The analysis of primary research (see questionnaire)
I did a questionnaire on 12 males and 6 females and all split into 5 age groups 5-10 11-15, 16-25, 26-35 and 36+. I asked them 12 questions about chocolate and the Fuse bar.
My Results of my primary research show us that the main target audience for Cadburys Fuse bar are young men around teens and women of most ages because these people seem to eat the most chocolate so they are most likely to buy it. (See graph on next page)
Graph 1 shows that people who eat chocolate are young so it would be good to aim the Fuse at them or they should aim it to women seeing that they seen to eat a lot of chocolate. But this graph is to brief so if we take it down to the Fuse bar and what we got for that.
This graph shows that people aged 11 to 15 like the taste of the Fuse bar the most therefore being the main targets for the product.
If the target audience is right here then Fuse had got it wrong and made a mistake aiming it at the wrong people which can be very damaging in most cases. Also there age group according to my research was the most unlikely to buy it because they liked it the least. My results are not the best but I would recommend that if Fuse were going to launch the Fuse they should have got the target audience right. This may have improved the launch and the life time of the Fuse bar.
The thought in that the Fuse bar eater was meant to be “on the go” is represented by the graph below:
Now the aspect of marketing that Cadbury used was right in that this research proves that there a chocolate bar for on the go people was right. The graph shows that both my set out target audience and the Fuses target audience are both on the go so this was spot on. The graph says that most 11-15 year olds and most 16 -24 year olds go out everyday and then should be classed as busy. This fact may have improved the launch and the life span of the product immensely.
Product areas of the market
The Fuse bar is in the market of chocolate which can be split into many different segments. These are parts of the market that sell similar things shown above. Then these market segments can be broken up it to niches which can be very good to work in but in this particular market anyone in the segment has found the niches. This applies to Fuse in that it is in the bars section of the market and has already gone into the niches like family pack.
The Product
The product is affected by many different factors these are:
Most of these things affect the Fuse, but in different ways.
The Ingredients
The Fuse bar is made of chocolate with nuts, raisins, cereal pieces and fudge pieces. The ingredients are all held together by chocolate this is quite different because most chocolate bars use caramel to hold their ingredients together. Also the Fuse is different in that it has many ingredients usually chocolate bars have about 2 or 3 ingredients but Fuse has 4 this is a flaw in the Fuse formula because my research tells me that people don’t like too many ingredients in their bars. A graph to reinforce this:
This shows that people like 2 extra ingredients other than chocolate and people least like 4 or more extra ingredients. Seeing that Fuse had 4 ingredients proves that it has a flaw in its formula. A recommendation I would make on the formula of Cadburys Fuse would be to lose one of the ingredients I would suggest either raisins or nuts seeing they are the least popular according to my research evidence of this is this graph:
This proves that people least like raisins and nuts and favour the fudge pieces. I recommend Cadbury should carry out some research into weather they should take one out and if yes how many? And which ones? Over all the taste people find fine evidence of this is in a early graph entitled a graph to show what ages like the Fuse bar is shows that more people like it than dislike it.
Taste
People think the taste of Fuse is okay according to the research I have done with a taste test on different chocolate bars.
This works in that each time the 14 participants rate the chocolate bar from 1-5 1 being the best. So over all Lion was best Fuse came around third and Snickers and Kit Kat were least popular.
So people think the Fuse does average being third it tastes pleasing, but there is nicer chocolate bars out there in the market. The taste is one of the main selling points so a recommendation for Cadbury would be to improve the taste.
The packaging
The packaging isn’t very good according to the graph on the right.
This is because of the bland design. I recommend Cadbury design a few new packets and see what the public think of them using primary research.
Shown here
The Fuse bar product range
This is
∙ The average standard bar
∙ The king-size Fuse
∙ The mini bars e.g. miniature heroes
∙ The Fuse Easter egg
These are product extensions of the Fuse bar these give the Fuse more products to sell to Fuse consumers.
The Name and image
The Fuse doesn’t give off much of an image because it’s a chocolate bar you only have it for a short time.
The name of the Fuse bar is named after the way it fuses lots of ingredients together
This shows that more people like the name Fuse than dislikes it but more people don’t really care about the name of the product so I don’t think the name is a problem here for Fuse I would recommend Fuse to keep the name Fuse.
The Competition Fuse has
Fuse is an oligopoly so these don’t compete on price they compete on many other things. Differentiation is one of these they try to make a range of products like king size Fuse has done some of these. Also they compete with promotions like competitions to draw attention to there chocolate bar so when you go to grab one you go for the Fuse. Nestle and mars are both very big companies which does give the Fuse a hard market to go into.
The competition against Fuse is Cadburys other bars like the Double Decker which is a big seller and has a similar recipe in that it has many ingredients and has chocolate running right through it, but Cadbury doesn’t really have to compete that much against them selves, so the main chocolate bars for Fuse to beat are Mars and Nestles lion and snickers which are also similar in recipe. If Fuse has a good marketing strategies it should be able to beat these others using differentiation and promotion.
The product life cycle
The product life cycle is the stages a product passes through from idea to termination it consists of five stages that are:
∙ 1) Introduction or launch (advertise very intensely to create awareness)
∙ 2) Growth
∙ 3) Maturity
∙ 4) Saturation
∙ 5) Decline
The Fuse bar in this life cycle is in decline evidence of this is it has been out on the chocolate market since 1997 so the consumers might be getting board of it. It has many competitors even though there are only 3 main companies in the chocolate market they all have released many similar products like boost or snickers. Another reason is it is already using extension strategies like the miniature heroes now contain Fuse and they have an Easter egg.
The Fuse has been out many years now and could still be on every shelf but the main reason for this is it has not had enough extension strategies to keep interest in it. Examples of these could be a giant Fuse like the Toblerone or make a Fuse ice cream that contains all the ingredients from the chocolate bar. Or they could change the formula of the Fuse and re launch it into the market has a new recipe because this would be like starting again but without more work. Also they could change the packaging and do a big competition. All of these suggestions could increase the life span of the Fuse before it completely goes off our shelves.
I Found that the packaging and the formula of the Fuse was not has good as it could have been because most people I asked didn’t like the packaging and would prefer one less ingredient in the bar. Also Fuse needs more extension strategies to keep it selling. The way I could solve these would be to change the formula and packaging and launch a new Fuse to keep it alive. But before I did anything I would have to do a lot more desk and field research.
Price
Firms use different pricing strategies depending on what they sell, there are many pricing strategies these are:
Skimming or creaming- this is when a firm sells their product for a high initial price so maximising profits then over time the price is lowered.
Market orientated or competition based price- this is a price that is nearly the same as the competition as charged
Loss leader – price is below the true cost of the product to encourage consumers to buy other products also
Penetration or destruction price – this is a low price to encourage loyally and gain market share later the price is raised
Cost plus price – cost of product plus a mark up of profit
Psychological price this is when a price is set at e.g. £6.99 rather than £7.00 so it encourages people to think it is cheaper.
The pricing strategy the Fuse went for and all their competition was the market oriented strategy so they set the R.R.P. at 33p they did this because if it had made it too high then no one would buy it because they could get a other chocolate bar for less. They couldn’t set it too low because Cadbury is a oligopoly this means there are only a few dominated business in the market so if they made it too low for example 20p they would be less than the rest but then the other companies would have to lower the prices of their chocolate bars so overall the prices of chocolate would fall so the profits of all the companies would go down. So 33p is a good price to set a chocolate bar at because it is low but not too low so Cadbury still get a fair bit of profit.
The price will never really change throughout its life unless it is in a special place where there isn’t much option in where you go to buy your chocolate bars e.g. cinema
I found that between 30-40p is a fair price people would pay for a Fuse bar
Where as lion bar has the highest fair price so people must think its worth more than a Fuse and most of the others are lower than the Fuse except picnic.
Different people are more sensitive to price (see graph at bottom) some will go buy some thing not trying to look for the best deal and some always look for the best deal. This only applies to Fuse a tiny bit because people don’t look for the best buy on a chocolate bar because it is an impulse buy. An impulse buy is when you don’t set out that you are going to buy a product it’s when you walk in a shop and buy something quickly without much thought before the purchase.
I found that people are only a bit price sensitive and not many are really sensitive or not at all sensitive
The Fuse has to make a profit with the R.R.P. set at 33p I have estimated the cost and profits involved in the product.
This means that large amounts of the Fuse will be needed to be sold for the company to break even. The firms will then in turn use flow production and benefit from economies of scale. This will help them by saving money and time because they will be buying and making in bulk.
From my finding I have seen that Fuse has under charged people for their chocolate bar. Fuse could have increased the price ands still got the same amount of sales because not many people care how much their chocolate bar is seeing that it is a impulse purchase. So I would suggest increasing the price by 3p making more profit which is needed because Fuse has to sell a lot to breakeven, even though Cadbury have very good economies of scale.
Place
This is where the product is sold, how it gets to the consumer and how it gets to that place of purchase.
There are 4 types of places where you buy products:
- Retailer this is a business who sells to a consumer
- A wholesaler this is a firm that buys from a factory in bulk and breaks this down to sell to retailers. A wholesaler breaks bulk.
- Agent this is somebody that puts buyers and sellers together.
- Producer this makes the product in the Fuses case this is Cadbury.
- Also there is vending machines which Cadbury use quite a lot
The channels of distribution
Using these paths Cadbury can sell their Fuse bars to the consumers
There are many types of retailers Cadbury could use
- Independent (newsagents etc.) –sole traders mainly
-
Specialist multiples (Comet)
- Variety chain stores (boots)
- Mail order and internet (jungle)
Chocolate bars is sold in most of these places it is normally located in the area near the checkout because it is an impulse purchase so they put them here to make people grab one while buying another product. So big boxes with a promotion linked near the check out like a cheap price so people see them a grab them while getting another product.
So the Fuse should make to try and sell in supermarkets and franchised local store like mace because these are very popular
Price can vary in many places which can put off many people buying them there is proof in this research I did:
This proves that prices can vary from store to store so most people go for supermarkets and local store not only because of convinced also the price is better there.
Place does not only concern the shop people buy it from. Also the place of which the chocolate bars are kept is very useful to have right. Most people are going to look around eye level which is about 4 to 6 ft from the ground so this would be a very good place to place the Fuse on the shelves. This works very well as Fuse is a impulse buy so consumers are only going to quickly look at the selection and only really look at a comfortable level without stretching up or down wards to look for Fuse.
My overall view of the place Fuse sold there bars is not really that important in that if they try to sell it every where then its definitely going to sell where its meant to and not meant to sell where it doesn’t. but I would make sure if I were Cadbury to sell it in all leading supermarkets and big chain stores such as mace and aim many promotions at them using big boxes of them to put near the checkout to attract an impulse buy of them. If not then at least try to put them at eye level of the consumers so they get noticed.
Promotion
Companies like Cadbury promote mainly either persuade consumers to buy the products or explain what the product is and does or both. In the Fuses case its to create awareness and persuasion. A Cadbury needed to promote to get consumers interested in their product so they can by it therefore increasing sales.
Their adverts probably used the AIDA model this stands for
A attract attention
I create interest
D develop a desire
A lead to Action (purchase)
This model can be used on most media like television. When deciding on the appropriate medium, advertisers should consider: the cost, the target audience and the appropriateness of the chosen medium.
There is many media that can be used these are:
T.V. this is very expensive and is for a mass-market product. The Fuse bar used this it cost them a lot of money.
Radio this has a local target audience and is cheap
Newspaper
Billboards this is local and cheap Fuse used this
Signs this is cheap and local
Sponsor Ship this is shirts etc. Fuse sponsored Coronation Street on ITV
Internet
Junk mail or Direct mail
Phone directory
Word of mouth (Cadbury would hope Fuse would get around by word of mouth
Packaging Fuse has packaging
Some companies use direct mail this is mail that is sent to consumers it can be target or unsolicited. The companies will sometimes just send out mass mail to many people but it can be targeted this is done by if someone had just turned 17 and could get driving lessons they may get direct mail which is advertising lessons the company would have found you are 17 now and have targeted you for this. Direct mail would not apply to Cadbury much seeing that the Fuse bar is an impulse purchase and you wouldn’t read a letter and if they did they wouldn’t remember this for when they bought the Fuse bar as an impulse.
Some smaller companies’ use door to door selling and this is where a salesman shows a potential consumer the product and tries to get them to buy the product this would not be used by Cadbury because this is only really for expensive products or subscription products and the Fuse is a small cheap impulse purchase.
The packaging can be very important in what people buy because the Fuse bar is an impulse purchase so most of the time people will not spend to much time picking the chocolate bar
The launch day Fuse did on the 24th of September this increased awareness and a lot of people bought it to try it. It was very good at increasing curiosity in the new chocolate bar
Cadbury promoted Fuse quite well after the launch one of these ways was putting it on the coronation street this entices people to buy chocolate seeing it advertised can make you crave it especially when you are watching a soap like coronation street.
The adverts that Fuse used was not very good and not many people could remember any of them. Prove of this is in this graph:
The Fuses adverts should have been aimed at the target audience and because it Fuse got this wrong maybe this is the reason for the adverts flopping and not helping sales much. Also the ad agency must have not been very good.
Overall Cadbury needed a better ad agency so they would get more remember able adverts they needed as well the right age for aiming them at. They also could have promoted more on other things like radio and more magazines. They could have also made more advertising when the Fuse was in decline to try and keep it selling they could have done this by getting someone famous to endorse it.
Conclusion
The Fuse bar was a new chocolate bar made by Cadbury in 1997 it did very well when released and carried on doing well but then slowly was declined into a low selling chocolate bar. The fact it did well could have just been the name Cadbury giving it a reputation to get people to try it or it was the way it was marketed. Also it may have been a way to keep it a top seller.
Cadbury marketed their product in many ways some of these ways were very good but some according to my research were not very good. With the Fuse Cadbury did primary research and secondary to find out who was most likely to buy their chocolate. With this they found that their target audience was very busy people who were on the go and quickly wanted a bite to eat. The target age for the hectic bar for a hectic lifestyle was 16 to 24 this was the main target they used. Cadbury did a very smart marketing ploy on the launch day because they made it an advertised day to create interest in the chocolate bar and try it so they could get, as many potential buyers who like the chocolate bar to know about it. But this was good but really not many people were going to go to the shop just because the Fuse was launched it is an impulse purchase so there was a down side to this idea.
The product itself was a new idea they used this to their advantage when marketing by advertising the fact the reason why it is an original idea is because it has many different ingredients and chocolate running the right way through it. The packaging Cadbury used was a purple one (shown early on in this report) this was one thing I think Cadbury didn’t succeed so much on. It is a hard competition with the packaging of chocolate bars with many the consumer is bombarded with many similar packaging so to get notice the bar needed something different, which I don’t think it did.
The pricing of the Fuse bar was chosen using a market orientated one this was a good choice because if it was a creaming it would have been to expensive and the consumer on a impulse would dismiss buying it when they potentially could have a nicer chocolate bar they like more for cheaper. Also having a too low price would have lost profits for most chocolate bars in the company because to keep competitive they would have to lower to this therefore not a good idea.
Cadbury started promoting their product I a bit later than when the bar was first launched this was a good idea because the first launching strategies and ended and now television would be the way to get the bar well known. The promotion adverts they did were a strange documentary style one that didn’t go down well and some printed adverts. These did not go down well according to my research. The Fuse was a sponsor for Coronation Street like many other Cadbury goods this was good in that it made you feel like chocolate but it wasn’t always the Fuse.
Overall Cadbury did a good job in the way they marketed the Fuse bar but I could make a few recommendations using my research to base them on.
My Suggestions
Cadbury will need to conduct large scale market research although I have tested some of my ideas which I have many of. Cadbury could have improved the way they marketed their bar even though they did do a good job of doing it. The first suggestion is in the product itself according to my research the formula is good but contains to many ingredients because four was not a popular number with many people. Changing the formula leads to another question this is which ingredient to take out. From my research I found raisins and peanuts were the most unpopular ingredients in the chocolate bar. I would recommend taking out using my research peanuts because even though they were equal in frequency nuts are a very common thing to have an allergy to proof of this is the back of many other chocolate bars because they say may contain traces of nut to warn consumers but because raisin is a less common allergy it is the better one to keep. But before I would make a finial decision I would do much more research.
The next recommendation I would make is on the packaging this is very similar to competition and according to my research was not very popular at all. This raises the issue of what would have been better packaging for Fuse. I am no designer but Fuse should have had something very noticeably and stands out to the eye rather than a purple common type package. I would many consumer tests with the packaging because it can be essential for an impulse buy like Fuse.
The next recommendation I will make is the fact that Cadbury got the target audience for Fuse. I found that 11-15 eat a lot of chocolate and a most likely to like the Fuse bar. This information is very crucial to get right because most marketing strategies are based round it and it could have been the reason for making mistakes in the strategy. Lucky for Fuse it still succeeded even though they made a crucial mistake.
Another recommendation is on the price this was a very well suited market based strategy but in this strategy there is still a margin of prices Fuse chose 33p as their RRP I would suggest that they could have put up their price to about 36p this would increase profits and not lower demand much because it is still around the same price as all the others.
My penultimate recommendations would be for the promotion of the product this was not well done at all. Through out the life span of the Fuse the adverts have been very poor and did not stick in the mind like good adverts do. The bad advertising did not affect the Fuse at the start because it was doing well and was well known but it did not keep it alive when it was needed so I would recommend Fuse to of made better adverts and carried on doing so using a better ad agency. They did though use good use of the sponsorship of Coronation Street.
My last recommendation would be to give the fuse many more extension strategies. This is because it had a very good launch but did not stay long enough and stay as a classic chocolate bar like mars. If Cadbury had made more extension strategies like fuse ice cream and more promotion. It may have stayed and become a classic chocolate bar. The only extension strategy it used was the miniature hero version of its elf which did not give it much more awareness. So having a giant fuse or a new recipe fuse could have prolonged the life of the fuse but instead its too late to save because it is so hard to find at this time.
Overall I think if the recommendation a have made would have been done then Fuses market campaign would not of been just good it would have been better and lasted longer hopefully.