Within Coors Brewers we have many areas where this can be measured, internally and externally. There is very little evidence to show the various different areas of the business put in quality measures to assess their impact on the business and the internal customers that they serve.
Coors Brewers have marketing departments specifically dealing with market, consumer, category and bespoke customer research on independent brands and activities. These departments use academic methods of assessing where Coors Brewers are positioned within the industry, how our products are rated and who our customer base is. These are regularly assessed due to the ever-changing environment and the external factors that affect the industry. However, the individual departments work on specific brands and are in isolation to each other. There is a potential need for more cross brand integration. During the discussion with Interviewee A, there was evidence of this. “I worked in the Carling department, not sure what other brands do or what market research is undertaken”. This may well allow for areas of overlap and unnecessary duplication of work
2.1 Coors Brewers – External Marketing
If we follow the path of the strategic marketing plan process, (Appendix I), then this gives structure, format and direction, although the steps may not necessarily follow in the same order each time. The process is reiterative and therefore each area may be repeated several times in order to achieve the best results. With the environment changes and customer needs changing there is always going to be the need to review. There should be some caution when undertaking the assumptions aspect in phase five as it is extremely difficult to make assumptions and if not careful these may work to a disadvantage. It should also be remembered that this process is a guideline and some areas may not be applicable in a smaller company for example where a formalised plan is unnecessary due to the knowledge and skill of its management. There are also different versions of marketing plans, some of which are much more simplistic but give the same end result. It is possible that the simplistic ones may be easier to follow and also may be more appropriate to certain tasks.
The two primary tasks that should be undertaken when commencing with a Strategic Marketing plan are to produce a Mission Statement and S.W.O.T. analysis.
Coors Brewers objectives are clear with our Corporate Goal of:
‘Brew great beer for young adults and be their beer for life’ this is part of our Route to NO.1 strategy, which has the sole aim of making us the number 1 brewer in the UK by 2010.
The Company ambition is to be first in the industry with high profit margins, selling quality products and also being family run business with family values. As a Company Coors Brewers strive to fulfil the customer needs at the same time as making a living.
The five key values are ‘Quality, Integrity, Creativity, Passion and Excellence’, looking after both the employee needs and with regard to the social and environmental responsibilities.
2.2 S.W.O.T Analysis
Figure 1 below outlines some of the key considerations in a S.W.O.T analysis.
Figure 1
From the analysis above, the right hand column shows the weight of importance it has within the area. In the “Strengths” area Coors Brewers need to invest some time to looking at the manufacturing capabilities and the technological skills. These areas may then impact the “Weaknesses” area where we could benefit from innovation to give us the competitive edge and therefore be less reliant on Carling as a cash cow. Coors Brewers are looking at collaborative working with the parent Company, Coors Brewers Company, USA and aligning systems and practices. Alongside this, production sites have been rationalised in response to the loss of export business. These actions should all move towards a more streamlined and efficient business, reducing base cost and therefore potentially increasing profitability. The economical threat is always going to be an on-going battle as this is an unpredictable area with government interaction.
Overall, the analysis shows that Coors Brewers still have the strength to sustain the differentiation in the marketplace.
2.3 Marketing Audit
With regard to the marketplace, continual assessment of where Coors Brewers are positioned is undertaken. One method of attempting to understand the competitor, as used in Coors Brewers marketing department, was explained by Interviewee A, “The team work through scenario’s within a role play environment where they enact various situations, putting themselves in the competitors shoes”.
In Appendix II the table shows some other key factors which may impact on the Company strategy.
It is also worth considering the P.E.S.T. analysis information that takes other areas into account. (See Appendix III)
One of the key factors that can be seen in this area is the change in social drinking as depicted below. This shows how impactful the shift has been from old to new style. A key driver to diversify into more branded drinks such as the FAB’s and the still soft drinks, wider distribution channels, wider choice of lagers and beers with a varying range of prices, and the short life themed drinks such as Vodka Snapshots and Screamers. An example of where market research has identified a need and fulfilled that need.
Source: Coors Brewers - Brewnet Strategy web page, December 2002
In order to assess a Company marketing strategy it is necessary to identify the potential threats in their various guises, an organisation could obtain the competitive advantage to exploit opportunities. In Appendix IV, Porters Five Forces model, (Hannagan 2002 p.149), shows the Company position currently. Coors Brewers are positioned in the Differentiation sector due to the broad scope of our products and the quality of our brands. Coors Brewers have a loyal clientele with the Carling brand. Coors Brewers are also market leaders in new product development and innovation in the technological field. The appeal is therefore not only to our consumers but also to the customer. We recently received the off-trade supplier of the year award.
Interbrew currently have a more narrow target with their key brand being of high quality in a limited area whilst Carlsberg Tetley are highly focused on low cost with no differentiation and a lower quality brand and no differentiation or outstanding quality.
The Boston Matrix, (Hannagan, 2002, p. 113), in Appendix V then goes on to show the market share and growth areas. Coors Brewers already have a very high market share in the mainstream lager sector and growth potential in the premium lager market. Within FABs, Screamers are a new product that is dependent on constant innovation but delivers incremental profit and is strategically placed for high growth rate. Reef has outlived the predicted life-cycle in the RTD market.
This is supported by figures reported in the Coors Brewers balanced scorecard that show a 1% increase in the UK market share, (Appendix VI).
As an example of meeting customer needs, research undertaken on the Worthington brand showed that 75% of drinkers preferred the beer in branded glass, subsequent to this four new branded glasses were produced for each of the Worthington brands, thus adding the differential to our product range. Re-branding of the Worthington Creamflow has shown an increase in performance and put them ahead in the market place by 18.6%. (Coors Brewers, Worthington’s Autumn 2002, Issue 2) Again following market research and competitor analysis.
2.4 Brand Strategy and the Marketing Mix
There are some key elements to brand strategy and achieving objectives, these are referred to as the four P’s, Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Coors Brewers have a good example of where they have taken advantage of these objectives with the emergence and innovation within the industry in the land of E-Commerce.
Product: - Information has become a product via the Internet. No constraints on space and individual communications to the customer.
Place: - Largest marketplace ever within the World Wide Web.
Price: - Standardisation of prices visible on the net. Consumer comparison. Similar to the travel industry where the middleman has been eliminated.
Promotion: - Consumer insight has changed. We are now able to collate information by monitoring the users of the WebPages. Still have brand focus, for example, Sainsburys customers will still buy from their website with more information available for the customer. It is also much easier to launch new products via this platform although this is not a front facing promotion that can be pushed.
McKinsey’s seven-S framework attempts to identify some of the characteristics that the more successful companies have. These areas play a role in reviewing how the successful the strategic planning of a company is. Appendix VII shows this diagram relative to Coors Brewers and where there are successful areas. With any strategy there is always the re-iterative process to review.
2.5 Creative Brief
Once brand strategy and the marketing mix are identified, there is the task of the Creative Brief. This identifies various areas such as company differentiation, straplines, personality profiles, which all contribute to the marketing plan.
Appendix VIII shows what a creative brief may be for a typical brand within Coors Brewers.
2.5 Marketing Orientation
When developing a marketing orientation it is key that the customer/consumer is the central focus in order to achieve the advantage over competitors. In model 1 below, this illustrates one process that does not really accentuate the customer/consumer role or truly indicates they are at the forefront.
Model 1
Source: Adapted from P Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 41.
A preferable model to show the role of marketing would be where the customer/consumer is physically central to the whole thought process as per model 2 below.
Model 2
Source: Adapted from P Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 421.
This model clearly outlines that the customer/consumer is the central part to a strategic business plan and demonstrates how other functions within a business should work around meeting their customer needs.
Coors Brewers are a relatively high customer and consumer focused company, from a marketing and production perspective, and indeed within the marketing department those two areas areas are separate. However, other areas of the business would benefit from the wider picture.
“In competitive markets this means that success goes to those firms which are best at meeting the customer needs”, (Doyle, 1998, p. 62).
Services Marketing
Services’ marketing has the basic underpinning activities to that of products but there are subtle additions as there are more intangible facets.
“There are no such things as service industries. There are only industries whose service components are greater or less than those of other industries. Everyone is a service”, (Levitt, 1981, Harvard business review May-June, p 94-102). Arguably there are service industries that do not physically produce a product and therefore there are intangible aspects. When looking at the marketing mix for services there are additions to the four P’s to include People, Physical evidence and Process, as depicted in Appendix IX. All of which could have very strong elements of the intangible. When generating this process need to ensure that the customer would be able to follow and as the service is intangible need to look for evidence of what will be provided. In the model of the Goods-Service continuum, (Appendix X), this shows the types of industry and where they sit on the scale. The Brewing industry is definite tangible goods but within Coors Brewers there are also large service areas that could potentially be classed as separate entities, for example an IS department.
Important benefits from improving service quality would be seen in several things, for example, reputation, premium prices and improved profitability, reduce re-work by right first time approach and low attrition rate of employees.
If you work with the GAP model, (See Appendix XI), this can assist with working through the quality areas within service. One of the crucial parts of this model is at Gap 5. This is where there is a strong need to publish what service can be expected and ensure that this is what is perceived to be the case by the customer. This could be done in the form of SLA’s and KPI targets. There is also a key part which is not included in this model, that of the “moment of truth”. A customer’s impression of a company is made within the first few minutes, this is known as the moment of truth, if this is then linked with the word of mouth communication this can have a very damaging effect. There needs to be some very definite measures and quality checks implemented to ensure that expectations and perceptions are equal and that both internal management and the customers are aware of the levels. In the Coors Brewers environment for internal measurements there are customer satisfaction questionnaires and the business alignment process. These are all key indicators of how well we are meeting those needs.
The business alignment programme and period reporting enables publication of progress and targets on meeting customer needs internally. The balanced scorecard indicates how the Company is achieving externally but there could be more publication to the general customer base.
4. Communication
Once the models and theories have analysed your position there is then the need for communication. This is to ensure that your brand or service is promoted in the correct manner. Key factors when producing a communications plan are to determine the objectives and design an appropriate message, this may be to create awareness or to correct mis-interpretations about your company. In an incident of product recall, the message needed to go out to make people aware of why and what remedial action had been taken to ensure no further recurrence.
Determine a budget and the ideal promotional mix. Always ensure that activities are scheduled and that results are reviewed in order that changes can be made where necessary. Evaluation is the key. The promotional mix will be very dependent on what product or service you are selling and to whom you are aiming it, which in turn will impact on the budget. In order to promote Carling’s new image there have been high levels of TV advertising, relationship marketing and radio sponsorship to promote the Carling Live shows. New associations with young and lively people need to be advertised in the correct manner. It may well be the case that the budget cannot be predicted accurately until the campaign has been decided.
The effectiveness of marketing plan has to be an essential part, without effective monitoring and evaluation it is possible to be “throwing good money after bad” and end up with disastrous results. A system currently on pilot within Coors Brewers is that of an activity planner that monitors the effect of promotions, enabling effective monitoring of how well a promotion is performing.
Awareness of marketing plans is not communicated internally within the company on a large scale. There are some key promotional adverts that mobile phone users are made aware of and advertised internally on the Coors Brewers intranet but general marketing plans are not published therefore employees are not aware of up coming ideas or new products. There are some incentives on-going that are instigated by employees themselves and the beer reverence campaign but these are not pushed enough by the generating areas.
5. Implementation
“Marketing implementation is the process that turns marketing plans into action assignments”, (Adapted from Meeting Customer Needs, Lecture notes, February 2004).
Strategy needs to be effective in order that you achieve a successful implementation. Ensuring you have specific actions set out, a programme for control, structure in place for monitoring and budgeting and the correct corporate policies. The model below illustrates how implementation is dependent on these factors.
Source: Adapted from P Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 438.
6. Conclusions
In conclusion to this report, Coors Brewers are, to a degree, a customer orientated company. There are key brands that are fundamentally the backbone of the business which have maintained the market share by sustaining the differential from other companies within the industry. Although marketing plans are not a public entity to the Coors Brewers employees, key initiatives are communicated via Intranet pages and occasional mobile phone text. Individual areas are responsible for their own brands marketing but there could be more unification between departments which may give a more effective outcome in some situations.
There is evidence to support the fact that CB are a customer orientated business in the way that they respond to market research, meeting customer needs with branded glasses, rebranding and popularising older brand names to make them more attractive to specific audiences and moving towards a healthier image with the “beer naturally” campaign. The association of Carling with live bands and taking them back to the roots as well as our constant innovation programme gives the consumer the overall image of a lively and up to date company.
Internal marketing is sporadic dependent on the area of the business. There is the Business Alignment Programme that attempts to bridge the gap between the business and other departments and there are initiatives in place to build on this with the potential investment into research and development and a more proactive approach.
The annual performance reviews also attempt to align the individual to the business and apportion some responsibility towards the Company success.
7. Recommendations
Coors Brewers as a Company should be looking for a more integrated marketing plan, combining the efforts of each brand-marketing department to enable a more effective promotional plan. There should be more awareness across the business of what actions are in place to meet the customer needs and internally more promotion of activities taking place.
With the collaboration between Coors USA and Coors UK there is a need to emphasise in advance the importance of communicating marketing plans, expected outcomes and publicised customer service levels.
Internal departments within Coors Brewers should be investigating ways of marketing their own services to the rest of the business and conversely recognising the responsibility that each area has.
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Bibliography
Booms BH, and Bitner, MJ, (1981) Marketing Strategies and Organisation Structures for Service Firms in J Donnelly and WR George (Eds) Marketing of Services, American Marketing Association, Chicago
Coors Brewers, (2002). Strategy website. (online). Burton upon Trent: Coors Brewers Offices, December 2002. Accessed via the URL>
Coors Brewers, 2002, Worthington’s Autumn Issue 2. Burton upon Trent.
Doyle, P, (1998) Marketing Management and Strategy, Second Edition, Hemel Hempstead, Prentice Hall Europe
Hooley, Graham J., Saunders, John A., & Piercy Nigel F, (1998), Marketing Strategy & Competitive Positioning, Second Edition, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall Europe
Hannagan, T, (2002) Management Concepts and Practices, Third Edition, London, Pitman
Levitt, T, (1981), Harvard Business Review, May-June.
McDonald, M, (1995) Marketing Plans How to Prepare them: How to Use them, Third Edition, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann
Nottingham Business School, Managerial Task, Lecture notes, November 2002.
Appendices
Appendix I The Strategic Planning Process
The output of the strategic planning process should include the following:
Mission Statement, Financial Summary, Market overview, SWOT analysis, Portfolio summary, Assumptions, Marketing Objectives and strategies, Three-year forecasts and budgets.
Source: Adapted from M McDonald, Marketing Plans, How to prepare them: How to use them, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1995, p. 26.
Appendix II Additional key Strategic Factors
Factors Impacting on Coors Brewers Strategy
Source: Adapted from the Brewnet Strategy web page, April 2004
Appendix III P.E.S.T Analysis
Appendix IV Porters Five Forces
Porters “Five Forces Analysis”
Source: Adapted from T Hannagan, Management Concept & Practices, Pitman, 2002, p. 149.
Appendix V Boston Matrix
The Boston Matrix below indicates market share and growth and distinctive names to highlight the prospects. (Source: Adapted from T Hannagan, Management Concept & Practices, Pitman, 2002, p. 113).
Appendix VI Balanced Scorecard
Balanced Scorecard – October 2002
- Consumer Measure Market Share
Source: Adapted from the Coors Brewers Balanced Scorecard, October 2002
Appendix VII McKinsey’s seven-S diagram
Source: Adapted from P Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 132.
Appendix VIII Creative Brief
Brand Strategy: Creative Brief Source: Adapted from Meeting Customer Needs, Lecture notes, February 2004.
Target Market: Which consumers are we trying to attract? Typically is this 18-25 year olds in town areas, students looking for a cheaper option.
Consumer insight: A value that our product can offer that competitors cannot, Carling extra cold, Screamers, ARC. Lower priced FAB’s aimed at the student arena.
Rational Brand Value: Value for money product with quality image. Consistent range, variety of flavours.
Emotional Brand Value: Linked to a particular event. Carling linked to Live music, taking bands back to their roots, gives feeling of comfort. Reef linked to sexy image. Grolsch is synonymous with a laid back, relaxed attitude.
Consumer Proposition: Essence of the product, strapline to link to it. Carling “Beer naturally”- gives overall impression that beer is actually a healthy product from natural sources. Grolsch, “brewed slowly since 1615” portrays the message that quality takes time. Coors Fine Light “Epic Refreshment”, tells the consumer that it is a refreshing drink.
Personality profile: what are the traits of the product. Carling would be a lively 18-24 year old male who likes drinking with the lads and playing football. Reef would be a sexy girl with vitality and energy. Grolsch would be a laid back, confident 25-27 year old man. Coors Fine Light would be an energetic, outdoors man.
Appendix IX Goods-Service Continuum
Source: Adapted from P Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 355.
Appendix X The Marketing mix for services
Source: Derived from BH Booms and MJ Bitner, “Marketing Strategies and Organisation Structures for Service Firms” in J Donnelly and WR George (Eds) Marketing of Services, American Marketing Association, Chicago, 1981
Adapted from Meeting Customer Needs, Lecture notes, February 2004.
Appendix XI Service Quality
Service Quality: The Gap Model
