Virgin drinks were launched here under a franchise arrangement with Virgin Enterprise Ltd. UK Virgin carbonated soft drink brands are extremely popular in the UK and part of Europe due to its satisfying capability. The Virgin brands are already proved to be very much popular in Bangladesh.
Topic: Marketing Strategy Process of Virgin Drinks
Presentation Transcript:
1. Introduction:
“In age youth does matter. In apparel so does YOUTH GROUP.” – This is what Youth Group says about itself. The group now takes to its wing a sweeping wind generated by the twelve units of diverse industrial entities down under its trend setting enterprise.
The units of Youth Group at present are-
- Youth Fashion Ltd.
- Youth Garments Ltd.
- Fair Deal Enterprise
- Eastern University
- Global Beverage Co. Ltd.
- Youth Spinning Mills Ltd.
2. Global Beverage
GBCL, a concern of youth group is responsible for revolutionary changes of soft drinks market in this country. Virgin drinks were launched here under a franchise arrangement with Virgin Enterprise Ltd. UK Virgin carbonated soft drink brands are extremely popular in the UK and part of Europe due to its satisfying capability. The Virgin brands are already proved to be very much popular in Bangladesh.
3. Objective Of The Research
- Learning the process of interview and research followed by professional report writing.
- Learning to analyze different aspects of business strategy and identifying the major role-playing key factors to focus on with special effort.
- Learning the steps of strategic planning and their coverage of activities as well as understanding the basis of company objectives and marketing goals.
- Learning the bases of designing a successful business portfolio.
- Learning to define strengths and weaknesses of a company and how to use/overcome them.
- Understanding the dimensions of a marketing mix.
- Understanding the consumer behaviors and learning how to turn them into competitive advantages in segmenting and targeting the market.
4. Virgin Drinks
- The Virgin beverages business started its operation in 1994. Having initially launched with Virgin Cola in the UK, it has grown rapidly by expanding into new products, packages and territories. Virgin Drinks now operates in 33 different territories worldwide.
- Virgin Drinks operates in large and growing markets (carbonated soft drinks worldwide: 177 Billions liters; growing by 2% per annum) and is currently present in 3 main products areas: cola, fruit flavored drinks and energy drinks.
- At the same time, Virgin Drinks is developing new soft drink concepts, responding to evolving consumer trends and sometimes even creating new segments.
5. Mission Statement
- To delight the consumers with product innovation.
- International premium quality standard.
- An affordable and rational price that offers them the best value for their money.
6. Marketing Objectives
- To develop the Virgin brand name within the Soft Drinks Category.
- To create initial Brand Awareness and product trials.
- To propose a continuous Marketing Activity Plan that will build consumer awareness and off-take, beyond the initial launch period.
- To reach at least 30% of Brand Awareness for Virgin Drinks within Year 1 of getting the account.
- To establish a creative positioning and marketing platform in line with Virgin’s Core Values that will underpin all marketing activity and build the image of Virgin Drinks.
7. Marketing Strategy
Market Segmentation.
- Geographic Segmentation.
- Demographic Segmentation.
- Psychographic Segmentation.
Product Diversification.
Company Strength and Weakness.
8. Geographic Segmentation
Geographic Segmentation calls for dividing the market into different geographic units such as nations, regions, states, counties, cities or neighborhoods. GBCL divides the consumer market of Bangladesh into different geographic units such as different regions. GBCL has segmented the Bangladesh market into different regions like Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna are their prime targets and Rajshahi and Sylhet are their potential targets.
9. Demographic Segmentation
Demographic Segmentation divides the market into groups based on variables such as age, gender, family size, family life cycle, income, occupation, education, religion, race, generation and nationality. Demographic factors are the most popular bases for segmenting customer groups. One reason is that customer needs, wants and usage rates often vary closely with demographic variables.
10. Pychographic Segmentation
Psychographic segmentation divides buyers into different groups based on social class, lifestyle, or personality characteristic. Through psychographic segmentation GBCL can get closer to their target consumers.
11. Product Diversification
- Virgin company is try to emphasize on the flavor range of their product for positioning their market. They offers different flavors and colors in the market experimentally two years ago in December, but it failed for lack of proper advertising and positioning. After that they feel the need for diversities. But they have to be confident about advertising and orientation of customer needs.
- Also, GBCL is recently thinking of entering the market of Mineral Water in near future.
12. Company Strength
- The main strength Virgin has is that GBCL was the pioneers of slim can production in Bangladesh. They were the first to introduce slim cans for beverage production in Bangladesh.
- Another major point would be the price-amount-convenience factor. In this case, Virgin’s slim cans are worth Tk.15, the volume being 250 ml. In case of Coca-Cola or Pepsi, the price is Tk.25, and the amount is slightly more, about 350 ml. thus, comparatively we can say that the price of Virgin cans in correlation to the amount is cheaper than that of its competitors.
- A prime factor is quality. As Virgin is a franchise, all productions are monitored by the foreign management, thus the quality is always maintained at the top premium level.
13. Company Weakness
- Insufficient financial support is one of the major problems for the virgin.
- Virgin’s distribution channels are weak compared to that of its competitors.
- Virgin cannot advertise as much as its competitors.
- Virgin does not organizes or sponsors any kind functions, sports festivals or music concerts like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and Pepsi usually do. So they lacks in promotional concepts.
14. Competitors
- Coca-Cola (Coke)
- Pepsi
- Royal Crown (RC)
- Sun Crest
- Uro Cola
15. Disadvantages
- Recently other companies also introduced slim metallic cans in the market. If Virgin cannot place the fact in the consumers’ minds that they are the pioneer to launch this feature, then Virgin can lose its market.
- They not yet introduced any 2 Ltr. packages like many other competitors like RC and Pepsi did.
- They don’t have any premix machine or fountain glass package.
- The factory of Virgin is outside the boundary of Dhaka City or any other major cities.
- Distribution channel is weaker than many other competitor companies..
- GBCL lacks efficiency in their promotional efforts. Like – Sponsorship of programs.
16. Marketing Mix
The marketing mix of any company consists of four elements. They are –
- Product.
- Price.
- Place.
- Promotion.
17. Product
Product features are-
- Proprietary curvy bottle that is really appealing.
- Effective colour packaging available that attracts the kids.
- A varied choice of excellent flavours of Virgin – 4 flavours are in the portfolio of GBCL at present as well as total of 15 flavours of international market of Virgin. Products that are not introduced yet in the Bangladeshi market promises a good opportunity of product diversification for GBCL in the near future.
- Fashionable ‘Colour’ identification. e.g. Virgin Blue, Virgin Red.
- Pack type and size choice (1.5 Ltr., 1 Ltr. and 500 ml plus cans)
18. Price
GBCL is a volume oriented company .It give preference to the designed sales growth rate. It also considers the maintenance of a stable price as a pricing goal. It wants to increase its market growth and stabilize the market. So they maintain loyalty to get their support. they are maintaining an effective pricing to beat their competition, which is rationale than their competitors price. To beat their competitor they have product differentiation, by which they can meet the need’s of different segment of customer.
19. Place
- Virgin used convenience stores and supermarket shelves as gateways to reach the hands and wallets of consumers.
- Targeting convenience stores like fast food shops and rode-side shops in public places and tourism spots, where thirst is the main motivation of purchasing soft drinks, really makes sense. Because these are the places where the convenience features of Virgin’s packaging will play their roles successfully. GBCL targeted these stores mainly to market its small PET bottle and can products.
- Supermarket shelves are targeted to market the Stock Keeping Units (SKU) of 1 Ltr. and 1.5 Ltr.
20. Promotion
- Promotion strategy is concerned with the planning, implementation and control of persuasive communication with customers. These strategies may be designed around advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, or any combination of all these.
- Virgin has a well-planned strategy for promotion. Promotion strategy of GBCL is concerned with two factors.
Consumer promotion: Customer satisfaction and motivate the consumer to buy the product through effective and attractive media or outdoor advertisements.
Trade promotion: Retailer satisfaction by offering good profit margins and distribution commissions.
21. Communication and Promotion strategy
- Promotions that really work-simple and straight forward with the focus on the consumer (trendy/cool/different/fun)
- Proactive use of PR to create hype and awareness-use Richard Branson as a strategic weapon; however reliance on his appearance at the launch must be absolutely avoided.
- Guerilla/buzz marketing tactics as an integral part of the strategy-thought provoking ads or fun street events.
- Marketing spending and activities should be planned to take into account the level of distribution in the market. Extensive above the Line (ATL) activities should not be undertaken before reasonable distribution levels are achieved.
- Emphasis on Point of Sale (POS) execution in-store is strongly encouraged as Soft Drinks is an impulse category and has to be widely distributed and well-merchandised, especially where teenagers gather areas and convenience stores.
The creativity in all efforts must support the brand core values and be flexible to allow for future expansion of the Virgin Brand
22. Conclusion
GBCL has the 3rd largest market share in our country. As a new brand , Virgin products are comprehensively doing well compare to other newly introduced beverages. The company has not yet built up any proper promotional activities for the traders, but hey are soon going to develop one. Although the company has a wide distribution channel, yet the products are not as available as Coca-Cola. In the competitive market, there are opportunities Global Beverage to expand its market share and target markets. Virgin strength lies on their skilled personnel, strong back up by the mother concern group and the quality of their product.
