make sure consumers can see the product before buying.
- Price: The entire procedure cost will be high, as high maintenance needs to be arranged in order to retain the health benefits even after processing(Tamanna & Mahmood, 2015). The organisation offers five levels of product line and the price depends on the levels of goodness and as per weight. As per Chemat et al. (2017), acknowledging the food processing cost and engagement of human resources, it would be justified if the brand claims moderate price, which ensure premium quality of the offered product.
- Place: The target customers of Mama Crisps is the Singaporean population and its neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. The company is in a plan of expanding their territory into countries like China and Australia if the product receives positive feedback from current target market. After a detail market research, it has been observed that the market requires a healthy snack as most of the people are heading towards healthy consumption instead of eating junks. There are people who loves to eat spicy food yet lives on restrictions due to health considerations. It is justified because acknowledging this kind of needs the product has been planned to introduce for serving Singaporean population. Both the physical stores and virtual have been selected for product distribution (Kettunen, 2017). Not only native and people of Asia pacific region will access it but also it will be able to serve the needs of global population as well through online shopping.
- Promotion: As described in Khodakarami and Chan (2014), effective social media marketing and maintaining a healthy customer relationship will create appropriate promotional strategy. In order to create the buzz across the social media domain, hashtag marketing would be helpful along with viral marketing strategy. As described in Xu, Frankwick & Ramirez (2016), a virtual contest can be organised asking consumers to post photos on Instagram to win gift on purchase of Mama Crisps. Almost 70% of the total population of Singapore uses Facebook and 90% of the users log in daily to their social media accounts or use internet. No other media would be more justified other than this considering the current trend of business and market too.
According to the market research conducted by the company, a high competition against the egg snacks has been found. However, no strategies have been opted to combat the potential competition that the egg snacks products are carrying. Although, other consideration and assumptions are justified and appropriate yet the company needs to take serious effort in order to stand simultaneously and successfully too (Hong, Song & Yoo, 2013). The product can come with protein crisps as well such as broccoli and mushroom crisp to create a competitive edge against egg protein snacks. It will serve interest of both the vegetarian and vegan consumers along with non- vegetarians.
As described in Jaakkola and Alexander (2014), as far as current business scenario is concerned, companies deal with highly dynamic business environment and customer preferences as well. Therefore, 4p’s of marketing cannot be the only feasible framework of marketing mix that can be considered alone. While dealing with the dynamic aspects of business environment it has been observed that, not only the physical aspects but also more three components are needed to consider positioning the product successfully in market.
- People: In order to execute regular operations and implement plans it is important to train and recruit efficient workforce in food processing units. Customers are meant to be satisfied with delivered company service. Starting from junior staffs to director, and engaged customers all are essential in terms of producing and serving the Mama Crisps. Singaporean population, their taste buds and healthy food preferences have led the company for launching this healthier alternative.
- Physical evidence:The Company must mention the halal certification on the packaging to present to ensure its high quality. Packaging is done using a transparent material to show the consumer what they are paying for. Moreover, in advertisement Mama Crisps can use doctors’ grievances regarding the health benefits it will be providing.
- Process:In order to deliver the product as promised in advertisements, the process must be executed with perfection. Processing and packaging must be up to the mark before claiming the price. In case of e-commerce sites, direct communication is not possible with the consumers. Therefore, social media strategy of collecting feedbacks can be considered as a trusted tool. It takes more time to address each complaint and demand. Moreover, according to the study conducted by Brem and Wolfram (2014), there are several technological restrictions to answer every virtual feedback. Therefore, retail strategy can be considered as the most trusted and justified process to maintain a healthy relationship with customers.
Although, these are the main aspects which are considered in case of structuring marketing mix, yet one more ‘P’ of marketing, ‘production and quality’ can be considered another essential aspect of marketing. The function is to improve productivity for the company’s sake. Apart from those various cost management function this marketing aspect will highlight the quality of offered product to attract the potential customers.
- Healthy snacks products generally have various levels of flavours and goodness along with a curious yet health conscious customer base. It has been observed that to satisfy hunger most of the busy professionals depends on quick snacking instead of having a wholesome meal. It is not desired and if there is no option people can opt for such healthy snacks like vegetable crisps to keep their body fit and healthy. Communication channels must be more active to launch it into the market with the unique selling point of healthier alternative of potato wafers.
- The company can consider product diversity in order to approach greater customer base. Apart from offering only vegetable crisps, whole grain or multi grain crisp even sweet potato crisps can be prepared to cater health conscious population of Singapore.
- As the product is entirely new, establishment of brand image is essential to present the product as a trustworthy choice. Sales and marketing professionals must prepare Media communication plan efficiently. Television and print advertisements along with contemporary social media marketing will be considered as media platforms.
- Price will be moderate, acknowledging the economic ability of middle class families. High pricing strategy may nor appeal the market as vegetable is widely available yet the company’s diverse products experimenting with recipes like multi grain and other health friendly ingredients. Distributing channels can create campaigns to maintain direct contact with customers and try to improve products after receiving their feedbacks. Therefore, according to the findings of O’Cass and Sok (2014), direct marketing strategy can improve product quality and brand image too. Apart from that, company can adopt the psychological pricing strategy to attract customers.
- As per the study of Sedighadeli and Kachouie (2013), marketing managers and executives both the departments have to be active in terms of setting the objective of the organisation. A strict and appropriate recruitment process will ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the marketing plan. Occasional training on changing market trend will be helpful to create a remarkable impact on targeted customer base. With the help of such internal marketing, staffs can be engaged into marketing programmes in order to achieve organizational goals of maintaining positive customers’ response.
- Another popular form of marketing is serving the customers’ needs in its best possible way. Happy customers are the one of the major reasons behind increased revenue and profitability (Saeidi et al., 2015) . Their grievances can be recorded to highlight in the advertising campaign of the product. It is highly dependable on relationship with the consumers and the offered value.
- Relationship marketing is another form of customer relationship management. Omni channel refers to the large social media and e-commerce network where the items are being sold. Every feedback shapes the experience or image of product of Mama Crisp brand through these virtual interactions. According to He et al. (2014), as a part of relationship management, to retain customers or to engage new customer base an online competition has been proposed to organise where customers will answer a set of marketing questions as feedback and can avail a chance to win prizes by lucky draw. Issues occur when negative comments are received and lack of prior experience ruin the marketing programme(Leeflang et al., 2014). Therefore, it needs throughout surveillance in order to avoid such negativities.
- Ethics is mostly violated while indulging immoral marketing activities. As per Kaura, Durga Prasad and Sharma (2015), manipulative campaigns, exaggerated promises are few examples of unethical marketing, which affects the product image. In case of customers’ dissatisfaction, which is a frequent event in this service sector might happen when their expectation and reality collide. As per Yan and Dooley (2014), mutual bond of trust between buyers and providers helps to succeed. Ethical marketing does not only help to maintain an honest brand image but also assist sustaining in competitive market. This will add value to the emerging healthy snacks product.
As described in Burmann et al. (2017), as the reason of launching this product was to satisfy the needs of a healthy snack in market, customer engagement is essential in order to accomplish its brand identity. In order to engage more customers with the brand the Mama Crisps Company is going to offer five different flavour aiming five different characteristics of customers. Maintaining the retail strategy, both the individual stores and retail physical stores at shopping malls will be the major touch points and in case of FMCG products as discussed in Yu et al. (2014), customers tend to shop from physical stores only. Singaporean youth is more technology oriented and in average, they all are tech savvy. Therefore, according to Fernie and Sparks (2014), to save time people also consider e-commerce sites to shop these things. The organisation’s retail strategy as of now is to establish the partnership with Hai Di Lao in order to expand their business and create a trusted brand image. All these places can be considered as company’s touch points where the products are being distributed for sales.
4p’s of marketing
It is justified to concentrate on both the physical and online stores to ensure its wide availability. In order to add more value several loyalty programs can be organised at least six months after the launch. The objective is to retain the existing customer base who prefer Mala flavoured snacks and create new target market segmenting them according to their food habits and health concerns.
In order to engage the customers the company has considered several brand establishment strategies, which enable the customers to gain an idea about the offered goodness (Ngo & O’cass, 2013). At first, the brand has positioned itself as different from the available snack, which is actually a strategic approach to attract the customers. This can be considered under strategies of creating brand value and recognition. As the brand is entirely new to the market, it needs such public exposures.
Further, recognising the food habit of busy adults and at the same time, their concern of leading a healthy life Mala Crisps has decided to serve health benefits along with a pleasure of snacking. The campaign has been planned to transform customers’ perception regarding crisps. They think all the crisps are unhealthy still having limited options, people end up eating snacks like this. As argued by Cankurtaran, Langerak and Griffin (2013), addressing the issue with the idea of healthy snacking the Mama Crisps want to endorse their brand as healthy alternative consists of goodness of vegetables, which would help to avoid additional health risks.
The organisation has decided to reveal the processing method to make the customers understand the reason behind its premium quality. The Crisps are dehydrated, non-fried and favours are created by using authentic spices. It will shape the consumers’ perception if the advertisements and packaging reveal its supreme quality. The brand value likely to increase and be strong if customers are well aware of perceived value. It will convince them to pay a moderate to premium price for each packet.
Issues can in terms of competition. As mentioned before, egg snacks have a great impact on Singaporean taste buds. Therefore, a process of direct feedback can be helpful. Distribution of samples and feedback collecting process may help the organisation to understand the taste of the market. Feedbacks will help further to improve the product taste accordingly. In order to combat the competition, survive and create reliable customer base few marketing metrics strategies must be considered. Therefore, from the above discussions few things can be recommended for the emerging healthy snacks.
- Marketing is related to good content in its initial phase rather than the product. Customers will perceive knowledge from the marketing content first before using it (Cui & Wu, 2016).Advertisements are made for customers’ interest and to attract their attention. Therefore, focusing on the same healthy product the organisation can consult marketing professional to design campaign that is more creative and discuss with operation team if new protein snacks made from mushroom and broccoli can be introduced to combat the competition from egg snacks (Kindström & Kowalkowski, 2014).
- Social media can be used as a tool to engage customers. It is the most contemporary way to engage consumers by asking them to drop reviews and ratings. It will help the positive reviews faster than any other mode of communication. Yet, it must be maintained with help of professionals to avoid negative publicity if posted by any customers. The organisation can create another section to receive the complaints and resolve accordingly.
Point of difference and justification
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be stated that a company with the objective of solving a market issue is appreciable and consist of immense potential. However, it not only depends on the good quality and benefit. The dynamic nature of the consumers’ preference needs to be addressed on regular intervals to serve the interest better. As far as product differentiation strategy and brand image establishment are concerned, those are feasible enough as described in previous planning. In order to ensure successful future launch and sustainability consistent experiments must be maintained with innovative recipes and varied ingredients, which deliver health benefits.
References
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