Branding British Tomatoes Responding To New Foreign Competition Threats

Branding British Tomatoes Responding To New Foreign Competition Threats Background British growers are facing competition from foreign exports and this has prompted them to put up an intense fight. Whereas the trend towards the domestic sustainability has indeed assisted the British farmers to secure some sales, in the future market, this only may not be sufficient enough.Advertising We will write a custom coursework sample on Branding British Tomatoes: Responding To New Foreign Competition Threats specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More John Giles said this while addressing the British tomato growers association at their 2010 conference. The UK has become a prime market for tomatoes as it has a greater appetite for the tomatoes and other product besides having affluent customers. The Fast Moving Consumer Goods markets have seen competition among producers and suppliers increase and it has facilitated branding as a strategy to stay competitive on the market. Many producers have conducted a number of marketing ca mpaigns to enable their products to develop strong brand identities for consumer products like bread (Warburtons bread, etc) and milk (Cravendale and Yeo Valley milk, etc). These advertising and promotional activities for these consumer products have combined both the rational and emotional appeals with a unique image description with certain characteristics to attain competitive advantage. The Tomatoes Challenge Having been faced with imminent threat from foreign competition, the larger UK tomato grower Ennivel has come up with a strategy to develop a brand identity and a communication strategy for marketing its products on the domestic market. Ennivel has secured the three leading supermarket retail chains in the UK namely, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and Tesco. Nonetheless, Tesco has already begun purchasing tomatoes from the Spanish, Dutch and Italian importers and this has caused worry to the Ennivel executives that the business may not be able to compete aggressively with these larger exporters based on prices and quality alone. It’s with this in mind that Ennivel is developing a brand of tomatoes that will communicate the healthy eating lifestyle (Organic + fresh tomatoes = Healthier life). The Branding Strategy The brand name i proposed for Ennivel tomatoes was Choochi. This is a very simple name and easy to keep in mind once a person comes across it. The name can readily be remembered and they can easily pronounce it. Furthermore it could be associated with chewing based on the sound. It is therefore almost a descriptive name describing tomatoes as edible.Advertising Looking for coursework on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The double O between the consonants will be drawn into tomato shapes therefore people can connect the name with tomatoes as they read it. Moreover the name Choochi can be easily identified as a logo and it will be drawn in red w ith the two O’s depicting very ripe and succulent tomatoes As a group we however settled on branding our tomatoes as â€Å"Lyco† instead of Choochi. We derived the name Lyco from the word lycopene. Lycopene is the name of the carotene compound found in tomatoes. The group thought that this name was more suggestive of our product; therefore its quality will definitely be associated with superiority. This is why we thought the name was the most appropriate as it was connected to tomatoes in a unique way. The Advertising Message I suggested to the group that Tomatoes have a lot of benefits and the advertising will seek to adopt a message that will summarize all these benefits in simple and short message. Generally tomatoes add colour to food. Ripe tomatoes are usually red in and when used for cooking they cause food to have a reddish coloration that is appealing. Tomatoes are sometimes served as a main dish thus some people think it is a vegetable (Thybo 835). Due to thei r taste, tomatoes also add flavour to food especially foods like sandwiches, pizzas and other delicious delights. One can delightfully enjoy a simple salad that is made of onions, tomatoes and cucumbers. However, it is important to note that tomatoes are not just taste makers they have several other incredible benefits that entail possibility to prevent cancers and heart problems. For this reason, we as a group settled on advertising our brand as an important health food product. Our advertisement strategy will have two goals. The communication objective will be to build health awareness among our customers. We tell them that organic tomatoes boosted their health by protecting them from possible serious diseases like cardiovascular problems. Since health is a serious matter, we anticipate great response because many people are conscious of their health today. The group decided to adopt the advertising message in the form of â€Å"the Slice of Life Appeal†. This technique is f ounded on the conflict-solution concept where the consumers are presented as having or fear an impending problem. As a result they are actively seeking to stop it or prevent it.Advertising We will write a custom coursework sample on Branding British Tomatoes: Responding To New Foreign Competition Threats specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This makes a lot of sense because health statistics have shown that there have been an increasing number of people suffering from cancers and cardiovascular diseases over the past three decades. These medical problems are a very serious concern to the society. However, out advertising strategy presents Lyco tomatoes as part of the solution to help prevent such problems from developing. Tomatoes have a number of health benefits and among them include the ability to prevent cancer. Antioxidants in tomatoes have the ability to prevent cancer (Metzger 67). Cooked tomatoes have been found to have the highe st levels of lycopene which is the carotene element responsible for the red coloration and also linked to the protection of DNA from damage (Caballero 105; Metzger 67). Tomatoes also contain other antioxidants like vitamins A and C which function to reduce risk of cancer. Tomatoes are therefore protective against prostrate cancers, breast cancers, oral cancers and stomach cancers among others (Metzger 67). Ennivel intends to market Lyco tomatoes as healthy food stuff and as such, there are several slogans or messages that were proposed to help market its tomatoes (Thybo 835). Based on the benefits that tomatoes have, the following slogans were suggested ‘colour for your food’ this was drawn from the fact that the reddish tomato coloration adds colour to food (Caballero 107); ‘fill your life/meal with love’, this was derived from the fact that ripe tomatoes are red and in most cases red in that colour of love. ‘We like choochi’, was suggested to draw consumers into being connected to Choochi tomatoes because of their quality; ‘delicious is tomatoes!’ slogan was also suggested to help market the tomatoes are spicy and tasty for food preparation. Lastly, there was the catchphrase ‘Tomatoes are cool and healthy’. This is the slogan that will now be employed in the advertising message. The slogan is derived from the fact that tomatoes are essential food ingredients that not only add flavour and colour to food, but also have other healthy benefits. Therefore in order to sum these benefits in a short and attention attracting phrase, this slogan was selected. This is because the firm aims at selling the idea that consumption of fresh organic tomatoes was a healthy habit for healthy life (Thybo 835). The word cool may not be formal but it has deeper meaning in the contemporary society where people of all ages associate it with being classy, superior, important and attractive. Therefore associating this te rm with healthy is very tactical, as it will deliver the message simply and vividly to children and adults without seeming boring or too fancy for adults (Lewis Hill 207).Advertising Looking for coursework on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Research has found that children have a great influence on the way parents shop and that is why this advert is targeting children and parent. Essentially it is very easy to convince children concerning the product and draw their attention. Even though the main reason for advertising is to create health awareness and initiate the buying process, consumers like to be amused and enthused as well. Basically, people never respond to adverts that are too boring. By mentioning the word ‘healthy’, the advert will resonate with the audience at a slightly deep level because it will be informative hence inspiring interest. This type of advertising is set to elicit great response since in a normal market as consumers are always looking to solve a problem as the slice of life appeal suggests. With intensive campaigns advocating for healthy eating and organic food consumption (Powers 16), our slogan is bound to attract people who want to be â€Å"cool† or classy and eat health y at the same time. What Consumers have not been told about Tomatoes Most of the information about tomatoes has been said especially since there has been increased campaign towards healthy eating with the government and non-government organization claim on people to eat organic foods. Consumers may have not been told that tomatoes can help protect them form cardiovascular diseases. Lycopene also has the ability to mitigate the occurrence of cardiovascular problems like heart disease (Caballero 105). Researchers in Boston Brigham Women’s hospital found out that women who consumed tomato-based products had reduced risk of developing heart disease at 29% rate. Tomatoes also contain chemical element called chromium, and this chemical helps patients suffering from type 2 diabetes to maintain blood sugar at normal level. Besides being able to protect human beings from cancers, tomatoes are able to reduce the levels of the dangerous Low Density Lipoproteins which are usually referre d to as the bad cholesterol because of their impact on human health (Metzger 68). Research has shown that tomatoes have to reduce the oxidation of the LDLs and therefore this reduced the effect of oxidized LDL’s which include inflammation of the arteries and other tissues. This helps to reduced risk of developing arteriosclerosis. Tomatoes also contain greater amounts of potassium and scientific research has shown that potassium has the ability of lowering blood pressure and there reducing the risk of developing heart problems. The Target Market The advert will strategically target both parents and children in order to have greater sales and build customer loyalty. It is easier to convince children that a product is entertaining or offers some reward when they acquire it (Lewis Hill 207). Children present a very important group of in marketing since the UK lifestyle has completely transformed. In the past, children never had a say in whatever the family was planning but toda y, the society has changed and children greatly influence parents’ decision like going to holiday and what to eat among others (Lewis Hill 207). The advert is designed to catch the attention of the children. Basically this strategy can easily create brand loyalty because we anticipate that children will grow special attachment to our brand as it campaigns for healthy eating. Therefore they will be loyal to the brand as they will have greater understanding of our policy. As a group we thought that children are an important factor of decision making unit – DMU in a family. Children function as initiators of the decision to buy (Lewis Hill 209). Parents are willing to agree to the demands of their children because they want their children to feel loved and as such they can buy most of the things that the child might suggest or imply to like. Children also function as influencers by challenging their parents to buy or no to buy certain products based on certain reasons t hat they may have learnt concerning the product (Lewis Hill 210). When children learn about our brand from the television adverts, at school from peers and teachers or following actual experience of the product in direct promotional activities, they can influence parents to buy, especially when they are refereeing to healthy organic and tomatoes. In DMU, children are sometimes the deciders, the buyers and the users of the product (Lewis Hill 210). This is very important to note because, in today’s economy, all the customer categories are important especially children who have their own purchasing power and can influence that of their parents. Children in the modern world enjoy more autonomy and power to make decisions to the family compared to the past decades (Lewis Hill 212). This means that when children are more vocal with what they want, parent will be obliged to buy it. This has been termed as pester power where children nag and bother parents into purchasing The ide a of healthy eating is greatly advocated for in schools and even on the television by various groups that support the idea. Advertising is very much tied to psychology of the buyers. Healthy eating has constantly been advertised and it has become persistent where children can constantly plead with parents to consider organic foods (Powers 16). After that persistent plea, comes the importance of the nagging. Parent are struggling to ensure that they raise healthy children and with such intentions, comes the desire to give the best to their children and this also works like the guilt of not spending more time with children. Having targeted advertising, psychologists and researcher have identified what makes children react. This is based on their emotional, social and developmental needs as they grow up. This advertisement is clearly set to exploit art work of designing the logo, fantasy by use of informal words like ‘cool’ and hope by suggesting that organic and fresh tom atoes caused healthier lives. Besides attractive packaging and advertisement message, promotional activities will be conducted on the tomato shelf. Children will be given labels for every pack of tomatoes they collect. The pack will have a child challenge quiz for children to suggest ways of eating more tomatoes where the winner will be the most creative child and will be rewarded. Red dots will be put along the walking space to the tomato shelves to lead children to the brand. The salesperson will wear a red nose like a clown to amuse and excite children at the shelf hence drawing their attention to the brand. Since the children spend almost 8 hours at school, we will invite several schools for school trip to our farm, let the children learn how tomatoes are grown and let them help with the process of growing the tomatoes to build some loyalty to our product (number of students, timings and age will be determined differently depending on the school.) The key decision influencer for the children will be the brand design that is colourful; the labels give for every pack of tomatoes and catchy phrases used for our promotional activities. For the parents, it will be the pester influence from the children the fact that this will be promoting healthy eating. The CDM study will guide our understanding of their purchase decisions because the final decision is much deeper than knowing a brand name. It entails emotional pull and persuasive message. We have done thorough market research and identified the emotional triggers which include the pester power of the children and the need to have healthy life. Advertising Strategy: to Promote Healthy Eating Because of the increased cases of diet related medical conditions and the role that diet plays in influencing chronic diseases, it has become important that people have to watch what they eat. Fruits and vegetables that are cultivated organically have been found to have greater ability to fight cancers because of the antio xidants these fruits have compared to other fruits cultivated normally (Metzger 67). Research has found that pesticides, herbicides and certain synthetic fertilizers affect phenolics (the chemical responsible for plant defence mechanism). However organic fertilizers boost production of anticancer compounds (Metzger 67). Our production of tomatoes does not employ use of pesticides and herbicides. Previous researches have shown that synthetic chemicals raze the natural development of the natural plant elements like phenolics. Antioxidants are also destroyed in the same way (Powers 17). In order to be able to compete with other producers or growers, Ennvil aims at developing a brand â€Å"Lyco† which is basically organically produced tomatoes hence promoting healthy eating (Powers 17). The main idea behind this concept of advertising is that Organic and fresh food stuff will enhance healthier life. This is the reason why our tomatoes will be produced without fertilizers, herbici des and pesticides (Powers 17). The tomatoes will be delivered at the retail stores within 24 hours after their harvest and the main goal is to develop a friendly, unique and recognizable brand that will allow consumers to enjoy healthy lives and tasty meals. Our production will entail production of tomatoes by use of organic fertilizers and pesticides. As a result, the organic plants retain their natural chemicals as they are not interfered by synthetic chemicals from artificial fertilizers and pesticides. The tomatoes have the ability to make vitamins and other chemicals like lycopene naturally (Caballero 105). For this reason, the organic tomatoes are usually more nutritional in compared to conventional tomatoes. This means that their consumption will make the body to receive a greater amount of nutrition as in vitamins and other minerals required by the body for healthy growth and development. As part of the greatest marketing strategy, Ennvil will advertise tomatoes as very hea lthy for human consumption. To emphasize this, the message will say that Lyco tomatoes have many health benefits including defence from cardiovascular diseases. The major challenge will be to convince the supermarket that our brand will not beat theirs or affect it in business. However, based on the fact that the consumer decision making process take the issues of having alternative seriously, we will use this concept to ask supermarket to allow more alternative for customer because it is one of the things that will attract them to the store. Besides many clients do not like monopolistic businesses and as such, we will request to be allowed to engage in healthy competition where we seek to build each other’s competitiveness in terms of prices and quality of tomatoes. Consumer awareness has greatly increased and by having our organic tomatoes around, this will be an attraction enough to draw clients who would purchase other groceries as well particularly by impulse. This would be a significant opportunity for the supermarket to improve on the quality of its tomatoes as well as build a reputation of being friendly and fairs engaging in healthy competition. Media Strategy Contrary to the popular belief that the internet is a very fast paced media for advertising reaching many parts, studies show that Television is more effective (Tymore 71). We contemplated that we could use cinema advertising to market out tomatoes. However, there are several advantages and disadvantages that influenced our decisions. The advantage of using cinema for advertisement is that the message reaches the target audience directly because nearly all of the viewers pay attention to the big screen waiting for the movie to start or in between the movie they will still watch it (Tymore 71). Besides, the marketer is able to identify the target audience easily because in most cases the large number of people who go for cinemas are aged 18 to 35 years and few out of this age bracket. The major disadvantages are that it is very costly to advertise in cinema and sometimes adverts in a movie theatre seem like distraction and people do not like them. Despite the fact that they can easily catch the attention of the audience, out target group is children and parents and this target group does not visit cinemas as often. Instead of cinema, we resorted to using television as a medium for advertising because it is a medium that children and parent all have constant access. The cost of advertising on television is quite expensive if the ads have to be repeated for several times and on several channels (Singer Singer 376). Besides the ads are usually shorter and at times obscure but the Ennvil ad will be precise and revealing crucial information. Several experts will have to be employed in order to conduct the advert hence making the creation of the advert very intricate. We settled on TV advertising because of some major advantages that distinguish it from cinema advert. Tel evision has a great ability to communicate to a very large audience over a very big geographical area in a short period of time. Besides, TV advertising can be manipulated in terms of timing to target children and parents. The adverts can be targeted to specific audience for instance placing the adverts during children’s programs like the cartoon networks. The timing include in the mornings before leaving for school, in the afternoons and lunchtime period, and during weekends. The ads can also be aired on adult shows and health programs (Singer Singer 376). This way, the Ennvil tomatoes will be marketed to both the children and parents. The use of visuals, sound and action, the TV ads will enable us as marketers to influence the audience’s emotion as they listen and see the way the message is conveyed (Tymore 71). This also improves the credibility of the information being passed across hence catching the attention of the target group. Television adverts are bound to be very efficient in influencing the consumers’ perceptions and gradually swaying their decisions later as instant sale may not be possible (Singer Singer 376). To enhance TV adverts, the group also suggested that the firm with put up Billboards close to schools and major supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s. These supermarkets already have their own lines of tomatoes with their names. Lyco tomatoes are only adding up to these brands to increase customer options. There will more adverts on the internet since its use cannot be overlooked. We will place adverts on Youtube, Facebook and other social sites to increase possibility of access by parents. As our tomatoes gain popularity, we believe the Word of Mouth will naturally take effect as our satisfied clients recommend it to friends and family. The Above the Line (ATL) advertising used here is television and it is very effective however, we will have a strategy to combine it with Below the L ine (BTL) strategies which will include the unconventional means of advertising. Basically the changing market dynamics of the FMCG shows that BTL is very effective as it entails direct communication via email and direct mails. Besides being on television, Ennvil will employ email and direct mail communication to initiate closer communication with our clients (Tymore 71). By sending direct mails and email to major retailers communicating to them our products, Ennvil is likely to win their confidence and secure orders because ambiguity can be clarified. We will link the ATL and BTL through social sites and sharing networks like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Myspace among others. This is just to make sure we reach a larger audience. The main challenge will be to adapt consumer advertising and transforming into adverting strategy. This consumer advertising strategy has had very crucial impact on businesses and Ennvil is expected to exploit all the advertising strategies to ensure that it competes with tomatoes exporters from outside the UK. Trade advertising will be designed to ensure greatest distribution of the products. The company will place articles in health magazines and or trade magazines like Progressive grocer. Caballero, Benjamin. Guide to Nutritional Supplements. London: Academic Press, 2009. Print. Lewis, Milton and Hill, Anderson. Food Advertising on British Childrens Television: A Content Analysis and Experimental Study with Nine-Year Olds. International Journal of Obesity, 22.3(1998): 206-214 Metzger, Boyd. American Medical Association Guide to Living with Diabetes: Preventing and Treating Type 2 Diabetes, American Medical Association. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2007. Print. Powers, Sandy. Organic for Health. New York, Sandra Powers, 2006. Print. Singer, Dorothy and Singer, Jerome L. Handbook of Children and the Media. London: Sage Publishers, 2008. Print. Thybo, Annet, et al. Effect of Organic Growing Systems on Sensory Quality and Chemical Composition of Tomatoes. LWT Food Science and Technology, 39. 8(2006): 835-843 Tymore, Stan. Advertising and Public Relations. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2010. Print.