Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 1

Assignment 1: Part A: Marketing Plan

John James

MKT 500 Marketing Management

28 July 2014

Dr. Jeffrey Kimmel

Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 2

Executive Summary
Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 3

Conduct an environmental analysis that includes competitive, economic, political, legal,

technological, and sociocultural forces.

Step1: Environmental Analysis:

1. Geralds Condiments, Inc. is a small local company outside of Seattle, Washington,

independently owned corporation that has been in business for over 25 years. The company was

established in 1998, and has become a local favorite for its Red Gold ketchup. The company

consists of 35 employees ranging from the Chief Executive Officer Anthony Gerald all the way Commented [JK1]: consists reads better

down to our drivers who ensure our product gets to the market. The marketing plan is carried

out by our CEO, CFO, Marketing Manager, and Production Design Manager.

Part A: The Marketing Environment

Competitive Forces:

1. The major competitors as of today are Awesome Ketchup, Heinz, Del Monte, and Hunts.

The strengths and weaknesses are below:

Strengths: Better-tasting ketchup than any other brands, Cheaper than most other companies,

Does not use high fructose corn syrup, Use tomatoes grown in Washington State.

Weaknesses: Not popular enough, have not been in the market very long, do not have any

ketchup advertisements, Low brand awareness, not in many stores.

2. Awesome Ketchup, Heinz, Hunts, Del Monte will likely be our major competitors in the

future.

3. If we decide to change our marketing mix our competition will probably not respond

because they feel we are not a threat to their profit share of the market.
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4. The structure of the industry affects competitive forces in the industry by the entry of

competitors, the threat of substitutes, the bargaining power of buyers, and the bargaining power

of suppliers.

Economic Forces: Commented [JK2]: If your primary marketing area at this time
is the Seattle area, then that is what you should have written about.

1. The general economic condition of the United State is in Recovery. Consumers are

optimistic about the economy in 2014. Consumer optimism about the economy reached a 12-

month high, good news for retailers hoping that a strong second half of 2014 can compensate for

sluggish sales earlier this year (NACS, 2014).

2. The buying power of consumers in our target market are enormous. All North American

households, specifically Moms.

3. The current spending pattern of consumers in our target market is one of increase, consumers

are steadily buying more of our product because of the recent exposure to our product through a

national taste test.

Political Forces:

1. Recent elections have not changed the political landscape.

2. We are understanding the political climate of what is going on in the state. There are no issue

that would threaten that relationship. Even though immigration could be a factor if more come

to work in the state.

Legal and Regulatory Forces:

1. No changes in federal, state, or local government regulations are being proposed that would

affect the way we operate at the moment.

Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 5

2. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT) may have some effect on our global Commented [JK3]: NAFTA North American Free Trade
Agreement

opportunities since it was created to promote economic growth. GATT will not affect it because

it no longer is in place it was replaced with World Trade Organization (WTO).

Technological Forces

1. Changing technology has allowed our target market to have more access to our product.

2. With the use of robots in the manufacturing plants will allow for faster packaging of the Red

Gold ketchup into the bottles for distribution.

3. With the Internet and different types of media we can market our product more efficiently. Commented [JK4]: Internet is a proper name, so the "I" is
always capitalized.

4. No technological advances will threaten to make our product obsolete

Sociocultural Forces

1. Demographics and values are changing because the baby boomers are dying and the gen

nesters are not following the same rules. They may possibly have an effect on our operations if

all managers leave due to retirement or death.

2. We have a product that most consumers like to use on their food. By using different kinds of

marketing strategies for instance like having a blind taste test. Once the consumer sees the brand

they like you can't get them to try the other brands.

3. The Government can intervene in the operations industry if problem exist.

4. We will not address any ethical issues at this time. A survey will be conducted to see if there

are any issue to address in the future.

Specify the primary and secondary target markets for your company. Be sure to cover the

4Ps, 5Cs and STP

Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 6

Gerald Condiments (GC) is a small company with big aspirations, but understands that

growth only comes through hard work. The primary market for Red Gold ketchup is United

State and the secondary target market is to go global and get inside China. It sounds impossible

but anything can happen with the right connections. In targeting the primary market what

product can be produced to entice the consumer? Many firms can invest in the product by using

high quality ingredients or doing extensive research and development to improve it (Perner,

2008). Geralds Condiments has perfected some different types of ketchups to appeal to the U.S.

consumer. GC is on the verge of spreading across the U.S. and go global at the same time due to

the fact that the best Basketball player in the world loves Red Gold Ketchup. GC grows the

tomatoes it uses for Red Gold ketchup in the state of Washington where the company is located.

GC has contracts with several local grocery stores who sell not only the ketchup, but also the

tomatoes, in small quantities because most of the tomatoes go to making the ketchup. GC is in

the process of coming up with a strategy on how to distribute Red Gold across the country.

GCs price point is a little lower than the major competition Heinz, Hunts, and Del Monte

because we grow locally. The issue GC faces is how much will it cost to deliver Red Gold to the

consumer across the U.S., refrigerator trains, or maybe planes. Earlier GC was talking about

being on the verge of a major endorsement of a famous basketball player. Since he likes Red

Gold it is a tradition to eat French fries before every home game so the arena started supplying

Red Gold not only to the basketball player but also to the vendors. With that endorsement GCs

Red Gold spring boarded across the country. Now GC is starting to reap the benefits of that

endorsement.

GC is fully aware of the importance of not neglecting the 5Cs in our marketing

framework. Customer, company, context, collaborators and competitors. All of these must be
Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 7

considered in producing the market plan. GC does not want to over emphasize any of them but

understands without customers there would be no need for the other four items. Once GC has

captured the customers a strategy has to be developed to keep them from going over to the

competition. GCs Marketing Manager, and Production Design Manager came up with a

strategy that will hopefully secure the consumer. Both them sought out the CFO to discuss cost

for this venture and get final approval from the CEO.

Conduct a performance analysis with set benchmarks of 50% to 75% per

annualized plan. Your analysis should include at least four (4) of the following metrics:

tracking down loads of Website content, Website visitors, increases in market share,

customer value, new product adoption rates, retention, rate of growth compared to

competition and the market, margin, and customer engagement. Develop four (4)

quantitative and (4) qualitative marketing objectives from your chosen metrics.

Performance analysis is obtained by dividing the difference between the gain from an

investment and the cost of the investment with the cost of the investment (gain from the

investment-cost of investment)/cost of investment) (Gregoriou, 2004). Since the benchmarking

percentages are provided, the analysis of each of the metric can be transferred so as to compare

the performance of Red Gold ketchup brand against its main competitor, Awesome Ketchup.

Activity time and visit frequency (for websites) metrics characterizes customer

engagement metric. The number of visitors can be used to determine the revenue of the

respective companies to a certain extent as site visitors can purchase the products online.

Comparing the average number of visits to the Red Gold website and the Awesome Ketchup

website reveals that 2000 people visit Red Gold on a daily basis compared to 4500 people for the

Awesome Ketchup website.

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3500/4500 gives .444 meaning that the number of unique visitors to the Awesome

Ketchup website exceeds the Red Gold website by 55.56%. Assuming that the retention rate for

Red Golds website was 30% June, 1st 2014, and improved to 50% in June 15th while that for

Awesome Ketchup was 50% and 70% respectively, the increase in retention rate will be given

as:

Red Gold: (50%-30%)/30%=0.6=60%

Awesome Ketchup: (70%-50%)/50%=0.4=40%

The other metric is the market share of each brand. Awesome Ketchup remains the

market leader with a 23% market share. The market share in the first quarter of the year increase

by 1 from 22% recorded previously. Red Gold on the other hand lags Awesome Ketchup with a

15% market share which is an increase from 11% recorded in the beginning of the year. Red

Golds growth is attributed to the introduction of new distribution channels while Awesome

Ketchups is attributed to its strong customer network. It never made any changes to its

marketing strategies in the period under review. The percentage increases in the market shares

can be computed as below:

Red Gold: (50%-30%)/30% = 0.6 = 60%

Awesome Ketchup: (23-22)/22 = 0.0045 = 4.5%

Analyzing the rates of growth reveals that, even though Awesome Ketchup has

maintained its position as the market leader, Red Gold growth strategies have enabled it to

minimize the gap. For the period under review, Red Gold has opened 10 new distribution

channels in various cities across the United States bringing them to a total of 60 distribution

channels in the country. Awesome Ketchup has on the other remained confident as the market

leader and maintained its number of distribution channels at 90. If the growth rates are
Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 9

maintained, Red Gold will equal Awesome Ketchups distribution channels in a year and thus

put Awesome Ketchups position as a market leader under threat.

From the metrics analyzed Red Gold shows poor performance in the number of website

visitors, customer engagement (through analysis of retention rate) and market share. It however

shows strong performance in the growth rate metric which could improve the performance of the

other metrics with time. The growth tempo has to therefore be maintained.

Quantitative goals for Red Golds next stage of development include:

Increase in the number of website visitors from 2000 to 5000 daily

Increase in the number of return visitors from 20% to 40%

Improve the market share beyond 15%

Explore new markets such as Europe and South America

Quantitative goals for Red Golds next stage of development include:

Improve customer relations through brand awareness

Improve the websites attractiveness by exploring need based design

Device mechanisms of collaborating with other market players to gain market

favorability

Pursue aggressive marketing strategies to ensure success of the new distribution channels

Conduct both a SWOT analysis and needs analysis for your product. Each analysis should

examine four strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for your company.

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and (Threats) is today one of the most

frequently employed instruments in strategic analysis (Al-Araki, 2013).

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Strengths Weaknesses

1. Better-tasting ketchup than any 1. Not popular enough

other brands 2. have not been in the market very long

2. Cheaper than most other 3. Low brand awareness

companies 4. Work with companies in other

3. Does not use high fructose corn countries to create better local

syrup products

4. Use tomatoes grown in Washington

State

Opportunities: Threats:

1. Acquire companies to compliment 1. Work with banks/investors to minimize

the changing American tastes losses from exchange rates

2. Promote positive brand image 2. Pressure from other local growers

3. Purchase more land for possible 3. Consumers may not may not gravitate

growth to Red Gold as Target Segment

4. Growth in U.S. and Globally 4. Quick Expansion (If not done

correctly)
Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan 11

References

Al-Araki, M. (2013). SWOT analysis revisited through PEAK-framework. Journal of

Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 25(3), 615-625. doi:10.3233/IFS-120668

Gregoriou, G. N. (2004). Commodity trading advisors: Risk, performance analysis, and

selection. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.

NACS (2014, July 15). Good News for Retailers: Consumer Optimism Surges. Retrieved

from NACS Online:

http://www.nacsonline.com/news/press_releases/2014/pages/pr071514.aspx#.U83B_7FAFWF

Perner, L. (2008). Food Marketing, Consumption, and Manufacturing. Retrieved from

http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/food_marketing.html