Having collected and analysed all the results, I will now the use results to produce packaging for my product which appeals to my target audience.
I asked the question “What material would you prefer the packaging to be made from?” to discover what material people in my target market would prefer the packaging to be made from, I have used these results to determine whether or not to produce packaging made from cardboard, plastic, foil or others. My results tell me that there are more customers who prefer packaging made from foil than there are customers who prefer anything else; I know this because there are 46% customers who prefer foil, only 4% who prefer cardboard, 42% who prefer plastic, 4% who prefer paper and 4% who prefer wool, therefore the packaging for my product will be made from foil.
I asked the question “What colour would attract you to our packages” to learn what colours would appeal to the people in my target market; I have used these results to determine what colour my packaging will be. My results tell me that, there are more customers who prefer the colour blue then there are customers who prefer any other colour. I came to this conclusion because 22% of my customers prefer the colour blue whereas only 5% prefer green, 9% prefer red, 20% prefer pink, 6% prefer brown, 6% prefer black, 17% prefer purple, 4% prefer white, 4% prefer yellow, 7% prefer orange and 0% prefer others, therefore the packaging for my product will be blue.
I asked the question “What qualities would you like the packaging to have?” to detect what qualities the people in my target market would like the packaging to have; I have used these results to determine what kind of qualities the product packaging will contain. My results tell me that more customers would like the packaging to have the peel here quality than any other type. My results inform me of this because 44% of my customers prefer the peel here quality, whereas only 33% prefer to have a window, 15% prefer to have a game, 4% prefer to have a story and 4% prefer to have a 50% free offer, therefore the packaging for my product will have the peel here quality.
Front
Back
The packaging for my product is made from blue foil and contains all the information about the nutrition, ingredients, best before end date, weight, slogan, recycling and contacts, the front of the packaging also has a peel here quality, the product name and the catchy slogan. The packaging is a medium sized bag which holds the square shaped chocolate.
Promoting your product
The purpose of advertising is to familiarize the public with a certain brand or product. Companies spend millions of pounds a year on advertising so that when the public are searching for a product or service a certain brand is recognised and, as a result, their product or service is chosen.
Companies need to ensure that their money is spent wisely. They do this by completing extensive market and psychological research. Members of the public from a company’s target group or audience are chosen to express their views about the advertisement before it is published or aired.
Media can include television, cinema and radio. This is the communications aspect of advertising. The other areas for advertisements are the press. This contains the national and regional press, such as newspapers, magazines, posters and specialist publications that are aimed at a narrower market for people with certain interests.
Promotion has many advantages, for example, promotion is an effective way to inform potential customers about your business. Promotion improves competition because if your business advertises the product it is selling but your competitor does not then your business is more likely to win the customers. Promotion helps your business to become more well-known because a customer will see your advertisement and associate certain images with your business, such as netto which is recognized by the image of a dog with a basket. Promotion also helps to increase sales; it is proven that effective advertising helps businesses to sell more.
However promotion also has many disadvantages, for example, promotion is very expensive, no matter which promotional method you use, and cost will be involved. Promotion has no guarantee of success as often the advertisements can be missed and not viewed by the audience it is intended to be aimed at. Promotion is also very difficult to make unique as often there are several businesses doing the same thing which can seem repetitive to the audience.
There are several different methods of promotion, which include advertising methods of promotion and non-advertising methods of promotion. Advertising methods of promotion include; television advertisements, radio advertisements, internet advertisements, featured selling space, events, film, buses, cold calling, samples, billboards, company car, flyers, magazines, posters, blimps and endorsement. Non-advertising methods of promotion include; sponsorship, public relations and word of mouth.
Television advertisements would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also this would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can be timed to appear after a certain program, this would be a good opportunity for my company to ensure that the advertisement appears when my target audience is most likely to be watching. Although there are many advantages to using television advertisements, this is a very expensive form of advertisement. Also this type of advertisement is difficult to make unique and may seem very repetitive to the majority of the audience.
Radio advertisements would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also this would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can have a catchy tune which would represent the product, for example the Sheila’s wheels advertisements. Although there are many advantages to using radio advertisements, this can be a very expensive form of advertisement. Also this type of advertisement, if it includes a catchy theme song, may become annoying to the majority of the audience.
Internet advertisements would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also this would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can be made to appear on certain websites, this would be a good opportunity for my company to ensure that the advertisement appears on a website that my target audience is most likely to visit. Although there are many advantages to using internet advertisements, there are also some disadvantages, such as, not everybody has the internet therefore not everybody would be able to view the advertisements. Also some people tend to mistake advertisements for pop-ups; this can be annoying to the majority of the audience.
Film would be a good form of promotion because many people would buy a product if that product has been linked to a celebrity, for example, James Bond; the Aston Martin car is very well known due to this film and this has been commented by many viewers of the film. However using a film for advertisement will be very expensive therefore this is only a good method of promotion if your business is making a large profit.
Public transport would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also when people are sat on the bus, to keep themselves entertained they might read the advertisements around them therefore they could become more informed about the product than they would be with just a passing glance at it on other things, such as the internet. However using public transport for advertisement might not be very effective not many people will be able to see the advertisement clearly if the form of transport is moving at a great speed.
Billboards would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also billboards are very large and if the advertisement is made to be attractive then this form of promotion can be very eye-catching. Billboards are fairly cheap therefore can be placed in a large variety of locations. However this type of promotion can be easily destroyed by elements, such as the weather, or even purposely by teenagers’ graffitiing.
Magazines would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also this would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can be made to appear in certain magazines, this would be a good opportunity for my company to ensure that the advertisement appears in a magazine that my target audience is most likely to visit. Although there are many advantages to using magazines for advertisements, this form of advertisement can be easily missed and not viewed by the target audience.
Posters would be a good form of promotion because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also posters are cheaper than other methods of promotion. Although there are many advantages to using posters for advertisements, this form of advertisement can be easily missed and not viewed by the target audience. Also this type of promotion can be easily destroyed.
I have decided to use television advertisement and internet advertisement to promote my product. Television advertisement is a good form of promotion for my product because this type of advertisement is an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. This would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can be timed to appear after a certain program, this would be a good opportunity for my company to ensure that the advertisement appears when my target audience is most likely to be watching also I have learned from my research that 50% of my target market would prefer television advertisements as this is what would most influence them to buy my product. Internet advertisement is a good form of promotion for my product because this type of advertisement is also an easy way to inform a wide range of customers about my product, this would be appropriate for my chocolate bar because my product is aimed at quite a large target market. Also this would be a good form of promotion as the advertisements can be made to appear on certain websites, this would be a good opportunity for my company to ensure that the advertisement appears on a website that my target audience is most likely to visit.
I asked the question “What kind of advertisements appeal to you?” to perceive what type of advertisements the customers in my target market prefer; I have used these results to determine what type of advertisements appeal to my customers. My results tell me that more customers prefer happy advertisements than any other type. My results inform me of this because 30% of my customers prefer happy advertisements, whereas only 13% prefer storytelling, 0% prefer scary, 27% prefer happy, 0% prefer sad, 17% prefer sexy, 13% prefer animated and 0% prefer other, therefore the advertisements I produce for my product will be happy advertisements.
I asked the question “What would you like the advert to include?” to discover what the people in my target market wanted the advertisement to include, I have used these results to produce and advertisement that appeals to the people in my target market. My results tell me that there are more clients who would prefer to include an image of a person enjoying the product, the price and health information than there are anything else, I know this because there are 24% customers who prefer an image of a person enjoying the product, 22% customers who prefer to include price and13% customers who prefer to include health information whereas only 11% customers who prefer to include ingredients, 11% customers who prefer to include the selling locations and 0% customers who prefer to include other things, therefore the advertisement I produce for my product will include an image of a customer enjoying the product, the price of the product and health information about the product.
My television advertisement will be about teenagers sneaking the product from behind their parents’ backs; once they have done this and they are shown enjoying the product then the slogan will appear saying “your secret is safe with us”. The screen will then change to other people who are supposedly exercising but taking quick bites of the product, this is when the health information will appear. Then a lot of images of people enjoying the product will be shown at once and finally the price of the product will appear on screen. All through this a cheery song will be playing in the background, the advertisement will last for about 45 seconds and the name of the product will appear in large writing near the end.
My internet advertisement will be an image of a teenager trying to take the product from a kitchen cupboard but his mother catches him, the slogan will be next to this image and the price will be constant at the top corner of this image. This will be a still image but there will be a cheery song playing that can be muted so not to annoy the audience. Also when a mouse is scrolled over the advertisement the name of the product will appear in large letters with a direct link to the company’s website.
Deciding the price
Using the research I have collected and taking into account all the other factors, I have decided that the price of my product will be 75p.
I have come to this conclusion partly from using the results of my questionnaire, I asked the question “How much do you think is suitable to pay for a flavoured bar of chocolate with fillings or toppings?” to perceive how much my customers would be willing to pay for this type of product; I have used these results to determine how much my product will cost. My results tell me that more customers are willing to pay 50p and £1than any other amount. My results inform me of this because 44% of my customers are willing to pay 50p and 32% are willing to pay £1, whereas only 16% are willing to pay £1.50, 8% are willing to pay £2 and 0% are willing to pay other. From this information I have discovered that most of my target market would like to pay 50p, however I cannot use this price for my product as it is too low and would cause my company to become a loss leader. If my company became a loss leader it would meant that the price of my product is set deliberately low, even below cost, in order to encourage customers to buy my product.
The other aspect that helped me reach my conclusion is the price of other products. The average price of other similar products is 70p; I decided that if I charge too much for my product then the customer will feel that my product is a “rip off”. If I charge the same as the competition then people may stick with their original product, if I charge too little for my product then I may waste the opportunity to make a profit from the new product. Because of this dilemma, I came up with a few advantages for each. The advantages of charging more than the competition is that you are able to make a larger profit from initial sales, the customers are manipulated into thinking that the product is of a higher quality because it is more expensive than the other products and it is a new product so customers would be willing to pay high prices. The advantages of charging the same as the competition is that people are already willing to pay this amount because they are used to it, it manipulates the customers into thinking that it matches the current quality of other products and people will be willing to experiment because they will feel that it is the same price as the product that they normally buy so they might as well try it. The advantages of charging less than the competition is that the product will be able to compete with established brands, the product will form a good reputation, more people are willing to buy and try cheaper products and people look for bargains.
Therefore I have decided to set the price of my product to be in-between the two prices my target audience most preferred and still be similar to the price of other similar products.
Once my product becomes better known in the market I will use one of the following strategies to help my product compete with other products; market skimming, competitive pricing and penetration pricing. Market skimming means that the price of my product will start out more expensive than similar products because it is new, but eventually the price will level out and become a similar price to similar products. Competitive pricing means that the price is similar to the price of similar products therefore my product will be able to compete with these similar products. Penetration pricing mans that the price starts out cheaper than the price of similar products to convince people to buy this product, but eventually the price will level out and become a similar price to similar products. I have chosen to use the competitive pricing strategy as my products starting price will be similar to the price of similar products and because chocolate is quite a high demand but low value product therefore the price will not have to change much to convince customers to buy the product.
A strategy that I will use for my product once it has been out in the market for a while and reaches the maturity stage of the product life cycle is that I will offer discounts. This means that if you buy a large quantity of my product the price will be reduced a little and there will be seasonal offers etc. The other strategies that I had to choose from were; price leader, which means the price is set above the market level, destroyer pricing, which means the price is set well below the market price in order to drive weaker rivals out of business, predatory pricing, which means that an existing firm lowers the price well below the market price in order to drive out new and smaller competitors, promotional pricing, which are things such as buy one get one free offers, loss leader, which means that the price of the product is set deliberately low to encourage customers to buy the product, complementary goods, which means that the profit is still higher due to the higher mark up despite the reduce contribution and psychological pricing, which means that the prices are set to a certain level just below a price but the customers are manipulated into thinking that they are getting a great offer on the product. However I have chosen not to use any of these strategies.
This really is absolutely excellent and it is clear to see that when it comes to your coursework next year you will do very well! One key point though to work on in this piece is that you are telling me all of the theory spot on but you are not relating it to your product. In other words when you have talked about the different methods of advertising you have simply said what they are and the advantages and disadvantages. What you need to do is explain them in terms of how your business could use them and the advantages and disadvantages that it would bring to your business.
Overall, this is an A grade. It will easily be an A* when you make your theory throughout applied. Well done!