Organic, Gluten-Free Whole Grain Products

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Marketing Audit
SWOT Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Marketing Objectives
Marketing Strategies
Measurement Plans and Reviewing
Contingency/Risk Factors
Conclusion
Reference List

Executive Summary

Despite the recent spur in the concern for whole-wheat products and gluten-free food, the hype for healthy nutrition seems to have died down. This has triggered a major concern in the companies that produce organic bakery and other gluten free products.

Moreover, the emergence of new entrants in the specified industry has triggered not only a drop in prices and, thus, in revenues, but also a considerable decrease in the amount of customers for the company.

Although the increase in competition rates can be viewed as an opportunity for the organisation to explore new opportunities in research and development by creating a new brand product and, therefore, define a new manner of marketing whole-wheat products to the target audience, the threat of losing an impressive part of the annual income is still quite tangible.

Herein the necessity to revamp the company’s image and to reconsider some of the issues related to marketing and research and development lies.

With the adoption of a more reasonable advertisement approach that will incorporate active use of modern media and a flexible financial policy, the baking company in question will be capable of becoming the leader in the specified industry. More importantly, this approach will allow for a complete reinvention of the industry.

A complex approach, which will allow for creating a brand product and an interesting legend behind it, will help improve the revenues of the company and raise demand for whole-wheat products.

Marketing Audit

It is suggested that the marketing audit should be conducted on a monthly basis. Thus, major issues will be spotted and at the same time enough time will be left for introducing changes to the current marketing strategy.

In addition to the assessment of the marketing strategy efficacy, the audit will help review the effects of the external and the internal marketing environments on the overall course of the company (Phillips, 2014, p. 221).

As far as the external elements of the marketing audit are concerned, it is essential to nail down the key specifics of the target customers. In the case in point, the basic characteristics of the denizens of the UK population, which are considered to be the key consumers of the whole grain products, must be identified.

As a study shows, the decision process, which a typical buyer has to go through before selecting the desired product, presupposes that a compromise between three key elements, i.e., the price, the quality and the enjoyment of the product, should be made.

Consequently, it will be essential that the pricing strategy along with a well established legend behind the brand product, should be developed prior to offering the goods to the customers.

In our company’s case, the emphasis must be put on the effects, which the brand product (i.e., the whole grains yogurt) is going to have on the customer and the taste properties which the product under consideration possesses.

At present, the company’s products can be characterized by a very tasty flavor, yet the legend behind the key goods has not been developed well enough and does not stand out of the range of similar ideas.

Therefore, it will be imperative that the customer should associate the company’s goods with a very specific idea, e.g., the idea of restoring one’s energy balance and consuming essential nutrients without the aftereffects that other products of a similar nature have (i.e., the digestion issues that regular yogurt may cause).

SWOT Analysis

Strengths	Great experience in the industry and a good grasp of the latest technologies in whole-wheat goods production; Equipment working perfectly and kept in a proper condition due to regular maintenance procedures; Adherence to the company’s ethics, which dictates that no fraudulent actions should be taken by the company staff; High quality standards and customer satisfaction as the top priority of the organisation; Incorporation of e-commerce into the company’s marketing framework and, therefore, the ability to promote the product to all denizens of the population
Weaknesses	Flaws in the marketing strategy, which does not allow for showcasing the benefits of the product; Dependency on the trends in dieting and, as a result, a major drop in the amount of customers once the fade dies down; Lack of a recognisable brand that the customers could relate to and, therefore, be inclined towards consuming; Lack of a coherent leadership strategy, which could improve motivation rates among the staff and, thus, increase their performance efficacy.
Opportunities	Introduction of major innovations and the following reinvention of the food industry in general and the whole grain production area in particular; Major advance in the specified area and the following strengthening of the company’s position in the target market; Attainment of customer satisfaction through the improvement of communication between the customer and the company staff; Development of a new brand, which will represent the company in the target market and become a household name for whole grain products among the target audience; Design of an elaborate leadership strategy, which will help
Threats	Failure to locate the appropriate leadership strategy and, therefore, motivate the staff so that the performance rates could be enhanced; Emergence of new and more successful entrants, which will be capable of achieving more impressive results within a shorter amount of time; An unfortunate choice of the new brand and the resulting misrepresentation of the organisation.

As the SWOT analysis shows, the company is currently in a desperate need for being revamped and having a brand product to promote. The specified need, however, can only be satisfied once a thorough marketing study is conducted and the key demands of the potential customers are identified.

More to the point, it is crucial that the latter should also be distilled among the general audience and that the key methods of advertising the product to them should be identified.

The SWOT analysis also shows quite clearly that the company lacks the product that could represent it in the realm of the UK market, not to mention the global environment.

The design of the brand may not break new grounds, yet it has to be in line with the company’s vision, mission and ethics, which concern the provision of high quality products to the customers and care for the latter’s health.

In addition, the fact that the current leadership approach leaves much to be desired is clearly the point of major concern. Unless the organization establishes a proper leadership approach, the motivation of the staff will drop inevitably. It is suggested that transformative leadership style should be integrated into the company management.

Thus, the organization will be capable of enhancing personal and professional responsibility in its staff, thus, leading to a major increase in their performance. It is assumed that incentives should be suggested so that people could become more loyal to the company and strive for better results.

Competitor Analysis

	Abel & Cole (Abel & Cole 2015)	Bob’s Red Mill (Bob’s Red Mill 2015)	Whole Grain Milling, Co. (Whole Grain Milling, Co. 2015)	My company
Products	Fruit, vegetables, whole grain food	Whole grain bread	Tortilla chips, grains, mixes, beef	Whole grain bread and bakery, cereals and chips
Price	High	High	Moderate	Moderate
Quality	Excellent	Good	Good	Excellent
Selection	Reasonable	Reasonable	Reasonable	Reasonable
Service	Satisfactory	Satisfactory	Fast and efficient	Fast and efficient
Reliability	High	Moderate	High	High
Stability	High	Moderate	High	High
Experience	Big (More than 10 years)	Big (more than 10 years)	Big (more than 10 years)	Small (less than a year)
Company reputation	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive
Location	Wimbledon, UK	Milwaukie, OR	Welcome, MN	London, UK
Appearance	Frequent	Rare	Rare	Frequent
Sales method	AIDA	One-off selling	ARC	AIDA (Mohammadi et al. 2012)
Credit policies	Credits to individuals and companies	Trade credit	Credits to individuals and companies	Trade credit
Advertising	Traditional and modem media	Traditional and modem media	Mostly traditional media	Combined (Traditional and modern media)
Image	The company, whose brand promotes a reasonable diet and show concern for people’s health	Corporate giant and a company with a variety of brands	Wholesome food producing company	Environmentalism and healthcare

As the table above shows, the company is in desperate need for a brand that will make it recognisable and allow for a better promotion of the products and services.

In addition, it is highly desirable that the number of products to offer the customers should increase; for instance, the advertisements could focus on not merely the fact that the chips produced by the organisation are healthy, but also that they come in several types of flavours, etc.

The comparison of the four companies has shown that the organization in question is going to face rather tough competition. The Nestle subdivision producing whole grain food seems to be the key threat to the stability of the company.

Since Nestle rarely promotes itself as the producer of whole grain food and the related products, it can be suggested that the organization under analysis should stake on organizing events that will help attract more attention to its products and, therefore, become the leader in the specified industry.

Marketing Objectives

As it has been stressed above, the company is currently facing the necessity to develop a brand product, as well create an attracting and interesting legend for it. Therefore, a successful introduction of the new product into the target market can be considered the key objective that the organisation should strive for achieving at present.

Moreover, several types of media should be used in the course of the product marketing.

To be more specific, traditional media, including TV commercials, advertisements in magazines, booklets with a full list of the products suggested by the organisation, billboard advertisements, etc., will be utilised for attracting the audience’s attention on a par with the modern media tools, e.g., social networks.

Apart from the specified objectives, the company will be striving towards promoting not only its goods, but also its image as the company that values its customers and cares about their health. This will require that the organization should reconsider its current values and make the promotion of healthy lifestyle its basic mission.

It is assumed that the entrance to both supplier and influencer markets will help the company promote itself and reach the top of the modern food industry.

Marketing Strategies

Viral Marketing

As far as marketing strategies are concerned, viral marketing should be viewed as the basis for the company’s promotion technique development (Chaston & Mangles 2002, p. 33). In fact, making viral marketing should be incorporated into the company’s marketing approach as the extension of the organisation’s vision.

Indeed, seeing that the company puts a very strong emphasis on healthy lifestyle and the promotion thereof to the target population, the idea of raising awareness on the subject matter through viral marketing makes quite a lot of sense.

Diversity Marketing

However, apart from the specified strategy, diversity marketing must be included into the organisation’s approach as well.

Seeing that the company will target at attracting a variety of customers of both genders, coming from various backgrounds and representing various nationalities and ethnicities, the company will have to develop several methods of marketing depending on the target demographics (Andreason 2001, p. 109).

Online and E-Mail Marketing

As it has been stressed above, the incorporation of modern information technology is vital for the company’s progress; therefore, the Internet should also be viewed as the place, where the company can promote its goods (Baker 2003, p. 28).

Moreover, the use of the Internet will help attract younger audience, whereas the traditional media can be considered the tool for inviting the older one to try the company’s products. Online marketing is a perfect way of advertising the company’s goods.

However, with the emergence of browser extensions, which block advertisements (e.g., AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, etc.), online marketing has become quite pointless. Therefore, e-mail marketing (i.e., sending the target customers e-mails regularly) must be viewed as an option.

E-mail marketing, however, should be used very carefully, as many people find consistent messages with little of essential information rather obnoxious.

Social Media Marketing and Cross Media Marketing

It is impossible to underrate the significance of social media in most people’s lives. Therefore, the company cannot possibly overlook the chance to promote its goods to the target audience without seeming too insistent. At this point, the importance of gaining loyalty among the users of social networks is essential for the company in question.

By subscribing to the newsfeed that will be provided regularly by the company via its social network profile, people will be able to learn more about the company’s products, its vision, mission and brands, and, therefore, will soon become interested in the goods that the firm has to offer.

Because of a high level of diversity among the ranks of the company’s target demographics, the significance of traditional media is not to be forgotten, either; thus, it will be required to place advertisements on billboards and public transport.

By crossing several types of media in its endeavours of speaking to as many denizens of the state’s population as possible, the company will engage in the so-called cross media marketing.

Measurement Plans and Reviewing

Naturally, it will be necessary to develop a framework for evaluating the company’s progress. While it is quite tempting to restrict the company’s evaluation to the use of a standard framework, it is desirable that a specific assessment plan should be developed based on the existing methods (Cranfield School of Management 2000, p. 11).

First and most obvious, the financial progress made by the company, i.e., the increase in its annual revenue, should be evaluated.

In order to carry out the assessment, one will have to compare the results displayed by the firm in 2015 to the ones that the company will deliver at the end of 2016 with the help of financial audits (‘Company assessment’ 2014).

A combination of a SWOT analysis (Ayub et al. 2013, p. 92) and the comparison between the financial statement of 2015 and 2016 will be required in order to provide a detailed overview of the changes that the company will have undergone by the time (Doyle 2002, p. 23).

It would also be a good idea to incorporate the Millennium Development Goals (Spitzer & Martinuzzi 2013, p. 4) into the assessment as the staple of a proper analysis of the company’s progress.

Apart from the aforementioned tools, the evaluation of the leadership style efficacy (Kotler, Lane & Keller K 2009, p. 118) will be required.

The specified assessment must be twofold, as it will incorporate the evaluation of the staff’s motivation and the change in the social and professional responsibility rates among the stuff as a result of the change in the leadership approach.

As far as the motivation assessment tool is concerned, an integration of several frameworks will also be required so that the slightest alterations in the behavioural patterns of the employees should be easily traceable.

Finally, the evaluation of the company’s sustainability will be required so that the progress should be clear and that the problem issues should be located easily.

The sustainability assessment, in its turn, can be carried out with the help of the instruments such as the Corporate Sustainability Assessment (Samuel-Fitwi et al. 2012, p. 185) and the S-CORE Sustainability Assessment (‘S-CORE™ Sustainability Assessment’ 2015, para. 1).

Contingency/Risk Factors

Naturally, certain risks are expected in the process of establishing the company in the new market and creating the brand that will supposedly revolutionise the industry. An alternative evolution of the target market, which has not been taken into account in the business plan, is the key threat to the company’s further progress.

Indeed, as it has been stressed above, the hype for healthy food may eventually disintegrate and the whole grain products will become unclaimed among the target audience.

One must admit, though, that a smart advertisement campaign, which will support the idea of healthy diet, will help address the specified issue by attracting people’s attention to the problem an prompting them to reassess their views on the subject matter.

Another risk associated with the marketing campaign concerns the product risk. While creating a whole grain product, such as yogurt, is a possibility for an organisation that operates in the food industry, there is still a major threat of the company failing to add the unique element that will make the brand instantly recognisable.

Indeed, seeing that the concept of whole grain yogurt is not new and that several organisations have already introduced similar projects to the global market, the company will have to be especially inventive in the description of the production technology and the legend behind the brand.

The fact that the efficacy of leadership strategy has not been verified yet may also be considered a major threat to the company’s performance and, therefore, quite a palpable threat for the organisation’s existence.

It should be noted, though, that the lack of cohesion in determining the marketing approach and the development of a proper motivational strategy for the staff to deliver better results shows that the company lacks transformative leadership. Herein the necessity to switch to the above-mentioned leadership approach lies.

Conclusion

Becoming a recognised brand in the food industry is not easy, especially when aiming at its whole grain products field. Because of the inconsistency in their enthusiasm towards the consumption of healthy food, target customers may be irresponsive towards the marketing campaign held by the company.

Therefore, an array of tools for tricking people into paying attention to the product, including the creation of a unique brand with an original legend behind it can be considered a solution to the problem.

By incorporating several tools for assessing the efficacy of the proposed plan, one will be able to not only identify the areas, where the plan in question succeeded, but also retrieve instructions on the issues that need further improvement, as well as the strategies, which will allow the company become even more successful in the target market.

It is expected that the adoption of the plan described above will help the organisation become one of the market leaders and raise its annual income by at least 20%, thus, setting the premises for the future revenue streak.

Reference List

Abel & Cole 2015, Whole Wheat Penne Rigate, Mr. Organic. Web.

Andreason, A 2001, Ethics in social marketing, Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.

Ayub, A, Razzaq, A, Aslam, M S & Iftekhar, H 2013, ‘A conceptual framework on evaluating SWOT analysis as the mediator in strategic marketing planning through marketing intelligence,’ European Journal of Business and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 91–98.

Baker, S 2003, New consumer marketing, John Wiley, London, UK.

Bob’s Red Mill 2015, Whole grains from the heart. Web.

Chaston, I & Mangles, T 2002, Small business marketing management, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

‘Company assessment’ 2014, MPA media. Web.

Cranfield School of Management 2000, Marketing management: a relationship marketing perspective, MacMillan Business, London, UK.

Doyle, P 2002, Marketing management and strategy, 3rd edn, Prentice Hall, London, UK.

Kotler, P, Lane, R & Keller K 2009, Marketing management, 13th edn, Prentice Hall, London, UK.

Mohammadi, S, Esmaeily, N & Salehi, N 2012, ‘Prioritisation of promotion tools based on AIDA model by Analytic Hierarchy process in production sector of sport industry,’ Archives of Applied Science Research, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1670-1675.

Phillips, A L 2014, ‘Systematic marketing facilitates optimal customer service: the marketing audit of a rural public library system,’ Public Library Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 219–235.

Samuel-Fitwi, B, Wuertz, S, Schroeder, J P & Schultz, C 2012, ‘Sustainability assessment tools to support aquaculture development,’ Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 32, pp. 183–192.

‘S-CORE™ Sustainability Assessment’ 2015, Sustainability Professionals. Web.

Spitzer, H & Martinuzzi, A 2013, Methods and tools for corporate impact assessment of the millennium development goals (MDGS) and sustainable development, European Sustainable Development Network, Vienna, Austria.

Whole Grain Milling, Co. 2015, Our products. Web.

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