Ongoing Participation with On Line Postings and Discussion Forum - Assignment Example

There are several factors that impact food choices in the uptake of healthy foods, which include several kinds of marketing influences, through TV/online/print media. Seeing a TV advertisement, TV shows, attractive product banners on several websites, online video advertisements, marketing on social networks like facebook and twitter, online contests and campaigns, all have an impact on the consumer preferences. Apart from this, adv in magazines and other commercial literature, books etc may also impact food choices of the consumers.

However, to improve the uptake of health foods and also to compete effectively with other kind of food providers, advertisers and marketers need to focus on providing a unique value to the consumers, which make and differentiate their products from their counterparts. For example: Coca cola introduced a low calorie version of its drink called ‘Diet Coke’, focused mainly on the health conscious consumers, PepsiCo has launched Pepsi Max and LifeWater Zero Calorie products, which enables PepsiCo to improve its volumes and market share.

PepsiCo has also launched Sierra Mist Natural in the lemon lime soft drink category, to tap big segment of beverages, and the company aims to build $30 billion nutrition foods business by 2020, from nearly $10 billion in 2010 Now, as the culture and habits of the consumers evolve, they are increasingly inclined towards online media and social networks. Therefore, the FMCG companies need to understand the preferences of their interactive consumers while designing their marketing plans. For example: P&G has designed a Consumer and Market Knowledge (CMK) division.

CMK's responsibility is to be the voice of the consumer and be on the forefront of market trends. Also, P&G focuses highly on customers who are more price conscious by offering its lower-priced products with superior performance in comparison to other mid-tier and value-tier alternatives available in the market. PepsiCo has also invested in its marketing activities like creative broadcast, print and Internet campaigns, point-of-purchase promotions, online campaigns, social networks etc., to support its leading health brands and reach out to its consumers more effectively.

In 2010, PepsiCo launched digital marketing campaign for its ‘Pepsi Max’ brand, through Facebook and video gaming banners on Yahoo! , to reach its target audience. These strategies by leading food companies like Coca Cola, PepsiCo, P&G has resulted in huge uptake of their F&B products Further, FMCG companies have also implemented several strategies for ‘home’ and ‘away from home’ foods. Home foods are purchased from a retail shop, grocery shop, supermarket etc and are prepared for home consumption; however, ‘away from home’ are ready to eat food and are consumed on “as is” basis.

A good mix of pricing and packaging may have a significant impact on the consumption pattern of the consumers for such foods. Now, since consumers have less control over the nutritional value of ‘away from home’ foods, they prefer their favourite brand, packaged in more quantity at lesser price. According to a research, large packaging of a familiar brand encourages consumers towards more consumption, largely driven by low perceived food cost. In case of ‘home’ foods, consumers first want to try and taste the product, and usually prefer small