Market Planning For Extra's Coca Cola Gum.

Target Customers and Competition

Questions:

Describe the segment(s) of the market you will compete in and what your target(s) are.

• What geographical region(s) will you compete in (e.g. local area, state, national, regional or global)?

• What demographic profile(s) will your target customers have (e.g. age, gender, family size, income, occupation, education)? 

• What psychographic profiles will your target customers have (e.g. beliefs, attitudes, cultural backgrounds)? 

• Are there any behavioural traits for the target market (e.g. habitual buyers in this category, light-users, once-a- year buyers, impulse)? 

• Is it a business-to business target market? Why? Classify the business in terms of geographical area; what derived demand will drive the market; nature of the buying transaction (tender); and quantity types (one or many).

• Explain the rationale behind why these are the optimal target market segments, for example: – growing segment/new segment just emerging – large segment – will it provide large return on investment/large sales revenue? – competitive gap in this area – changing consumer habits have opened up new market.

•Explain what market targeting strategy you will use, and why? Undifferentiated/differentiated or concentrated/niche?

• What are your overall objectives?

• Explain your core marketing strategy to achieve these objectives.

Developing strong brands

Building on from the work you completed in previous weeks, this session looks at the developing strong brands. With reference to Appendix 1 in Kotler et al. (2013, p. 627) and the contents of a marketing plan (Kotler et al. 2013, p. 79), consider the following areas in relation to your product. The product

• Describe your product/service including its key features and benefits.

• Describe your augmented product/service.

• Identify the classification of your product/service.

• Work through and explain any relevant product attributes.

• Discuss your product branding.

• Explain packaging/labelling decisions. The brand

• Describe your branding strategy including: – brand positioning – brand name – licensing (if required) – brand repositioning (if required).

• Justify any market research you will undertake.

• Describe how you will test market your product.

• Explain any legal aspects that you must consider with your product (e.g. labelling, packaging, health issues).

Market planning is a blueprint of market strategies that are used typically for enhancing the sales and revenues of the organization. It also focuses on the optimal utilization of the resources in the most beneficial way for getting the maximum output (Kotler et al. 2013). This report will be focusing on the market planning of Extra in creating a new flavor and development of strong brands through the product.

Since, Extra will be launching the new flavor of coca cola; it will be competing in the national market of United States. This is because, the coca cola flavor is a very common and in demand flavor of US (Itobe et al. 2012).

Generally, the target customers will be belonging to children, teenagers and young people of both the genders. This is because; this brand of chewing gum is the first sugar free chewing gum with a long lasting flavor (Kotler et al. 2013). Since, the prices are very low and are easily available at all places, customers of any family size, income, education as well as occupation can have it. The new flavor of coca-cola it will simply attract the customers to have it (Lafon and Lawson, 2012).

Chewing Gum Market Trends

It was a myth among the people that chewing gums causes oral problems which is broken by Extra chewing gum. It is clinically proven that it gives a positive impact on the oral health by restoring the pH balance, cleans away the lodged food and remineralises the teeth attacked by food acids (Johnson and Miles, 2008). The attitude towards having chewing gum at early age will cause the decay of teeth had been broken with the launch of Extra chewing gum. So having new flavor of it along with refreshment will attract the potential as well as existing customers.  

Generally, having chewing gum becomes a habit of the people. People generally have chewing gum for reducing bad breathe, after food as refreshment and as a relaxant for reducing tensions (Smith, 2012). But in contrast people think having too much chewing gum causes oral problem. This coca cola flavored chewing gum is devoid of such kind of oral causing problems and can be taken any time. Having new flavor of it will attract the habituated customers as well as new customers to try it.

The creation and launching of coca cola flavored chewing gum is a business to business target market. This is due to the demand of chewing gums in US is comparatively high so launching of new flavor will help in attracting new customers as well as hold back the old and loyal customers (Martínez-Pabon et al. 2013). Customers generally buy this chewing gum in medium quantities for the daily purpose use.

The market of chewing gum in today’s world is rising in a considerable rate since the old myth of tooth decay caused by chewing gums has been broken. It gives a huge return to the company and has high sales revenue (Rickman et al. 2012). The main aim of the company is to provide the Customers with new flavors to hold back the growing market.  

The marketing strategy that will be used is undifferentiated marketing since the launch of single product will be targeting the whole market. The benefit of this strategy is that the products are produced in a huge mass and can be sold to the customers at low prices (Swoboda and Temple, 2013). Since, the sales volume will be high; the profit margins will also be high.

The objective of the company is to gain profit and have huge sales of the new product. Moreover, it also aims satisfying the customers with the new flavor that will help in attracting the customers and increasing the customer database (Abrishami and Kolahi, 2013).

For achieving these objectives, the core marketing objectives are the growth strategies and innovation strategies (Kresge and Melanson, 2014). The market will be captured and therefore the customer database will also be increased through innovation of new flavors.

The product that Extra is planning to create is the coca cola flavored and sugar free chewing gum (Smith, 2012). This product is very good for oral health as it neutralizes the plaque acids keeping the teeth stay protected from decay.

Marketing Strategy

Apart from having coca cola flavor, this product will be made sugar free and will be gum based for preserving the flavor for a long time. Natural color will be used and the ingredients will be all natural and will be totally a vegetarian gum (Lafon et al. 2012). It will be a coca cola bottle shaped product that will help customers to know about the flavor beforehand.

Since, the product aims for all the customers irrespective of age, sex, occupation and education, so products are classified under the healthy oral habits of having chewing gum.

This chewing gum is easily digestible if swallowed and will not cause any future health problem. Moreover if it sticks to the clothes also, it can be easily removed without staining the clothes (Martínez-Pabon et al. 2013). These added attributes will easily attract the customers who fear of having chewing gum due to swallowing it accidentally.

The product will be branded under the habits of having healthy chewing gum for the sake of oral health along with refreshment (Rickman et al. 2012). This will obviously help in increasing the sales revenue as the customers will find the twin in one benefit within a single product.

The packaging and labeling is done in such a way that it doesn’t add any toxic materials to the environment. The products are wrapped within the paper wrappers that can be recycled for future use and do not add toxic wastes to the environment (Abrishami and Kolahi, 2013). This will help in attracting the customers to a huge extent since with the increase in health consciousness; customers have also become environmental friendly.

Extra chewing gum already exists in the market so the new chewing gum will be repositioning in the existing market through its new flavor and oral care benefits (Kresge and Melanson, 2014). The brand name will be same only with an addition of approval given by the Dental health association for the health conscious people.

Market research will be essential to see the level of acceptability and enthusiasm of the people regarding the product (Kotler et al. 2013). A quantitative market research will be done to the customers for seeing their reaction regarding the new product.

For test marketing the product, the company will be providing free samples of the chewing gum to the people as a complimentary to the customers buying products in the supermarket and malls (Swoboda and Temple, 2013). Seeing their reaction and satisfaction on having the product will help in understanding the market.

The customers are now days becoming very much health conscious including oral health. So, the products are so made to keep up to level of maintenance of oral health. The legal aspects like labeling and packaging the products will be done in such a way that it will not hurt the sentiments of the customers (Johnson and Miles, 2008). Moreover, the health issues also need to remembered and the company should keep the promise of maintaining oral health of the customers as promised.  

Conclusion

The report has discussed vividly regarding the market plans of the new product for capturing the new customers and repositioning itself among the old customers. Moreover, the benefits, characteristics and attributes of the product are also discussed along with the packaging and branding of the new products.

Reference List

Books

Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, and Armstrong, (2013) Marketing, 9th ed. Pearson education

Journals

Abrishami, M. and Kolahi, J. (2013) “Mutanase-containing chewing gum: A new potential approach for prevention of dental caries”, Dental Hypotheses, 4(2), pp.53- 55

Itobe, T., Kumazawa, K., Inagaki, S. And Nishimura, O. (2012) “A New Approach to Estimate the Elution Characteristics of Odorants in Chewing Gum during Chewing”, Food Science and Technology Research, 18(2), pp.295-302

Johnson, A. and Miles, C. (2008) “Chewing gum and context dependent memory: The independent roles of chewing gum and mint flavor”, Appetite, 50(2-3), pp.561-566

Kresge, D. and Melanson, K. (2014) “Chewing gum increases energy expenditure before and after controlled breakfasts”, Appl. Physiol. Nutr. Metab, pp. 45-78

Lafon, C. and Lawson, L. (2012) “Gum chewing as a strategy to reduce the duration of postoperative ileus”, Gastrointestinal Nurs, 10(3), pp.17-22

Martínez-Pabón, M., Duque-Agudelo, L., Díaz-Gil, J., Isaza-Guzmán, D. and Tobón-Arroyave, S. (2013) “Comparison of the effect of two sugar-substituted chewing gums on different caries- and gingivitis-related variables: a double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial”, Clinical Oral Invest, 18(2), pp.589-598

Rickman, S., Johnson, A. and Miles, C. (2012) “The impact of chewing gum resistance on immediate free recall”, British Journal of Psychology, 104(3), pp.339-346

Smith, B. (2012) “Excellence in market access strategy: A research-based definition and diagnostic tool”, Journal of Medical Marketing: Device, Diagnostic and Pharmaceutical Marketing, 12(4), pp.259-266

Swoboda, C. and Temple, J. (2013) “Acute and chronic effects of gum chewing on food reinforcement and energy intake”, Eating Behaviors, 14(2), pp.149-156.