Marketing Campaign For Jones Soda In The Canadian Market

Background of Jones Soda

Question:

Discuss about the Case Analysis of Jones Soda in the Canadian Market.

The study focuses on the marketing campaign of Jones Soda in the Canadian market. The  case study of Jones Soda illustrates that the company has lost two important deals with Seahawks and American Airlines, that has lead the company to huge failure in the marketing aspects. It also lead to fall of sales of the company. However, the company is seeking potential market in Canada its early roots. The marketing campaign will be formulated for the Canadian market.

The marketing plan will be formulated for Jones Soda Co., a beverage company based on Washington. The company is focused on bottling and distributing non carbonated beverages, soft drinks, candy and energy drinks of unusual flavours.

The mission statement of the company is “Jones Soda. Your Photo. Your Soda. Your Brand. Run with the little guy!” The mission statement focuses the brand as a little guy in the giant soda market pop world. However, the brand is passionate about their brand value and rage of products in the market.

The marketing plan for Jones Soda is formulated for the expansion of the products in the Canada market. The aim of the marketing plan is to reinvent the image of the brand in the Canada along with the target customers of the region. It can be said that Canada has a potential market in terms of soft drinks market and energy drink market.

• Unique flavours of the soft drinks and other beverages
• Responsive brand that has a cult following
• Social campaigns and green initiatives
• Improved customer interaction through various communication channels
• Brand recognition with high range of product portfolios

• Limited numbers of products in the product portfolio
• Small brand in terms of comparison with the multinational beverage company (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014)

• Huge opportunity in Canada market
• The marketing techniques will improve the brand popularity
• Expansion in other countries as well
• Unique flavours and high product portfolio will attract target customers

• Dominance of giant multinational brands like Coca Cola and Pepsi
• The element of health conscious among the consumers of the Canada is a threat in reducing the amount of sales in the market (Leonidou, Katsikeas & Morgan, 2013)

The soft drinks market in Canada is highly competitive in nature. The market is captured with the giant companies like PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Monster Beverage Corporation, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Pulse Beverage, National Beverage, Celsius Holdings, Konared, Long Island Iced Tea, Uplift Nutrition, Sport Endurance, etc. Jones Soda should formulate strategies that must focus on the strategies of the competitors (Hanssens et al., 2014).

The consumers in Canada nowadays are becoming health conscious day by day. The growing demand of the low calorie drinks in the market is the cause of the lower consumption of the soft drinks in the market. The behaviour of the consumer in the Canada is depended on the choice of them in terms of healthier beverage products. The trend of healthy products in terms of food and beverage in the Canadian market is the cause of sales of the unusual flavours of the products of Jones Soda. The interest of the consumer towards bottled drinks is still in demand in the market that the company can target while increasing the brand image in the market (Mintz & Currim, 2013).

The company is targeting not only to the youth consumers but also to the kids of the country. The key demographic groups of Jones Soda consisted of Millenials, Teens and Hispanics. The trends of the consumers are changing day by day. They have a craze in the non-alcoholic ready to drink market. It can be seen that all these demographics will like the flavoured drinks of Jones Soda as they have unique packaging and tastes (Fan, Lau & Zhao, 2015).

Marketing Plan for Canadian Market

The opportunities of the soft drink market in Canada are higher compared to the opportunity of United States. The soft drink manufacturer i.e. Jones Soda is focused in the different types of unusual flavours of the company that has been already popular in Western Canada. Now the company is again relaunching the brand and its products in the Canada market. It can be said that the company is focused in marketing the brand to the consumers mind so that they can reinforce it in the minds of them for the increase of sales and word of mouth promotion (Helm & Gritsch, 2014).

It is earlier mentioned that big multinational giants like PepsiCo, Coca Cola, and other companies capture the soft drink market in Canada. It is important for Jones Soda in order to launch their product in a way so that they can differentiate them in the huge market. The USP of the brand is that it contains many product lines with unique blend of taste and flavours like root bear, cola, orange, cream, cream soda, green apple, blue bubblegum, fufu berry, bacon soda, gravy soda, Pure Can soda, Turkey Soda, etc. Apart from that, the quotes that are mentioned in the caps of the bottles are a tactics to attract customers (Davari & Strutton, 2014). Packaging of the product along with the unique taste is the main point of positioning in the Canada market.

Target customers that the marketing plan includes the three generations of people Hispanics, millenials and the teens. The age group targeted by Jones Soda ranges between 13 years to 40 years of age. The company has wide range of soft drinks for all categories of consumers. The geographic areas targeted are various metropolitan areas of Canada. The marketing plan will be formulated according to the segmenting, targeting and positioning of the products in the Canada market (De Mooij, 2013).

The marketing mix of Jones Soda is described in the following:

Product: The types of products that the company will be serving to the customers are energy drinks, soft drinks, flavoured drinks, etc. The products have innovative taste and refreshing flavours that will be preferred by the people of Canada.

Place: The metropolitan areas of Canada are the target areas of Jones Soda in order to launch the product in the market. The places of Canada that will be chosen for the distribution of the products are supermarkets, departmental stores, convenience stores, etc (Shao, Jones & Grace, 2015).

Price: The pricing strategies that is applied by the company in the Canada market are penetration pricing. The company must conduct an extensive research regarding the pricing strategy adapted by them in the Canada market. The pricing of the products is initially sales oriented as the main target of the company is to penetrate the Canada soft drink market in order to capture a market share in the Canada. It can be said that the company must focus on the price quality relationship on the product.

Promotion: The promotional techniques that will be used by the company in different types of the regions of Canada are internet, newspaper, sales promotion, website and social media, advertising including traditional media and digital media, etc (Shao, Jones & Grace, 2015).

Soft Drinks Market in Canada

The key success factors that will contribute the marketing plan of the company in the success of the marketing plan of the company are the quality of the products along with the pricing of the products. Apart from that, the unique blends of the flavours of the soft drinks and the energy drinks are definitely will be a hit in the market. The promotional techniques of the brand along with its brand equity, brand personality, brand image, etc. are the unique selling proposition of the company in the market (Jones & Slater, 2014).

The objectives and goals of the marketing plan can be divided into two categories such as long term and short term. The short-term goals of the marketing plan is to reinforce the brand name and brand image in the minds of the Canadian consumers. By the implementation of penetration pricing, the company will gain a substantial market share in the Canada (McAuley, 2014).

On the other hand, the long-term goals of the company are to become the number one soft drinks company in the Canada market. The company wants to increase its profit percentage by 20% from the previous years. Apart from that, Jones Soda will also increase the sales volume by 30% in order to recover the loss that has been recurred in United States. In this way, the overall performance of the company will have to be increased in the market (Kponee, Siegel & Jernigan, 2014).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the marketing campaign of Jones Soda is formulated by keeping in consideration of the consumer behaviour and market characteristics of Canada. By doing the competitor analysis, it can be said that many multinational giants capture the soft drink market of Canada. Hence, the strategies are formulated in order to keeping in consideration of the techniques of promotion and other marketing activities by the rival beverage selling companies.

References

Davari, A., & Strutton, D. (2014). Marketing mix strategies for closing the gap between green consumers' pro-environmental beliefs and behaviors. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 22(7), 563-586.

De Mooij, M. (2013). Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Fan, S., Lau, R. Y., & Zhao, J. L. (2015). Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), 28-32.

Hanssens, D. M., Pauwels, K. H., Srinivasan, S., Vanhuele, M., & Yildirim, G. (2014). Consumer attitude metrics for guiding marketing mix decisions. Marketing Science, 33(4), 534-550.

Helm, R., & Gritsch, S. (2014). Examining the influence of uncertainty on marketing mix strategy elements in emerging business to business export-markets. International Business Review, 23(2), 418-428.

Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer New York.

Jones, D. M., & Slater, J. S. (2014). What's in a Name?: Advertising and the Concept of Brands. Routledge.

Kponee, K. Z., Siegel, M., & Jernigan, D. H. (2014). The use of caffeinated alcoholic beverages among underage drinkers: Results of a national survey. Addictive behaviors, 39(1), 253-258.

Leonidou, C. N., Katsikeas, C. S., & Morgan, N. A. (2013). “Greening” the marketing mix: do firms do it and does it pay off?. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41(2), 151-170.

McAuley, A. (2014). Reflections on a decade in social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing, 4(1), 77-86.

Mintz, O., & Currim, I. S. (2013). What drives managerial use of marketing and financial metrics and does metric use affect performance of marketing-mix activities?. Journal of Marketing, 77(2), 17-40.

Shao, W., Jones, R. G., & Grace, D. (2015). Brandscapes: contrasting corporate-generated versus consumer-generated media in the creation of brand meaning. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 33(3), 414-443.