Running head: CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

Case Study: The Cannon Company

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CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

Case Study: The Cannon Company

Introduction
Dannon Company was among the US subsidiary of Danone, which was one of the largest
health-focused companies in the whole world. Its global business centered on fresh dairy such as
active yoghurt, medical nutrition, baby nutrition and the bottled water. In 2008, Dannon did
manufactured and also marketed the fresh dairy products in US and they became number 2
player in domestic yoghurt market. Dannons marketing efforts did focused on the growing US
yoghurt consumption and expanding the category, and this was while growing the brands.
Dannon has been maintaining some strong commitment to CSR, which was integrated into the
overall mission of the company. They have internalized its CSR commitments and programs
(Marquis, Et al, 2010).
Danone took some holistic approach to social responsibility and this was indicated by the
mission statement. The social values were embedded deeply in the companys culture and also
the business. Antoine Roboud, who was the CEO, communicated the vision of Danone double
commitment to the economic performance and social responsibility in 1972. According to the
senior leadership, the social responsibility was the basis to the purpose of Danone as the
economic performance. This was the double project and it stipulated some equal respect for the
social influence and the financial results of the business decisions (Marquis, Et al, 2010).
To Communicate or Not to Communicate?
Dannon should begin to proactively communicate to consumers its CSR plans.
Communication with the consumers will improve on various issues with customers. First, it
improves education on nutrition and health. If Dannon will communicate with customers,

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

companys CSR activities and Dannon being the nonprofit organization with some mission, will
develop and also disseminate the scientific knowledge on nutrition and diet to benefit the public
health via some collaboration with scientists and academics on health professionals and nutrition
research. Communication with customers will help in focusing efforts around the childrens
nutrition education in manners that are pertinent to any region. The other benefit is that
communication will help in the development of customers via various activities such as the
danone way. This is a management tool that is meant to enable managers to assess the
performance among the multiple dimensions such as environment, ethics, and quality among
others. In addition, there is the integration of the social goals. In essence, the company did create
the nutritional education initiatives and updated the nutritional formulas of many products to be
healthier. Communication will also help in bringing closer the customers and the company, and
this is achieved mostly by actively involving the local communities through provision of product
donations (Marquis, Et al, 2010).
Communication will improve the nature. In essence, Dannon have taken some stance on
sustainability, and this will make them achieve some target of carbon neutrality of the most of his
products by 2011. Communication will help Dannon and their suppliers to promote
environmentally farming practices and also plan on advancing tools that incorporate sustainable
development indicators into supplier monitoring and evaluation. Danone trains and communicate
the broader company values. The communication of programs ensures there is cultural cohesion
and it helps in outlining the practices that Dannon operates. The communication of company
values helps in the communication of humanism, enthusiasm, openness and proximity. There are
no major risks unto the company if promotes communication in the company (Marquis, Et al,
2010).

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

Impact of a Corporate Parent

Having a corporate parent played a great role in Dannons decision concerning whether to
externally communicate its CSR programs. The corporate parent helped Dannon value
collaborative decision making and hence, the major strategy and resource allocation decisions
were presented to the executive committee, in which case it represented the major parts of
Dannons business. Therefore, the corporate parents global strategy and mission did influence
the decisions of Dannon. The corporate parent also had some impact on products of Dannon.
Dannon was able to sell and also produce six million cups of yoghurt per day in almost 100
favors, sizes and styles. Then it covered various categories such as light, proactive light among
others. The practice even became the vital area of growth and competitive differentiation for
Dannon since the launch active (Frynas, 2009)
Corporate parent also had some impact on marketing strategy of Dannon. In essence,
Dannon was able to benefit from growth in the US yoghurt consumption, and hence it centered
its marketing strategy on rising category relevance per capita consumption. The corporate parent
made Dannon to focus on providing products that can deliver some high health benefit, and then
communicating such benefit in order to make yoghurt quite significant. The other impact of
corporate parent is the people. The corporate parent had the philosophy of engaging with the
social environment. Dannon are able to support the community organization via volunteer time
and donations. In fact, some of the initiatives provided the volunteers at some local charities to
provide help to children in need during the holiday season. Dannon also have to work to ensure
the wellbeing and health of the employees via the development of some comprehensive work-life
wellness program. Such programs involved the tuition assistance, the scholarship programs for
the children of employees, financial assistance and exercise programs (Marquis, Et al, 2010).

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

The other impact of having the corporate parent involves the fact that it made Dannons
CSR initiatives to focus on the environment. Such made Dannon company to identify and also
promote methods of reducing the cannons environmental footprint. In fact, Dannon had to
reduce the amount of its primary packaging by fifteen percent and the offices and plants had the
regular recycling programs.
Having a corporate parent had some benefits and few risks. Some of the benefits involve
the fact that it promotes the social mission and increases its marketing efforts. In fact, a
consumer communication strategy that explains Dannons CSR programs will be a natural taste,
and this is because it will clearly demonstrate consistency in the marketing message and it could
also translate to the increased consumer confidence in Dannon. Via the combinations of various
corporate level and brand-level adverting campaigns, the company could differentiate itself as
the leading player that promoted the health of its consumers via the product line, including the
progress of the society in which it carried out.
Some of the risk that the company might encounter involves the fact that the initiative
will be difficult to calculate the return on investments since it only provided the intangible
benefits. There would be some limited short-term sales as this leads to some difficulty in
measuring. There is no realization of the promotion of healthy habits via the initiative of
generating the consumptions of its products.
The communication Strategy
It is quite significant to have an implicit knowledge of how to design the communication
strategy in order to suite the products. In essence, the communications should be understood by
all the people who manage the customers at Dannon Company. There is need for commitment of

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

every one in Dannon Company and there is need for total customer experience from marketing
of product, to sustaining the societies to create tools to programming to creating messages via
content and training and visuals. The language design should be audible, articulate and meaning
sound as made by the action of vocal organs. The reasons as to why the design should invest in
design language are because of differentiation and consistency, to save money by resources and
leverage of time, brand definition and communication to customers.
The message that should be passed should be consistent, recognizable and also rest on the
emotional foundation. The design language should have some principles. One of them is focus,
and this helps in defining the customers heart. The other is long-term, and this involves keeping
re-invention, it should be fresh and unique and it must be capable of repeating experiences. It
should be authentic also, and this involves consistent experience, consistent messages and the
experience must be real and bases on commitment. Vigilant is another principle and one should
stay on top of the customer experience and should be aware of all customers at all times. The
other is being original and the company should know what is good about the product and to take
chances and make changes. There is repeatable principle, and the company should do the same
item over and over and to keep reinventing oneself. Dannon, in essence, require making tradeoffs and also deciding the best messages, and this is because one could communicate at once and
easily. Dannon should do marketing around some emotional bond with the company, and this
will make some sense (Marquis, Et al, 2010).
Therefore, the communication channel that will work for Dannon involves splitting the
shareholder groups into internal and external, then determining the needs of every group or
subgroup. There is also auditing the communication channels and determining the effectiveness

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

of changes and make improvements. The company should also develop the key messages and to
be constant in the delivery of key messages.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Danones social responsibility centered on the main areas that involved the
nature, the people and the nutrition and health. The nutrition and health involved the
communication or rather the dissemination of the scientific knowledge on diet and nutrition, and
this was to benefit the public health. In terms of the people, the company focused on the
development of employees via various activities and it enabled the employees to assess
performance along the multiple dimensions. On the other hand, the company expects the
suppliers to promote environmentally faming practices.
Dannon values collaborative decisions making and hence they make the major strategy
and resource allocations decisions. Such decisions are strongly influenced by the corporate
parent. They also contain the marketing strategy that involves advertising the corporation
Dannon brand. The company also should have a good design of communication strategy.

CASE STUDY: THE DANNON COMPANY

References:
Frynas, J. G. (2009). Beyond corporate social responsibility: Oil multinationals and social
challenges. Cambridge [etc.: Cambridge University Press.
Marquis, C, Shah, P, Tolleson, A & Thomason, B. (2010). The Dannon Company: Marketing
and Corporate Social Responsibility. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School
Mefalopulos, P., & Kamlongera, C. (2004). Participatory communication strategy design: A
handbook. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations