Final Project

Examining a Marketing Plan: V Fusion + Energy

Examining a Marketing Plan: V Fusion + Energy

V8 began their mission with a simple goal: to insert more vegetables into the average individuals daily living. Over the last 80 years, the organization manufactures, distributes, and sales vegetable products for every kind of person in flavors of every kind of taste. The company provides various product lines, ranging from baked apple cinnamon, to unprocessed fruits and vegetables (V8 Vegetables, 2016). Other products include vegetable and fruit juices that are often meant for refreshment purposes. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, V8’s mission is to meet customers’ needs by doing more, getting more, and being more. The organization meets these goals by making tasty vegetables easy and accessible for every kind of person. Today, the organization has expanded its operation across different parts of the country by using online business models that attract an international audience (V8 Vegetables, 2016).

The government and political climate of a particular country affects business operations of V8. In the vegetable beverage sector, regulations, free trade agreements, and labor standards affect profitability of the company. There have been widespread regulations that have been passed to control encourage the development of healthy diets. This presents an opportunity for V8 in that it relies fully on natural vegetable products to process its beverages. Free trade agreements with the European Union and the United States also promote the organization’s expansions into other market zones. However, rising costs of labor such as increase in minimum wage adversely affects its profitability. The state of the economy of a given country affects the operation and sales of the organization in many ways. The vegetable beverage market flourishes when the state of the economy is good. However, during the 2008-2009 economic downturn, millions of people across the world lost their jobs while some were rendered homeless. As people prioritized their buying decisions, the sales declined. Increased rates of employment also offer an opportunity for the company’s growth. However, increase in costs of labor poses major threats to its operations since the organizations’ supply chains significantly rely on the producers in developing economies (Leonidou & Kaminarides, 2007).

Moreover, there has been an increase in activism towards consumption of healthy diets. This socio-cultural movement affects the organization’s operations in various ways. For instance, use of healthy and fresh vegetables and fruits to develop beverages offers an opportunity for growth in the company. Increase in multicultural diversity in the United Kingdom and the United States also provides an opportunity to sale different types of products to different consumer populations. However, the widening socio-economic gap between the rich and the poor poses threats to the company’s growth in which it weakens the middle class, who are the leading buyers of these products (Leonidou & Kaminarides, 2007). In addition, technology plays a major role in improving the operational efficiencies and productivities of firms that operate in the beverage sector. For instance, increased automation improves business efficiency. In this respect, an organization has the chance to offer enhanced online services via consumers’ mobile devices (Leonidou & Kaminarides, 2007). Consequently, the practice of patenting genetically modified foods poses threats to beverage companies’ access to sufficient supply of raw materials. Still, this factor also provides an opportunity to minimize or do away with GMO-containing products.

Equally important, the organization’s competitors include: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, and Waitrose. These five large firms operate in an environment that is characterized by stiff competition in which they continue to fight for the already saturated market share. Tesco enjoys a market share of 28.3 percent. This company witnessed signs of stabilization compared to its past declines in the last two years. Tesco positions its products to meet consumer needs often done through providing pricing benefits. It has one of the most pocket-friendly products in the industry (Tesco, 2017). Sainsbury’s has also witnessed a 1.2 percent decrease in sales. This has resulted in a reduction in its market share to 16 percent. The company emphasizes on multi-pack deals and straightforward price cuts as its main positioning strategies (Sainsbury, 2017). Asda also provides low-price positioning, which continues to reach out to have the targeted impacts of Aldi and Lidl’s developments since its sales reduced by 5.1 percent in 2016 (Asda, 2017). Further, Waitrose has attained a 5 percent record share of the vegetable beverage markets. This organization’s positioning strategy is based on the product attributes and characteristics often done by associating its products with the benefits that the consumers desire. For instance, one of its vegetable and fruits beverages is positioned based on its durability and style of its cycle (Waitrose, 2017). The primary target customers for V8 are men and people aged between 12 and 35 years in which these groups of people prefer soft drinks and non-alcoholic beverages. The company will segment its customers in many ways. First, the organization will utilize demographics segmentation, which implies that age, level of income, and family sizes will be vital (Barry & Weinstein, 2009). The age range of 12 to 35 years is the most common customer group. From a psychographic perspective, the organization attempts to attract a cool and youthful population in which this population considers beverage drinks of all kinds as exciting and fun. Behavioral segmentation will consider the tendencies of people to attend major occasions such as parties since most of the individuals within this category are people who enjoy attending events that are accompanied by drinks. In terms of customers’ levels of income, the organization targets people within the middle-income category being that a significant number of people within the middle-income status are youthful groups that favor soft drinks and other types of exciting beverages. Finally, the company segments its target audience geographically in in which its primary target customers are located within the national frontiers (Barry & Weinstein, 2009). Customers who are in the country are initially reached out to before reaching out to an international audience. Other geographical areas that are targeted include the United States, United Kingdom, and parts of Western Europe.

The organization will embrace a positioning strategy that is based on price and durability of products. Some product categories will be pocket-friendly to meet the needs of youths, while others will be high and affordable to high-income earners (Ferrell & Hartline, 2012). This is because there are certain product categories in which high prices are automatically regarded as high quality and situations in which low priced products are often considered to be associated with inferior products. Most importantly, the positioning strategy that will be employed by the company will be meant to ensure that consumers regard the brand as superior or better than its competitors. Investigations into pricing strategies will utilize both qualitative and quantitative designs to evaluate the most relevant pricing models used in the sector. In addition, primary and secondary data will be gathered for drawing comparisons across different firms. Other data gathering tools will include questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. Thereafter, the Van Westendorp PSM strategy and the Nomadic Price Testing methodologies will be utilized as tools to evaluate various prices. The Van Westendorp PSM model works by first mapping out consumer perspectives on price ranges for a given commodity (Leonidou & Kaminarides, 2007). It makes use of four-question battery to identify prices that are regarded as too cheap, cheap, costly, and very expensive. In the Monadic price testing model, the market’s perspectives on different price points are often investigated and are tested against each other in which one price point is then identified to each respondent.

In conclusion, V8 has manufactured, distributed, and sold vegetable products for every kind of person with varying tastes over the past 80 years. V8 and their competitors all have a common mission: to meet customers’ needs by doing more, getting more, and being more by making tasty vegetables easy and accessible for every kind of person. Government and political climates, and sociocultural factors affect the profitability of the company in addition to regulations, free trade agreements, and labor standards. Rates of employment significantly impact the company’s growth and expansion opportunities as well as the increase or decline in sales. With all things considered, the company must analyze the marketing environment, perform a competitive analysis, and select their target market before composing an adequate positioning strategy within the market. Obtaining knowledge of their competitors and their positioning strategies for similar products will enable the company to modify and enhance their marketing tactics, and their positioning process. Understanding the environmental factors that impact the overall profitability of the business will allow the company to adjust their products, positioning strategy, and pricing strategy accordingly.

References

Asda. (2017). Asda groceries. ASDA. Retrieved from http://www.asda.com/

Barry, J., & Weinstein, A. (2009). Business psychographics revisited: from segmentation theory

to successful marketing practice. Journal of Marketing Management, 25(3-4), 315-340.

Ferrell, O. C., & Hartline, M. (2012). Marketing strategy, text and cases. New York: Nelson

Education.

Leonidou, L., & Kaminarides, J. (2007). The international marketing environment. Journal of

Teaching in International Business, 18(2), 101-131.

Morrison’s. (2017). About us. Morrisons Ltd. Retrieved from

https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/startWebshop.do?dnr=y

Sainsbury’s. (2017). Live well for less. Retrieved from http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/

Tesco. (2017). Tesco plc. Tesco. Retrieved from https://www.tescoplc.com/

V8 Vegetables. (2016). What we make. Campbell Soup Company. Retrieved from

https://www.campbells.com/v8/

Waitrose. (2017). Waitrose business to business. Waitrose. Retrieved from

http://www.waitrose.com/