Section 5: Surveys & Marketing Strategies
BBQ Pringles
By: Michael Davis, Joshua Catchpole, and Hollie Couch
Baker College
Research
Development
Market Research Objectives
The objectives of our market research for this section is to analyze what effective ways we can introduce a holiday theme for our brand and what affect it will have on our customers while exploring if this opens new avenues for our business moving forward when promoting holiday themes along with our brand. We will also study how this will affect and change perceptions of our brand both in the market and from outsiders using analytic tools to determine whether or not to proceed forward (“Defining market research goals”, 2019). This will be done via observations of our target market through demographics, geographics, and psychographics.
Market Observations
Market observations are used to give us intel on how consumers act inside of a market when presented with things under natural conditions. You must consider and consult with marketing professionals to learn and understand how presenting information to the public will cause them to react or respond as the consequences of a bad marketing campaign can be dire. There any many ways to get this information, the first and most obvious is either survey based, or interview-based finding out how customers you believe are in your niche or demographic will react to your plans. Others include online observations such as online comments on boards and social media and indirect observations such as studying data optioned elsewhere which you viewed but did not gather yourself.
We found that the global snack food market is going to grow by almost 5 and a half percent by 2024 (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). The fastest growing marketing being the Asia Pacific market and the largest market to hit being the European market (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). The market itself is beginning to cement itself with ready to eat foods straight from the store as higher disposable incomes and less time at home to prepare meals becoming a norm requiring people to buy more snack foods and ready to go foods, such as Pringles, to include in their work lunches and other sorts of meals to supplement cooking something there (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). This trend is likely to continue to grow in the coming years giving us even more opportunity to show growing markets such as the Asia Pacific one that we understand them and their market by releasing themed packaging detailing their regions cultural themes (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). This can also be said for the European market as there are a vast number of languages to market to and having catchy phrases in that local language on packaging can be beneficial as well (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). We find ourselves in the market segment of chip/salted snack. This specific portion of the market is an area where many overseas markets do not snack on the same types of foods that we do, so allowing ourselves an opportunity to enter the market find what their customers are looking for in an American based chip product can also be side observations we do during this research (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019).
Online Survey Analysis
Using a medium such as twitter, Pringles could put out a survey. The survey format on twitter allows for 4 responses to be pre-determined. Recently, Pringles posed a few questions on twitter concerning what the users favorite flavor is and if they’d like to see it paired along with our next holiday packaging that were made from artists in local communities (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). Twitters survey algorithm allows for 4 options to be chosen from, Pringles used these options: Original, BBQ, Sour Cream and Onion, and Cheddar Cheese (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019).
Based on the responses received from their poll Pringles would likely choose the holiday packaging that would go with the winning flavor, it gives consumers the chance to feel involved in the corporate decision-making process at Pringles while using their most popular flavors they ensure the message will get out there that they’re using holiday packaging, while promoting homegrown artists. By using their most popular flavors, they can assume that many will see their holiday packaging and then study that data after the fact to see if it had any effect on sales. The poll came out to be in favor of BBQ chips the numbers were: Original 29%, BBQ 33%, Sour Cream 24%, and Cheddar 14% (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019).
Precedent/Preceding Studies
Marketing Communications Strategies
Pringles has done an excellent job at interacting with their customers, and proving to be successful with their marketing efforts. "At the beginning of the year, Pringles launched its #YouDontJustEatEm campaign. They started this campaign to engage and interact with their fans on social media, namely on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter" (Vijaykar, 2014). Pringles reached out to their buyers and asked them to post different kinds of pictures, videos, and tweets with the hashtag. This allowed Pringles to show how creative they can be, and how well they can engage with customer reactions. "Pringles has always focused on extensive advertising and marketing. The product packaging has been done based on the flavor of the chips which appeals to the consumers" (“Pringles Marketing Mix”, 2019). Pringles has had successful promotions by creating TV advertisements, outdoor advertisements, magazine ads, and celebrity endorsements. You will notice that Pringles have popular commercials throughout the Super Bowl, which is a popular sporting event that happens in the beginning of the year on Sunday. The product has been known to offer great coupons, price reductions, and special samples. Pringles also focuses on giving back to the community as they will sponsor many different charity events. These are effective tools in order for Pringles to put their products in front of their consumers. Today Pringles marketing efforts have allowed them to offer consumers 29 different flavors that come in different snack sizes. Pringles are disbursed worldwide allowing all potato chip lovers to enjoy their product.
Online Survey Analysis
Recently, Pringles has posted several short surveys on Twitter that ask consumers questions about their preferences and buying habits. Some questions include how often do you buy Pringles, what is your favorite flavor, do you like the holiday themed packaging, do you prefer our packaging over plastic bags, how important is charity and giving back to your community, and whether consumers prefer short marketing campaigns or more involved marketing campaigns (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). After reading through the surveys and polls it seems that consumers buy Pringles at least twice a week on average during grocery shopping, prefer BBQ or Cheddar Sour cream chips, enjoy the holiday themed packaging and will buy the product more often during the holidays, they like the current cardboard packaging, think charity is very important, and prefer more involved marketing campaigns (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). These results show that a long-term marketing campaign that involves charity or the holiday season will do well in the market. Furthermore, it seems that many consumers have simple taste preferences, so possibly combining a smoky BBQ with a cheddar Pringles chip may be something consumers will want. Product packaging also seems to be important because many consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and would prefer Pringles biodegradable cardboard packaging to plastic bags that competitors use. Based on these results, we will create a month-long advertisement campaign that involves the Halloween season and a charity drive to help people in need during the winter season. The advertisements will get consumers involved in the business and appeal to consumers who want to give back to their community but don’t know how to.
Marketing Programs & Marketing Strategies
Advertising
The advertising plans and strategies for BBQ Pringles are rather simple, as we plan to use social media and online websites to promote the product and gain consumer attention. Utilizing Halloween as our focus of the advertisements, we will create 5 murder mystery advertisements that will be posted at different times of the month and lead to a discount or free product. This will inspire consumers to visit the company website, watch the advertisements, and follow along with our advertising campaign. The first ad will be a picture advertising on Twitter, letting consumers know about the mystery and chance of a prize for several people who solve the puzzle fastest. The second will be a short video advertisement on Instagram that details the characters of the murder mystery and how people can guess answers or solve the puzzle. The third ad will be a picture advertisement on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the company website that shows the murder and the locations of each character in the game. The fourth and fifth advertisements will be short videos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the company website that shows clues, character movements, and the relationships between each character. Though, each advertising prior to the fourth and fifth ads also have small clues that consumers will have to search for. A murder mystery advertising campaign would help to increase product awareness, improve sales of the product during Halloween, and boost customer perception of the product and the company. This advertising plan would cost nearly $40,000-$60,000, as we would only have to pay for a graphic designer to create the advertisements and pay for someone to post them and respond to comments.
Sales Promotion: Consumer & Trade
After the murder mystery has been solved, BBQ Pringles will go on sale for a few days before Halloween at 25% off to appeal to consumers who want to save money just before they have to buy candy or costumes. Furthermore, coupons will be sent out to consumers in an email and in the mail to entice consumers to buy BBQ Pringles the next time they go grocery shopping. The sale will appeal to consumers who want to save money and want to buy their kid a healthier snack for Halloween. Furthermore, the sale will increase consumer involvement with the murder mystery event and charity drive. The coupons will also appeal to consumers who want to save money and get a deal on buying more than one can of BBQ Pringles.
The budget for merchandising and product displays in stores will increase, so product will get sold faster and make room for the holiday-themed products. Furthermore, the contest to solve the murder mystery is a trade promotion because it focuses on moving products and mainly provides a benefit to the consumer who will save money on the products they buy. Increasing the budget for merchandising in stores will benefit the company by making more room for newer products and getting the product front and center in the consumers face. The contest encompasses many aspects of a trade promotion and a consumer promotion, as it benefits the company by getting the product name in the consumer space and giving consumers a discount on a product so they can save money.
Public Relations
During the Halloween season, Pringles would donate 30% of BBQ Pringles sales to homeless shelters in local store areas and to schools for children in need, so homeless people would have a warm place to sleep during the winter and children would have warm jackets, food, and school supplies. This would improve the public relations with the company, as customers would be donating to a charity and helping out people in need by buying the product. Consumers would think positively of the business and the product because we are giving back to our community and helping people who need it. Another way we will be utilizing public relations strategies is through online comments on social media platforms and building relationships with consumers. Selling the product and answering questions about the murder mystery event going on in October would also improve the relationship consumers have with the business, as they would be able to directly interact with the business. Consumers would see the business as responsible, generous, and customer-oriented when they buy a product to help donate to charity and see the company's responses to questions or comments online.
Personal Selling
Personal selling strategies will include using customer service representatives to promote product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event. When a customer has to use a helpline to discuss a problem or make a complaint, the representative will resolve the issue and use retention techniques to turn the customers experiences into a positive one. After the customer is happy their problem was resolved, the representative will discuss product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event. This will be a short conversation, as consumers do not like to be on the phone for a long length of time or feeling pressured into buying something they may not want. So, we will advise the customer service representatives to give a short presentation of the events and explain the benefits of joining in on the fun. Consumers will not feel pressured and will be more likely to donate or look for product sales in the future to save money. If the customer is not happy with how the customer service representative handled the promotion, then they can fill out the customer service survey to rate their experience and explain any issues. The survey will be emailed to customers after their phone call or chat-box conversation with a representative and will be used to make changes to the sales pitch and customer service policies.
Direct Marketing
Direct to consumer marketing strategies will include sending promotional emails to consumers explaining the October and charity donation events. This will directly market to consumers and ensure as many people as possible are aware of the events happening in October. The emails will have coupons for small discounts on the product and updates about how the donation event is going. Receiving coupons and updates about events means consumers would be more likely to go out and buy the product to donate to charity and use the coupons later on to save money. We will also use physical mail to directly market to consumers within a small radius of stores that carry BBQ Pringles, meaning mail will be sent to consumers who live between 15-20 miles from a grocery or retail store. This will directly market to consumers and ensure as many people as possible are aware of the events happening in October. The mail will only be sent once, so we can let consumers know about product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event that will all happen in October without overwhelming them with promotional materials. The cost of our direct marketing plan would be nearly $5,000-$10,000 to create the emails and letters then to send them to the specified areas.
References
Defining market research goals. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/starting-business/planning/market-customer-research/basics/goals
Pringles Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy. (2019). Retrieved November 30th, 2019, from https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/17342-pringles.html
Pringles Twitter. (2019). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/Pringles?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
SNACK FOOD MARKET. (2019). Retrieved from https://mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/snack-food-market
Vijakyar, S. (2014, May 15th). How Pringles Engages Consumers With The #YouDontJustEatEm Hashtag Campaign. Retrieved November 30th, 2019, from https://news.eyeka.net/2014/05/how-pringles-engages-consumers-with-the-youdontjusteatem-hashtag-campaign/
By: Michael Davis, Joshua Catchpole, and Hollie Couch
Baker College
Research Development
Market Research Objectives
The objectives of our market research for this section is to analyze what effective ways we can introduce a holiday theme for our brand and what affect it will have on our customers while exploring if this opens new avenues for our business moving forward when promoting holiday themes along with our brand. We will also study how this will affect and change perceptions of our brand both in the market and from outsiders using analytic tools to determine whether or not to proceed forward (“Defining market research goals”, 2019). This will be done via observations of our target market through demographics, geographics, and psychographics.
Market Observations
Market observations are used to give us intel on how consumers act inside of a market when presented with things under natural conditions. You must consider and consult with marketing professionals to learn and understand how presenting information to the public will cause them to react or respond as the consequences of a bad marketing campaign can be dire. There any many ways to get this information, the first and most obvious is either survey based, or interview-based finding out how customers you believe are in your niche or demographic will react to your plans. Others include online observations such as online comments on boards and social media and indirect observations such as studying data optioned elsewhere which you viewed but did not gather yourself.
We found that the global snack food market is going to grow by almost 5 and a half percent by 2024 (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). The fastest growing marketing being the Asia Pacific market and the largest market to hit being the European market (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). The market itself is beginning to cement itself with ready to eat foods straight from the store as higher disposable incomes and less time at home to prepare meals becoming a norm requiring people to buy more snack foods and ready to go foods, such as Pringles, to include in their work lunches and other sorts of meals to supplement cooking something there (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). This trend is likely to continue to grow in the coming years giving us even more opportunity to show growing markets such as the Asia Pacific one that we understand them and their market by releasing themed packaging detailing their regions cultural themes (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). This can also be said for the European market as there are a vast number of languages to market to and having catchy phrases in that local language on packaging can be beneficial as well (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019). We find ourselves in the market segment of chip/salted snack. This specific portion of the market is an area where many overseas markets do not snack on the same types of foods that we do, so allowing ourselves an opportunity to enter the market find what their customers are looking for in an American based chip product can also be side observations we do during this research (“SNACK FOOD MARKET”, 2019).
Online Survey Analysis
Using a medium such as twitter, Pringles could put out a survey. The survey format on twitter allows for 4 responses to be pre-determined. Recently, Pringles posed a few questions on twitter concerning what the users favorite flavor is and if they’d like to see it paired along with our next holiday packaging that were made from artists in local communities (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). Twitters survey algorithm allows for 4 options to be chosen from, Pringles used these options: Original, BBQ, Sour Cream and Onion, and Cheddar Cheese (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019).
Based on the responses received from their poll Pringles would likely choose the holiday packaging that would go with the winning flavor, it gives consumers the chance to feel involved in the corporate decision-making process at Pringles while using their most popular flavors they ensure the message will get out there that they’re using holiday packaging, while promoting homegrown artists. By using their most popular flavors, they can assume that many will see their holiday packaging and then study that data after the fact to see if it had any effect on sales. The poll came out to be in favor of BBQ chips the numbers were: Original 29%, BBQ 33%, Sour Cream 24%, and Cheddar 14% (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019).
Precedent/Preceding Studies
Marketing Communications Strategies
Pringles has done an excellent job at interacting with their customers, and proving to be successful with their marketing efforts. "At the beginning of the year, Pringles launched its #YouDontJustEatEm campaign. They started this campaign to engage and interact with their fans on social media, namely on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter" (Vijaykar, 2014). Pringles reached out to their buyers and asked them to post different kinds of pictures, videos, and tweets with the hashtag. This allowed Pringles to show how creative they can be, and how well they can engage with customer reactions. "Pringles has always focused on extensive advertising and marketing. The product packaging has been done based on the flavor of the chips which appeals to the consumers" (“Pringles Marketing Mix”, 2019). Pringles has had successful promotions by creating TV advertisements, outdoor advertisements, magazine ads, and celebrity endorsements. You will notice that Pringles have popular commercials throughout the Super Bowl, which is a popular sporting event that happens in the beginning of the year on Sunday. The product has been known to offer great coupons, price reductions, and special samples. Pringles also focuses on giving back to the community as they will sponsor many different charity events. These are effective tools in order for Pringles to put their products in front of their consumers. Today Pringles marketing efforts have allowed them to offer consumers 29 different flavors that come in different snack sizes. Pringles are disbursed worldwide allowing all potato chip lovers to enjoy their product.
Online Survey Analysis
Recently, Pringles has posted several short surveys on Twitter that ask consumers questions about their preferences and buying habits. Some questions include how often do you buy Pringles, what is your favorite flavor, do you like the holiday themed packaging, do you prefer our packaging over plastic bags, how important is charity and giving back to your community, and whether consumers prefer short marketing campaigns or more involved marketing campaigns (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). After reading through the surveys and polls it seems that consumers buy Pringles at least twice a week on average during grocery shopping, prefer BBQ or Cheddar Sour cream chips, enjoy the holiday themed packaging and will buy the product more often during the holidays, they like the current cardboard packaging, think charity is very important, and prefer more involved marketing campaigns (“Pringles Twitter”, 2019). These results show that a long-term marketing campaign that involves charity or the holiday season will do well in the market. Furthermore, it seems that many consumers have simple taste preferences, so possibly combining a smoky BBQ with a cheddar Pringles chip may be something consumers will want. Product packaging also seems to be important because many consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and would prefer Pringles biodegradable cardboard packaging to plastic bags that competitors use. Based on these results, we will create a month-long advertisement campaign that involves the Halloween season and a charity drive to help people in need during the winter season. The advertisements will get consumers involved in the business and appeal to consumers who want to give back to their community but don’t know how to.
Marketing Programs & Marketing Strategies
Advertising
The advertising plans and strategies for BBQ Pringles are rather simple, as we plan to use social media and online websites to promote the product and gain consumer attention. Utilizing Halloween as our focus of the advertisements, we will create 5 murder mystery advertisements that will be posted at different times of the month and lead to a discount or free product. This will inspire consumers to visit the company website, watch the advertisements, and follow along with our advertising campaign. The first ad will be a picture advertising on Twitter, letting consumers know about the mystery and chance of a prize for several people who solve the puzzle fastest. The second will be a short video advertisement on Instagram that details the characters of the murder mystery and how people can guess answers or solve the puzzle. The third ad will be a picture advertisement on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the company website that shows the murder and the locations of each character in the game. The fourth and fifth advertisements will be short videos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the company website that shows clues, character movements, and the relationships between each character. Though, each advertising prior to the fourth and fifth ads also have small clues that consumers will have to search for. A murder mystery advertising campaign would help to increase product awareness, improve sales of the product during Halloween, and boost customer perception of the product and the company. This advertising plan would cost nearly $40,000-$60,000, as we would only have to pay for a graphic designer to create the advertisements and pay for someone to post them and respond to comments.
Sales Promotion: Consumer & Trade
After the murder mystery has been solved, BBQ Pringles will go on sale for a few days before Halloween at 25% off to appeal to consumers who want to save money just before they have to buy candy or costumes. Furthermore, coupons will be sent out to consumers in an email and in the mail to entice consumers to buy BBQ Pringles the next time they go grocery shopping. The sale will appeal to consumers who want to save money and want to buy their kid a healthier snack for Halloween. Furthermore, the sale will increase consumer involvement with the murder mystery event and charity drive. The coupons will also appeal to consumers who want to save money and get a deal on buying more than one can of BBQ Pringles.
The budget for merchandising and product displays in stores will increase, so product will get sold faster and make room for the holiday-themed products. Furthermore, the contest to solve the murder mystery is a trade promotion because it focuses on moving products and mainly provides a benefit to the consumer who will save money on the products they buy. Increasing the budget for merchandising in stores will benefit the company by making more room for newer products and getting the product front and center in the consumers face. The contest encompasses many aspects of a trade promotion and a consumer promotion, as it benefits the company by getting the product name in the consumer space and giving consumers a discount on a product so they can save money.
Public Relations
During the Halloween season, Pringles would donate 30% of BBQ Pringles sales to homeless shelters in local store areas and to schools for children in need, so homeless people would have a warm place to sleep during the winter and children would have warm jackets, food, and school supplies. This would improve the public relations with the company, as customers would be donating to a charity and helping out people in need by buying the product. Consumers would think positively of the business and the product because we are giving back to our community and helping people who need it. Another way we will be utilizing public relations strategies is through online comments on social media platforms and building relationships with consumers. Selling the product and answering questions about the murder mystery event going on in October would also improve the relationship consumers have with the business, as they would be able to directly interact with the business. Consumers would see the business as responsible, generous, and customer-oriented when they buy a product to help donate to charity and see the company's responses to questions or comments online.
Personal Selling
Personal selling strategies will include using customer service representatives to promote product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event. When a customer has to use a helpline to discuss a problem or make a complaint, the representative will resolve the issue and use retention techniques to turn the customers experiences into a positive one. After the customer is happy their problem was resolved, the representative will discuss product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event. This will be a short conversation, as consumers do not like to be on the phone for a long length of time or feeling pressured into buying something they may not want. So, we will advise the customer service representatives to give a short presentation of the events and explain the benefits of joining in on the fun. Consumers will not feel pressured and will be more likely to donate or look for product sales in the future to save money. If the customer is not happy with how the customer service representative handled the promotion, then they can fill out the customer service survey to rate their experience and explain any issues. The survey will be emailed to customers after their phone call or chat-box conversation with a representative and will be used to make changes to the sales pitch and customer service policies.
Direct Marketing
Direct to consumer marketing strategies will include sending promotional emails to consumers explaining the October and charity donation events. This will directly market to consumers and ensure as many people as possible are aware of the events happening in October. The emails will have coupons for small discounts on the product and updates about how the donation event is going. Receiving coupons and updates about events means consumers would be more likely to go out and buy the product to donate to charity and use the coupons later on to save money. We will also use physical mail to directly market to consumers within a small radius of stores that carry BBQ Pringles, meaning mail will be sent to consumers who live between 15-20 miles from a grocery or retail store. This will directly market to consumers and ensure as many people as possible are aware of the events happening in October. The mail will only be sent once, so we can let consumers know about product sales, the donation event, and the murder mystery event that will all happen in October without overwhelming them with promotional materials. The cost of our direct marketing plan would be nearly $5,000-$10,000 to create the emails and letters then to send them to the specified areas.
References
Defining market research goals. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/starting-business/planning/market-customer-research/basics/goals
Pringles Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy. (2019). Retrieved November 30th, 2019, from https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/17342-pringles.html
Pringles Twitter. (2019). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/Pringles?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
SNACK FOOD MARKET. (2019). Retrieved from https://mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/snack-food-market
Vijakyar, S. (2014, May 15th). How Pringles Engages Consumers With The #YouDontJustEatEm Hashtag Campaign. Retrieved November 30th, 2019, from https://news.eyeka.net/2014/05/how-pringles-engages-consumers-with-the-youdontjusteatem-hashtag-campaign/
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