Monkey Snacks final report.

Rhiannon Jones 11SJP

Monkey Snacks
Final Report

Final Report

This final report compiles every aspect of the report to give Monkey Snacks an overview of the different chapters and segments and come to a final decision. This is vital as Monkey Snacks has many decisions whish must be made and therefore all the information in this report allows them to do so. This final report should help to end the company’s economic decline and begin to increase brand image, sales and most important of all profit. Without a final report this entire report would be a waste and would not benefit Monkey Snacks at all.

Product

Where the product is concerned, there are many factors that influence the final appearance, design and contents of the new crisps. This report has been very thorough when researching and looking at how an ideal product can be formed to give Monkey Snacks the best possible chance in having a new improved product, which will hopefully meet their target audiences’ requirements and end the slump in sales and profits.

Quality
Deciding the quality can be very difficult as high and low quality products both have a variety of advantages and disadvantages. At present Monkey Snacks crisps are of a fairly low standard, which may deter customers and give the impression that Monkey Snacks crisps aren’t very good, which would decrease profits remarkably. Although if Monkey Snacks were to increase the quality of their product too much, this will alienate their existing target audience and therefore lower sales and profit, which is obviously not a suitable thing to do. In this case Monkey Snacks must find a suitable level in-between high and low quality, which is a medium quality product. This should solve most problems as people will not be deterred by the low quality status, and the crisps will still be of a reasonable price, as costs will only be slightly increased. Demand of the product should also be in the middle of low and high, therefore allowing sales and profit to be made easily, by easily breaking even. Including an assured quality stamp will reinforce the present quality therefore no doubt will be present in the minds of the consumers, which could affect if they buy Monkey Snacks or not.

Something Different
Including something different in a product will give it a distinct advantage over competitors, resulting in an improved brand image and increased profit. Something a little different however must be cost effective, and must attract more attention without increasing costs dramatically. Therefore to add something different to Monkey Snacks crisps, the shape could be changed into an outline of a monkey, to give the crisps a playful, fun image adding something different to the product. This also shouldn’t be too expensive, if the same weight of crisps were used, costs should be roughly the same. This will successfully fulfil the criteria of adding something different and improve Monkey Snacks sales and profit.

Flavour
This is obviously a crucial part of the report, as deciding which flavour to improve is dire to Monkey Snacks and must be considered carefully. If the wrong flavour was chosen, Monkey Snacks could further their financial decline.
Salt and Vinegar has been chosen as the most suitable flavour to improve for many reasons. Salt and vinegar proved to be the most liked flavour in both the taste test and questionnaire conducted, meaning popularity is high and Monkey Snacks target audience in theory should prefer this flavour above others and therefore buy it. A very large percentage of 45% of overall people asked preferred salt and vinegar to any other flavour, therefore sales should be very high when this product is re-launched. This flavour was also chosen, because current sales of this flavour are very low at a mere 5000 sales in 2001, and over a period of 5 years has the lowest total sales. Therefore improving this flavour would increase sales dramatically, and hopefully boost total sales for the next year. Both these reasons support the decision and will therefore result in higher sales, which will raise profits for this flavour and others by increasing Monkey Snacks general awareness and improving brand image. Other flavours were not chosen as they may have had conflicting result such as prawn cocktail which has the highest sales in the past year, yet was the least liked by the public with only 10% of people asked having it as their preferred flavour. Flavours such as ready salted would also be worth considering for improvement, as 25% of overall people asked preferred them to the other flavours and they had the next lowest total sales figures with an even smaller figure then salt and vinegar of 4,500 sales last year.

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        Packaging
There are several factors to consider when designing the packaging for crisps. There has been much research into how the packaging should look and what should be included. Packaging is vital to Monkey Snacks launch of crisps, as this is what initially attracts a potential customer to the crisps; in this case children are very visually stimulated therefore packaging is made even more important.
        The packaging must be colourful as result show that this is the most popular form of packaging, gaining 70% of overall votes. Colourful packaging is also more eye-catching; therefore potential customers will be attracted to it, and want to buy it. Other leading crisp manufacturers also use brightly coloured packaging; therefore to follow the successful trend Monkey Snacks should also. This should all lead to an increase in customer attention being gained, leading to an increase in sales and profit. Plain packaging shouldn’t be used as children will be disinterested by it, and will therefore not want to buy it leading to decreased sales and profit. The colour for Monkey Snacks salt and vinegar flavour should be blue as this is the most common colour of packaging for this flavour and therefore will be recognised easily. If Monkey Snacks were to completely change the colour of salt and vinegar to orange for example this would confuse customers and could result in lower profits.
        To add something distinct to Monkey Snacks crisps that will make them more fun and interesting for their target audience, a joke could be added onto the reverse of the packaging, a simple one that will amuse children. This will increase the chance of that customer-becoming brand loyal, as they will remember the packaging and want to purchase Monkey Snacks crisps in future. This will again increase sales and profit. Indistinctive packaging is unlikely to be remembered by children and therefore they are unlikely to specifically buy Monkey Snacks crisps again.
        Promoting a fun brand image for Monkey Snacks can be done easily through packaging. Simply adding a fun-looking ‘Monkey Snacks’ logo on the packet will do this and attract further attention from children and young teens. Their distinctive name will also help their image stay in the minds of their target audience in hope for them to become brand loyal. A small, dull logo on the packet will promote an undesired brand image for Monkey Snacks that will decrease profit and sales, this is why a colourful, bright one should be used to increase sales and profit rather than the opposite.
        Other things which should be included on the packaging to promote a fun image as well as an environment friendly is a recycling symbol to encourage the younger generation to do this. There isn’t a direct momentary gain for Monkey Snacks by doing this, however it helps to save the environment from further human destruction for future generations, therefore is a good idea.
        To promote other Monkey Snacks flavours can be easily done through packaging, by simply stating they exist in a fun way. Using a slogan such as ‘Munch on other Monkey Snacks flavour crisps’, then listing the flavours will advertise Monkey Snacks other crisps and therefore increase their sales also. The Monkey Snacks website address can also be included on packets to further advertise other Monkey Snacks products. This will increase general publicity for Monkey Snacks eventually leading to larger profits.
        Packaging should also obviously be easy to open, easily transported and keep the crisps fresh, all for obvious reasons, which will prevent customer dissatisfaction. However f a customer is dissatisfy a contact number should be included on packaging.

Price

When pricing Monkey Snacks crisps great care must be taken to ensure that they’re priced so that the target audience will purchase them. If priced too high children will not be able to afford them, and priced too low not enough profit will be made and it will give a low quality impression, both leading to a decrease in profit. Therefore a price that makes a suitable profit which customers are willing to pay must be found.

The total cost of making one packet of crisps is 17p, which includes both fixed, and variable costs; therefore a suitable mark up must be made on this amount in order to make a profit. A smaller mark-up of 50% should be added which allows the final price of the crisps to be lower than competitors, which would be 26p, as this will attract more customers, and the target audience better as they have less money to spend on crisps. This smaller mark-up does mean less money will be made on each item sold, however Monkey Snacks will have sell more packets due to the improved brand image and the lower price therefore an adequate profit will still be made. The research conducted also shows that people don’t often pay less than the competitors’ (15% do) prices and therefore would most likely wish to buy Monkey Snacks crisps in order to make a saving. This small mark-up also results in another pricing method called penetration pricing, Monkey Snacks is very well suited to using this method as it helps smaller companies to break into the specific market segments, and increase general awareness of their company. Monkey Snacks must do this in order to primarily attract customers then gain brand loyalty, which will result in higher and constant profits. After Monkey Snacks customers have established a brand loyalty the mark-up can be increased to then make more profit.

Making a larger mark-up of 75% which would make Monkey Snacks crisps at the same selling price as competitors (30p) was not chosen, as Monkey Snacks hasn’t a well built up reputation like competitors and therefore would be less likely to sell as well, therefore a smaller total profit would be made. Using another pricing strategy such as loss leading wouldn’t have been suitable, as Monkey Snacks doesn’t own a store and the money that would hopefully be made through the sale of other products will not be passed onto them and therefore this method wouldn’t work, and result in a decrease of profits.

Promotion

Promoting Monkey Snacks new crisps is a very important as this can ‘make or break’ the crisps in relation to how well they succeed and how much profit is made by the. Monkey Snacks must be careful when considering in which ways to promote an item, as the many varieties all have advantages and disadvantages. If the crisps were promoted in such a way that did not target the specific audience, through advertising in broadsheet newspapers, which children obviously do not read, would cause the crisps to have low sales that would result in low profits for Monkey Snacks, and wasted company money for the advertising fees. Promotion methods must therefore be chosen carefully.

Magazine
Using this method is likely to be very productive, and would advertise Monkey Snacks crisps very well, and to the appropriate market sector, if a magazine such as Cosmo, or Beano was used. This form of advertising is very cost effective as people can view these adverts repeatedly and it isn’t very expensive. Children will also be viewing these advertisements, as they will be placed in magazines that interest them therefore increasing the awareness of Monkey Snacks as a company, and children will remember an eye-catching advert and therefore sales and profit are likely to increase. The questionnaire results also showed that 70% of people agree that the best method of advertising would be in a magazine. The questionnaire also asked about favourite magazines, this is helpful as Monkey Snacks now knows, which magazines would be useful to place adverts as to how popular they were. Cosmo and Beano were the two joint favourites for the males and females; therefore placing an advert in these two magazines would be economically sensible for Monkey Snacks. Other magazines can also be considered such as Bliss and Spiderman, which are of the same child/teen genre. Placing an advert in a magazine such as FHM would be pointless, as children will not read these types of magazines and the people who do are unlikely to buy children’s crisps, therefore resulting in a loss of profit due to low sales and unnecessary costs.

Radio
This method, although voted to be unsuitable by the questionnaire, radio advertising is cheap and can reach a wide audience. If used would compliment the magazine advertisements as this would increase the awareness of Monkey Snacks and would further increase sales and profit. A theme tune could be added to grab listeners’ attention and project the message clearer to the audience to improve awareness also.

Special Offers
Monkey Snacks has a broad choice here, and can include many special offers to increase total sales, however they must be fairly economical so that costs aren’t too high which will hinder the chance of making a large profit.
Including a small free gift would increase sales and wouldn’t increase costs very much therefore this would be suitable. A small free gift that could be included is monkey stickers, which tell different parts of a story, this would encourage children to keep buying the crisps to continue with the story. Various stories can be included to keep sales constant. This will also serve as a primary trademark, which will be remembered by children, and therefore their approval and memory will lead to brand loyalty in the future ending in total sales and profit being increased for Monkey Snacks. This can also be altered slightly, by including a competition that will increase sales and profit further. A competition such as, gold stickers win mountain bikes or something else like a Discmans. This will attract many customers at a small cost to the company, therefore proving to be very economic for Monkey Snacks.

PR
To improve public relations Monkey Snacks could do many things, which will lead to increased awareness of the company, and a better brand image all resulting in larger sales and profit. The most sensible PR event, which could be conducted to improve initial publicity for the company, is something involving children to try and target their main audience. A publicity stunt could be undertaken by the managers and staff of Monkey Snacks to help a children’s hospital such as a sponsored bungee jump, this dramatic type of stunt will be certain to grab attention but will also do a lot of good for a worthy cause therefore both parties benefit.
When Monkey Snacks is in a more economically stable situation they can consider sponsoring events such as school fun days, however as the lack of money is an issue for Monkey Snacks this would be unsuitable, as it could hinder their economic status, rather than help at the moment.

Place

Deciding where to sell Monkey Snacks crisps must be done carefully in order to reach the target audience and ensure enough sales will be made to make a profit. How to get the product to that location and in which channel of distribution must be carefully considered also as if it isn’t, company costs may increase and profits as a result lowered.

Location
Monkey Snacks already sells their crisps at the two most obvious locations therefore other alternatives must be considered. Vending machines and petrol stations are the other immediate candidates with a combined high popularity after supermarkets and corner shops in the questionnaire popularity poles. These locations will improve sales and help attract more custom in general. Other locations such as the Internet were not chosen due to its irregularity nature in selling crisps.

Transport
Road was an easy and obvious decision as it fulfils all the necessary criteria, and it’s cost effective, and many form of transport can use roads such as van and lorries. Air was obviously not chosen as the UK is relatively small and this method of transportation is ridiculous for Monkey Snacks to use.

Channel of Distribution

This method was chosen as it is fairly simple and Monkey Snacks already use it therefore no change must take place to confuse retails. The existing mark up can also remain the same in order for a suitable profit to be made. The 50% mark-up would also have to get smaller if a wholesaler was added to the chain, which would result in smaller profits for Monkey Snacks. In future with the amount of retailers increasing another channel of distribution could be considered which may include a wholesaler.

Conclusion

In conclusion to this report, I feel that it would be difficult to improve upon it, as it has looked at Monkey Snacks and its situation in grave detail. Many possibilities have been considered and the best alternatives discussed in the final report. If I had more time, the prices for the listed advertising methods could be researched, the questionnaire could have been given to more people to make more the results more accurate.