Generally marketing is defined by ‘Marketing is a business term referring to the promotion of products, advertising, pricing, distribution channels, and branding. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to sell goods or services.’ This is a definition everyone can easily found on Wikipedia, but is it sufficient?
According to Kotler ‘Marketing is more than any other business function, deals with customers. Creating customer value and satisfaction are at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice.’
This essay will provide an analysis of the marketing news story which appeared in 2008, about Cheestrings, a Kerry Foods’ cheese snack for children which has a revamped look appropriately designed for target market. What is this marketing news story about? What are the company’s marketing strategies? What is their positioning and wider implication in the market? And what relation can we make with Kotler’s edition? Because they always want the best for their children, ‘Cheestrings aims at parents.’
And nowadays, every child in this consumption society wants his daily snack, but, it has to be not too strong taste (if it is a cheese), not too acid or sweet yoghurt …
So, it is hard to make children consumers of milk. However dairy products are essentials for a good natural growth. Therefore parents are looking for some nutritional food which is healthy for them. This is an opportunity for Kerry Foods business. The solution: combine nutrition and imagination. This is the reason why, by renewing the packaging of his product, ‘Kerry Foods attempts to make the product seem less artificial’ with a ‘softer purple logo’ and a ‘different character illustration’ on each individual wrapper, creating the idea as ‘each Cheestring containing a glass of milk.’
Moreover, Cheestrings has a various range of tastes: ‘Original Cheddar, Twister, White Cheddar and Light variants.’
‘Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making a sale – ‘telling and selling’ – but in the new sense of satisfying customers’ needs.’ (Kotler)
‘A marketing strategy should be centred on the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal.’(Wikipedia definition)
A new packaging design is a good marketing strategy: ‘fun facts’ draw children attention while non artificial but healthy looking catch parents favors. It is not only a barrier protection which keeps the content clean, fresh and safe for the shelf life of perishable items; although ‘permeation is a critical factor in design.’ ‘Most marketers treat packaging as an element of product strategy’ (Kotler, p.293)
Packaging is a marketing communication: it can encourage potential buyers to purchase the product as we see with Cheestrings. Their packaging is eye-catching, distinguishable from their competitors’ products and it is appropriately designed for the target market. Their strategy is the following one:‘JKR co-founder Andrew Knowles said: "The aim was to give mothers complete confidence in the product's naturalness and give kids kudos in the playground when they have Cheestrings in their lunchbox. We want happy mums and happy kids." So they put an icon highlighting that each stick represents a glass of milk to create parents interests in buying it. And the 96 different characters illustrations and fun acts turn the packages into a blindingly obvious product to children. “The rebranding will be supported by a £5m integrated campaign, including several TV executions, which will be rolled out next year.”
The result is that they make both children and parents desire the product. Over examples of Kerry Foods marketing strategy in this news story are their investments of £5m in a campaign in 2006 in order to overcome some misconceptions that Cheestrings is not a 100% cheese product.
‘The Kerry Foods-owned cheese range is continuing it’s repositioning as a nutritional snack for children’: their positioning strategy is to be and stay considered as the nutritional cheese snack for children. The company is well established position, they have also many highly successful brands and ‘in European consumer foods markets the Group has also completed a number of strategic investments and acquisitions since Kerry’s stock market launch in 1986.’
Kerry Foods has established a good reputation in marketplace with a well defined market niche.
“Over selling and advertising, marketing is satisfying customers’ needs.”(Marketing Strategies for competitive advantage, p.48); and Kerry Foods has quite well understood that: “Kerry Foods has developed a unique capability to deliver convenience, quality, value and choice to today’s discerning consumers through constant product innovation.”
We can say that this news story is about a single firm tactic maintaining its position in marketplace with an account of “31% of the children’s cheese snacks market” and which “is currently worth £50m”. Kerry Foods’ Cheestrings have wider marketing implications :
Thanks to the “combined strengths of Kerry’s UK and Irish food businesses”, they plan their expansion “across the European consumer food industry into the new millennium”. Their objectives are to increase the demand for their well-known products.
