I am the sales and marketing director for Chocolate Plc, a confectionary company based upon Cadburys. I have been asked by Chocolate Plc to create and market a new confectionary product.

Market Research

I did a lot of market research to find a gap in the confectionary market. I searched for information about the confectionary market and I also conducted a questionnaire on 25 people. In the United Kingdom, chocolate confectionaries make up 70% of confectionary sales. The pie chart below also shows that peoples favourite type of confectionaries are chocolates This would be the most sensible market segment to create a new product in as it has the greatest sales, but it is also the largest and is already very developed so there won’t be much room for a new product.

I also discovered that snacks are often eaten as a substitute to meals, as they contain ingredients like wafer, peanuts, biscuits and fruit. This could be a good market segment to introduce a new chocolate confectionary into. The Cadburys ‘Fuse’ bar is one such product already in this market segment. One of the questions on my questionnaire was asking about people’s favourite type of chocolate bar. The results are shown below.

The pie chart shows that the most popular type of chocolate bar is the ones that contain fruit and/or nuts, with milk chocolate only slightly less popular. The only problem is that this market segment doesn’t have that much room for new products. There is a new type of market segment appearing in the form of healthy confectionaries. These new healthy confectionaries contain extra substances such as vitamins and minerals. There is lots of room in this emerging market for new products, so it could be a good segment to introduce the new product into. The results of my questionnaire show that this would be the best segment to create the product in.

The age group of people who are most concerned about their health are people aged 16-34 (how do you know this?), which is who the new product should be aimed at as they also make up the biggest proportion of confectionary consumers.

Product Development

Now that the target segment for the new product has been decided, a recipe needs to be produced. In the chocolate bar, there will be:

● Banana

● Orange

● Apple

I have chosen these fruits because of their vitamin and mineral content, and because of their taste. Enough of each fruit should be added to give the as much vitamin as possible, whilst still keeping a chocolaty taste to the chocolate bar.

Package Design

The packaging plays a critical role in the success of the new product. It has to communicate the healthy side and give it a low fat image. The packaging for the product should have a green background, as green is used by many companies like BP, who have painted their oil tankers green, to make things look more eco-friendly and in this case healthy. There should be pictures of fruit on the packaging to appeal to give people an idea of what fruits are inside the bar. All of the writing should be put in a style that is most likely to attract the attention of someone aged between 16 and 34. This means it can’t be to bubbly and energetic like products targeted at children are, or to subdued and plain like products aimed at people over the age of 50.

Brand Name

The other important factor that could determine success or failure is the brand name. The brand name has to stand out from the rest of the chocolate bars, and has to portray its’ healthy image, whilst still appealing to the target audience. I have chosen the name

Launch Strategy

The next thing that needs to be done is to devise a launch strategy. This will shape the ‘personality’ of the chocolate bar in the public eye. I think that the first thing that should be done is to contact the major retailers, i.e. Tescos, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose etc and persuade them that selling the new bar at their shop will boost interest in their stores.

The next step would be to create a televised advertisement. The advert would have to be eye catching. It could be set out like what Skoda did with the Octavia. In their advert, they made fun out of their own image to persuade people how good their car was. Everyone knows that chocolate is fattening, so why not do an advertisement that is making fun of the image of chocolate.