Kellogg's Rice Krispies: Marketing Strategy And SWOT Analysis Essay.

Key Product: Rice Krispies

Kellogg is an international company dedicated towards structuring long-term expansion in quantity and proceeds and ornamental in its global position of leadership by offering nourishing food products of greater value. In the year 1922, Kellogg company was formed and it established Krumbles in the year 1912, tracked by Bran Flakes in 1915 at 40 %, and All-Bran in 1916 (www.kelloggs.com.au 2017). In Australia and New Zealand, the major focus has been around breakfast cereals and snack bars. The company works towards filling the world’s cereal crockery; it complements its substructure line with cookies (Famous Amos and Keebler), alongside with expediency foods like Nutri-Grain, Bear Naked muesli bears and Eggo waffles (Calder, Malthouse and Maslowska 2016).

 The brand functions through different divisions based on category of products and geographical locations. They take into account US snacks (25% of sales), US Morning foods (24% of sales), US specialty, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The global business of Kellogg’s, aims to focus entirely on cereal and extensive snacks (Darley 2016). Kellogg’s comprises of business having devoted people making excellent products for an improved world.

This briefing document would take into account the process of communication around the product of Kellogg’s, which is rice Krispies treats, reintroduced in the Australian market. The unique rice crisped cereal is one of the undemanding pleasures of life that can be enjoyed even with the little ones (Kotler 2013,). It comes in innumerous flavors like caramel, peanut butter, candy and fruits to name a few.

The band was marketed based on the clatter it generated when milk was being added to it and these sounds, the Snap, Crackle and Pop. The ingredients that makes this product all more special is the presence of Vitamin A Palmitate, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D.

The various communication channels recognized by Kellogg’s are:

-Print Ads

-Facebook page

-TV commercials

In appearing in certain TV Commercials create, the argument crossways the ads vary moderately whether the product is for any children, and adult or any gender precise (Singh and Uncles 2016). This needs to be anticipated, though one would presuppose there is an overarching thesis or behavior to the ads that remains unswerving with the brand of Kellogg’s.

An analysis of the four specific TV commercial ads has been observed:

The brand of Rice Krispies takes into account the use of elf-like characters of cartoon, the names of which were Snap, Crackle and Pop for drawing young children and this strategy has been effectual in selling 20 million packets in Australia.

Evaluation of Communication

The target market for these products is generally for kids who are below the age of 18 years. As per Harrison and Jackson (2013), the company has been directing its marketing strategies keeping in mind that the main purchasers for this product would be the parents and the older adults. Generally, the parents acquire cereal for their kids. The company has availed this cereal in the grocery stores across Australia, supermarket and retail chain.

In the current scenario, cereals that are ready to eat are leading the pack in the segment of food for children. For instance in 2006, firms related to cereals spend around USD 2.3 million in targeting the teenagers and children (www.kelloggs.com.au  2017). Adding to that, Kellogg has been the leader of the market with approximately 35 per cent share of USD 9 billion, though the company has been losing its share of the market to its rival companies.

The cereals that are ready to eat have been experiencing high costs of products. Some of the technological aspects affecting the key market players makes use of social platforms of media and approaches relating to extension. These kind of elements have the habit of upsetting the plan of communication by offering clients with new brands and pertinent details about the product in terms of activities of endorsement (Pirrong 2014).

The people who are the main consumers of the complete to eat cereals are children who are below the age of 18 years. Moreover, these families tend to spend around 75% on these sorts of products or foodstuffs. Households having children below six years of age to eighteen generally spends 25% than expected on the cereals that are ready to eat. On other occasions, families that are young under the age of thirty-five years and those not having children within that age spends around 54% and 20% less than what is expected on these cereals (Meloyan and Bakhtavoryan 2017).

In most of the scenarios, the market leader does determination of price. Under present market condition, Nestle Australia and Carman’s Fine Foods necessitate steady pricing. On the different hand, Kellogg in all probability would take action following the increased cost of production (Boone and Kurtz 2013). Competition that is in terms of nutrition and eminence is considered by transaction seeking consumers.

The prime strength of this product takes into account the factors of positioning, extension of brand and suppleness. However, the positioning of the product remains the key challenge for the company. The reason is that utilization of other breakfast snacks augments the breakfast eating. For that reason, Kellogg entails an inspirational constituent for advertising Rice Krispies. In addition, this is an apposite technique of positioning as no other companies of cereal has tried, augmenting the market share for the Rice Krispies product (Tapp and Rundle-Thiele 2016).

Marketing Strategy

As per Frederiksen, Solomon and Brehony (2013), for Rice Krispies, brand extension has been witnessed as a strength, which can be pre-bought or at times even made by buyers. Another interesting fact is that buyers can prepare their own recipe by means of Rice Krispies as an ingredient of cooking through which they can create their own recipes causative to personalization of the brand. Product flexibility in sense that Rice Krispies comprises of several recipes can be applied to different cooking sorts.

One of the apparent weaknesses connected with Rice Krispies is the nutritional profiling index (NPI). Nutritional profiling index is the determining of the broad nutritional dominance taking in positive and unfavorable nutrients in the brand. The range of scores between 0 to 100 or enormously poor and tremendously good. The range of score of Rice Krispies between 40-49 is not considered appropriately nutritional. 

Some of the main opportunities take in the patterns regarding health, social media platforms, site promotions and position of products. Social media has been the main occasion for this brand. The fact is that distinct to its rivals and the share of fans appreciating the Rice Krispies. According to Caywood (2013), the buyers of such products want to attach on the Facebook page of the company leading to increased volume of sales and high recommendation of products. From the assistance of the social media podium, the organization can investigate the feedbacks of various individuals regarding the Rice Krispies and collect important details of clients like age, gender, geographical locations and awareness. The company in turn assists in streamlining the approach of positioning, changes in the track associated to their targeted audience.

Some of the threats take into account the exposure to changes in the economy inclusive of grain cost, diminishing breakfast consumption and legal concerns. As per Ching (2016), in the current situation, the cereal firms have been facing augmented cost of grains that has enormously witnessed a drop in the cereal sector. Direct competition from the other cereal rival companies can be seen as another threat to the Rice Krispies product. Many people in Australia fancy yogurt or fruits in their breakfast though many have the habit of skipping breakfast resulting in the increase of Kellogg’s net sales.

In 2010, Kellogg’s had to call back around 27 million cereal brand boxes, including Rice Krispies due to strange flavor and stench. Consumers also believe as this a food especially for children; it should not be unhealthy under any circumstances. The campaign needs to highlight its benefit, dismissing the image as an detrimental food and position it as one of the main ready to eat cereals for children.

Situational Analysis of Kellogg's Rice Krispies Cereal Brand

Kellogg’s should consider the following objectives like awareness of the product, knowledge about the same along with preference, liking, conviction and the actual purchase. While planning the objectives, the SMART objectives are to be taken into account like that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and targeted.

Objective 1: Increasing 40 % percentage of people in the audience that is being targeted having positive attitude towards the brand.

Objective 2: having 20% of the target audience expressing predilection for the brand of Rice Krispies by December 2017.

The promotional objective of Rice Krispies is aimed at attracting consciousness of usefulness of the brand and magnetism. For achieving the key objective of responsiveness, some of the methods used are marketing through internet, personal selling, promotion of sales and publicity (Kubacki et al. 2015). This strategy of promotion would target families especially mothers and family circle with children (7-17 years) who possesses high expenditure of cereals. For enhancing consciousness of Rice Krispies, the product would be positioned at breakfast and as snack for bedtime. This would assist in fulfilling the objective of communication for developing product awareness.

The brand would make use of several techniques of publicity for increasing the awareness of Rice Krispies. For instance, the utilization of Facebook can be used as an effectual channel for reaching to the target audience; mothers using it at large basis. The company has thought of implementing a fan page platform like “Moms Know Best” that would promote the site of Rice Krispies, slogan, that is measurable easily and offering feedback and engagement of fosters’ client. (Satar, John and Siraj 2016) Taking into account that the fan page of this particular product contains all the necessary information connected to the site that will foster the chief marketing goal by sustaining all current ingredients in the site of Rice Krispies and offering advanced inter-media evenness promoting comparable advertising on the site. Moreover, mission of the page “Moms Know Best” would generate consistency by continuing the current tagline and promoting with broad target listeners of the promotion.

Facebook fosters management of client as if any other platforms of social media enable buyers in posting their views and recipes in the fan page sharing with other friends and other members of the family and users. The main aim of developing engagement is ensuring that the page is conformist and tempting to clients. Facebook is a suitable medium for publicity for this product as it permits buyers offering feedbacks that enhances authenticity as well as fosters communication.

While measuring, one of the main beneficial of using Facebook as a technique of publicity is illustrating data inclusive of page activities and information of demographics. The assessment of these actions takes in the total views on the page and number of people putting their likes on the photos. The advertisements in the Facebook would help in endorsing the making of Rice Krispies easy to measure. Facebook advertisement, through its capacity to endorse the product would help the organization in determining whether to interrelate with buyers or let the buyers depict themselves to the product by probing the site.  Moreover, the ability to reach to the target audience in an effective manner is of significant importance for reaching them in terms of demographics and data of their geographical locations. In the current scenario, the percentage stands high with females aged between 25-34 years of age. The page needs to be regularly updated and formatted for reaching to the target audience with users being exposed to advertisements at any particular time they visit the fan page.

 A main constituent of marketing awareness in brand can also be done through internet marketing channelized through the website of Rice Krispies. This website is visually educational and striking.  Visitors visiting the site can view numerous recipes of the brand. Clients need to be attracted and awareness of products needs to be increased that are not being fulfilled at this particular moment. However, creating an interactive public policy is the need of the hour. Banners in the site would help in reaching the target audience. Strategies related to public needs to be depicted in a manner that is both appealing and interactive with client. The banners in the site would help in meeting the important objectives and aiming at drawing more visitors to the site. The incorporated banners on the site would assist in augmenting revelation of the product to its target audience. The banners would exist throughout the year, implying funds that are allocated on promotion, which would change every month, as use of same banner would be boring.

The key objective is to market the product’s versatility where some individuals are unconvinced about this particular product. The main cooking ingredient would be this particular product for which majority of the users might not take peril in cooking their meals with unfamiliar element. For this fact, approach of personal selling would be implied in performing the sampling plan in the main market segments across Australia. The clients need to interact at a personal level to encourage them to buy and use the product. Personal selling needs to be implemented across the markets of Australia. Sample products and recipe cards would be provided to workers for giving out to consumers. The cards would feature Rice Krispies where buyers would be reminded to stopover at the site and buy the product.

 The promotions regarded to sales would be conducted in the weekends of May, June and July. These three months are the most appropriate as other procedure would not operate in full flow. It would take approximately for six hours and the purpose would be about example of about 500-1000 buyers per specified store.

This strategy would take into account the use of reaction codes called QR codes. This code takes in data from the transient channel and setting up the same in the phone via applications known as QR reader. The code of QP is not broadly used though it would be suitable for Rice Krispies for reaching the targeted audience. The code would be beneficial parallel to the regular barcodes as it can amass information like URLs, coordinates of the geography. Moreover, the code would help augment the brand Rice Krispies, event, coupon and information of contact. This code would take onto account the links to various platforms of social media like Facebook and Twitter and recipes link.

The optional timing of these codes needs to be constant fitting into the Rice Krispies brand, knowing the regularity of the packaging part, determined through execution of new codes. The target would be focused on the broader public range though at times might be limited to those having mobile apps.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that Kellogg’s is leaving no stones unturned in repositioning the product Rice Krispies in the Australian market. The communication plan should be a fresh one where the organization needs to focus on social networking sites where a stipulated budget is thought of for the product. Certain new things need to be stuffed with the product so that consumers find back that losing confidence that they one had back in 2010. 

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