How to Increase the Sales of the Brand - Case Study Example

Marketing Communication Introduction The history of brown sauce d back to the latter half of the 19th century. History s that Harry Palmer invented the recipe of the brown sauce. Midlands Vinegar Company was the first company to market the brown sauce and it soon became popular among the masses. The company marketed the sauce as the HP sauce in the name of the founder of the recipe. The HP sauce assumed a cult status and it is now revered in UK and other parts of Europe. (The HP sauce story, n.d.). In the modern scenario, the brown sauce segment has developed into a broad category. The market leader in the brown sauce segment is a Heinz food product. Daddies’ sauce has been one of the coveted brands in the category and entered the market in 1904. The taste of Daddies favorite sauce put it into the top league and it has been a successful brand in the 20th century. However, during the later part of the 20th and the earlier part of the 21st century the sales of the brand have been declining. The main reasons for the bad performance of the brand have been the low marketing and advertisements. The market has been competitive and that has put the brand under more pressure. (Daddies Favourite,16th April, 2008). Being the Marketing Assistant of the brand, I would like to propose some changes in the marketing and the advertisement activities to increase the sales of the brand. Customers The families in the UK so much have liked the brown sauce category that it has become one of the staple diets. The meal of the families is not complete without the sauce. As the sauce can be eaten with virtually all food products it has become popular. Therefore, the customer base is huge. The brown sauce segment is influenced by the taste of the product rather than the price. The price of the brown sauce products in the market is reasonable. The bottles come in various sizes and the price of the bottles depends on the volume of the products. (Brown sauce, n.d.) Competitors HP has dominated the brown sauce segment since its arrival in the scene. Daddies’ being one of the coveted brands of HP has been performing well since the inception. After the acquisition of Daddies by Heinz, it became connected with the global sauce giant. In the brown sauce segment, the main competitor of Daddies is HP. In the overall sauce category, Daddies trail Heinz Ketchup and Colman’s Mustard. The fact that it comes from the same stable as that of the Heinz ketchup and HP leaves the brand in a dilemma. The company has been promoting the other brands but in the case of the Daddies, the promotional strategies have been surprisingly under the water. (Daddies Favourite,16th April, 2008) Brand & Market trends Since the inception of the brown sauce category, HP has been one of the leaders in the market. The Daddies being one of the most important brands of the HP has received same amount of promotional and marketing activities from the company. The Daddies brown sauce has assumed a coveted place in the market scenario. There is a certain amount of tradition attached to the brand and the customers of the brand are generally long term. The brand received a cult status, as it was one of the initiators in the industry and in the brown sauce segment, the brand was one of the leading players. The brand has a certain amount of trust associated with it. The taste of the brand is reminiscent of the traditional brown sauce and this has helped in the building of the brand. The customers of the brand have been there with the brand for a long term. However, with the introduction of the ketchup segment the taste of the customers changed. This had a lot to do with the change of the customer tastes and preferences. The global giants like Heinz did the marketing of the ketchup segment with furious rapidity. This pushed the brown sauce segment in the oblivion. However, the Daddies brand has been reminiscent of the old taste of the brown sauce and that has been helpful in the creation of a strong brand. The market trends in the sauce segment have been heavily loaded in the favor of the tomato ketchup and the other varieties of sauces and the newer generation has been fed with the newer varieties. The companies need to remind the newer generation of the old tastes of the brown sauce to bring it back to the mainstream market. (HP sauce, n.d.; Marketing Communication activities After the acquisition by Heinz, Daddies have been trying to be one of the coveted brands in the all over sauce category. In the brown sauce segment, HP controls 71% of the market and Daddies being one of the most prominent products of the stable holds a large pie of it. Heinz has tried to promote the Daddies brand through an innovative marketing promotional technique and spend huge money on it. The marketing campaign of Heinz in the category of brown sauce has been touted as one of the costliest and the company spend 1.6 million pounds on the promotional campaigns of the product. The company purchased commercial slots in the television to air the commercials involving the brand. Mails were sent to the people informing about the Daddies brand. There were other promotional activities like arranging road shows and attaching the brand to an event like that of the Daddies Day. The parent company invested heavily in the PR activities and send samples to the prospective customers in a door-to-door promotional activity. The sample packets contained discount coupons of the brand which can help in the increase of the sales of the brand. The promotional activity in the televisions contained a commercial informing about the pleasure of the brown sauce and the tradition of the HP brand. The marketing activities of Heinz were not devoid of the controversies and most of involved the change of the factory site from Birmingham to Denmark. The labors of the factory site in Birmingham revolted, as there were huge job cuts. The marketing activities of Heinz were successful in the increase of the sales of the brand to some extent. However, to bring back in the mainstream market the brand needs other promotional activities. (Brad, 13th March, 2007; Brown Sauce Taste Test! HP Sauce goes toe-to-toe with Branston, Daddies & itself! 10th April, 2007) Marketing Activities for 2010 The promotional activities of Heinz have been successful in increasing the sales of the brand. However, the new promotional campaign should look to increase the sales of the brand more. The main problem for the brand has been the lack of information of the brown sauce segment of the customers. Therefore, the main aim should be the promotion of the brown sauce category. Daddies, being one of the principal players in the brown sauce category will benefit from the promotion of the brown sauce segment. We can take the help of the marketing mix in making the product and the brand as one of the strongest in the sauced segment in the market. The marketing mix consists of the traditional 4Ps, which has to be managed well for the development of the product. (Marketing Mix, n.d.). The 4Ps for the Daddies brand and the implications of it can be described as follows: Product: The product is Daddies brown sauce and it should retain the original taste and flavor. The new customer segment is not used to the taste of the brown sauce and to be successful, the Daddies should promote the original taste. The product comes in bottles and plastic jars and in different sizes. The size of the bottles should be available in various categories to make it useful for the customers. The products may be available in pouches and in large pet jars. Price: The price of the product is right for the category and it should depend on the volume of the products. The present price of the brown sauce category is affordable and efforts should be made for the sauces to be priced relatively lesser than the other varieties like the tomato ketchup. This will attract the customers to the product and the product will become popular. (Daddies brown sauce bottle, n.d.) Place: The present market scenario of the brown sauce states that the product is available in the region of UK and the other parts of Europe. The Daddies is available in Canada and the USA. However, the taste of the product is different from that of the UK. As the product is made from the stables of Heinze in Denmark, there is a problem in the tastes of the product. Therefore, the company should develop different production centers in the different regions of the world according to the market segments and the tastes of the region. To increase the market of the brown sauce, the company should look to extend the production centers in Asia and Africa. These are the growing markets and the cost of production in these parts of the world is lesser than that of the developed world. Promotion: This is perhaps the most important part in the marketing mix for the Daddies. Daddies have not been marketed well and this is the reason for the bad performance of the product. The company should spend a huge amount of money for the marketing and promotion of the product. There should be commercials in the television insisting on the tastes and the tradition of the brown sauce. As this is a food product, the company will do well in tying up with the different restaurants and the hotel chains of the world in the use of the product. This will increase the visibility of the product. In addition to this, there should be a dedicated website for the Daddies which has the facilities for the online sales of the products. The delivery of the products should be quick. The brand needs a brand ambassador for the product and someone suiting the credibility of the brand and the name will help in the promotion. People in this category should be “good fathers” and some of the target celebrities are Brad Pitt, Andre Agassi, Tom Cruise etc. The brand engaged John Terry as the ambassador but the recent stories about the footballer will only degrade the ethics of the product. (England Captain, John Terry, Named ‘Daddies Dad of the Year’, 2009) There should be road shows and the retail chains need to be contacted for the better visibility of the products. Door-to-door marketing is a good way of promoting the product and this should be done for the sales of the products. The customers of the brand may be given discount coupons and offers, which will increase the chances of, repeat sales. The advertising of the brand should be done with the help of the retail stores and the supermarkets. There may be hoardings of the brand in important locations. To increase the visibility of the product, it will be not a bad idea for the company to sponsor some sporting events or teams. For example, in England, the company can sponsor a football team of the EPL or it may hold some sporting events. As this is food product, the company may also turn to sponsor some specific events like the “recipe contest”. The company should offer the distributors prizes like paid holidays, which will encourage the distributors tom, push the products more into the market. PR activities This is one of the most important points in increasing the sales of the product. The details of the customers should be recorded and they should be contacted for the offers and discounts. This will help in the customer service of the products. As the brand comes from one of the biggest business houses in the sauce category in the world, it should not be a problem to push the product through the retailers. Various activities should be conducted which will attract the media and the product will be publicized through it. A dedicated team, which will look into the promotional activities of the brand, should be placed. They will look to buy slots in the televisions where advertisements for the brands will be aired. Conclusion Daddies being one of the oldest and the revered brands in the brown sauce category will need some amount of promotional activities to make it rise to the top of the category. The parent company of the brand is the Heinze, which is the biggest sauce brand of the world. Therefore, it will not be a problem for the brand to access the channels of the media and the retailers. The promotional activities should be in place for the company to make it visible to the customers. The brown sauce category is the forgotten category in the market and the company should look to revive it. A good amount of promotion for the brand will do the trick for the brand and the brand will soon revive its lost glory. References: 1. The HP sauce story. (n.d.). Available at: http://www.brownsauce.org/more-lashings-of-sauce/history-of-brown-sauce/ (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 2. Daddies Favourite. (16th April, 2008). Brand Health Check. Marketing. 3. Brad. (13th March, 2007). Heinze launches HP sauce campaign amidst controversy. www. brown sauce. Org. Available at: http://www.brownsauce.org/2007/03/13/heinz-launches-hp-sauce-campaign-amidst-controversy/ (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 4. Marketing Mix. (n.d.). Marketing Teacher. Available at: http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_marketing_mix.htm (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 5. England Captain, John Terry, Named ‘Daddies Dad of the Year’. (2009). Heinze. Available at: http://www.heinzsight.co.uk/news/47/John-terry.aspx (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 6. Daddies brown sauce bottle. (n.d.). British Superstore. Available at: http://www.britsuperstore.com/acatalog/Daddies_Brown_Sauce.html (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 7. Brown sauce. (n.d.). Del Monte. Available at: http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/Pages/brownsauceenglish (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 8. HP sauce. (n.d.). Icons a portrait of England. Available at: http://www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/hp-sauce (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) 9. Brown Sauce Taste Test! HP Sauce goes toe-to-toe with Branston, Daddies & itself! (10th April, 2007). Available at: http://www.brownsauce.org/2007/04/10/brown-sauce-taste-test-hp-sauce-goes-toe-to-toe-with-branston-daddies-itself/ (Accessed on 6th May, 2010) Read More