Case Study 1

MKTG 2P52

Group 11: Grace Hoang, Toyosi Bello, Katelyn Partington, Alex Pinter, Emma Smiley

Jeffry O’Leary

January 27, 2021

1. What are the challenges that Ivan Guillen faces in his role as the marketing manager of

the RBG business?

One of the challenges that Ivan Guillen faced as marketing manager of the RBG business

was to develop a strategy to lead to improved business performance within his category. In the

past years, performance had been lower than others, and the volume growth between 2004 and

2006 had been flat. According to the text, the refrigerated cookie product line, “represented 62

per cent of RBG’s unit sales and over 75 per cent of the category’s profit” (Johnson et al., 2011).

Guillen had to plan and work with the team and focus their efforts on the refrigerated cookie

category because it was the most profitable, so that they could excel when the time came for

Guillen and his team to present the business strategies to the senior leadership team. Guillen

focused on determining how the team at RBG could improve the segment’s performance. He

also knew that if he wanted to grow the RBG business, the team would have to focus on growing

the refrigerated cookie segment. Guillen realized that in order to reach the goals of the company,

he needed to gain a better understanding of the cookie consumers, which could lead him to ideas

to help improve the segment.

2.

● What are consumer insights?

The analysis of consumer behaviour and patterns based on data obtained from them is Customer

Intuition. Relevant advertising and production techniques are then created to boost the quality of

goods and services and raise sales income for the benefit of companies and consumers. Based on

their actions, experiences, values, desires, and wishes, a truth about clients. Customer Insight is

the implication deep inside of customers and that drives them to act and buy. In the case of
Pillsbury Cookie Challenge, they aimed to learn more about their customers. Because cookies

are the most profitable product in the RBG category, accounting for 62%, Guillen wants to

exploit and focus on the cookies customer segment.

● What types of challenges can benefit from consumer insights?

The kind of problem that can benefit from customer insight is rising volume in the Pillsbury

situation. The more able an organisation is to predict emerging developments in growth, studying

consumer insight well. And there are also big benefits as a result. In addition, the requisite skills

should be trained in advance in order to best represent clients and achieve a comparative edge.

Consumer awareness means constantly placing customer requirements at the forefront of all

operations. As a result, by maximising revenue, sales, as well as revenues, would rise

dramatically. Over everything, the company can effectively take advantage of untapped business

prospects. And if the product or service offering is greater than that of the rival, then the share of

the product will grow exponentially. If Guillen understands what his client's needs and

preferences are, he will be able to change and improve the cookie.

● How are consumer insights obtained?

Consumer insight is obtained through different kinds of research, quantitative or qualitative. We

can use multiple types of consumer research to obtain consumer insight such as gathering data,

etc. For this case, GMCC’s marketing team did some research to reveal detailed information

about consumers. At GMCC, they mostly use focus group, concept test research. Not only that,

for this case we can also observe customers in everyday life. Because the product is cookies, the

GMCC can observe the consumer at the supermarket to better understand the customer's

preferences and usage needs. From there, they can gain consumer insight.
3. Given the key learnings from the usage and attitude study on pp. 6-7 of the case,

what are the corresponding implications for what actions the team should take?

In context to the key learnings from the usage and attitude study on pp. 6 - 7 of the case, the

corresponding implications for the action the team should take are Mother’s need for easy, quick

and affordable meals for their children, baking alongside the family gave the sense of joy,

togetherness and bliss to which is the core representation of what Pillsbury stands for. As

referenced in the case study, the team were surprised to find that scratch baking is the most

common way of baking cookies in Canada, RGB cookies high frequency purchase were equal in

both the U.S and Canada, all consumers affirmed that refrigerated cookie dough was easy and

convenient to make, especially mothers. By focusing on these implications, Guillen and his team

can utilize the key findings to ensure continuous purchases and maintenance of customer trust,

dependence and relationship. In essence, the team should devise an excellent interpersonal

marketing strategy into scratch baking, refrigerated cookie dough to increase the present

consumer interest which will lead into improved cookie performance.

4. Why did Guillen and his team conduct the in-home and discovery workshops?

After conducting the usage and attitude study, Guillen and his team felt as if they still

needed to do an in-home and discovery workshop in order to get a better understanding of the

consumers' perspectives. The team wanted to discover what characteristics resonated the most

with the consumers.They wanted to understand this in order to have a full understanding of the

proper communication that is needed between the consumers and the company. On page 7, the

case study explained that the in-home immersions allowed for the researcher to observe and
develop a deeper understanding of the world of a consumer. It also explained that the discovery

workshop was not as intimate but it allowed for a group of consumers to get together and discuss

and address opportunities for the brand. Both of these methods allowed for the researchers to get

a greater understanding of their consumer in order to communicate properly with them.

5. What actions should Guillen and his team take?

Throughout Guillen’s studies comparing common themes running through the United

States RGB sales and Canadian RGB sales, he found out that it's more kid driven then they

thought in purchasing cookie dough and that the influence from kids to their parents is the

specific target market that they should be approaching. Out of Canadians that were randomly

sampled 56% tended to bake from scratch a year and 33% baking from scratch a month,

compared to the 22% that the United States random sample featured. Clearly drawing in more

consumers through the easy and efficient Pillsbury Cookie dough was the key to try and turn the

scratch bakers from competition to consumers. By targeting kids that would try and convince

their parents into buying into the idea of easy bake cookies they could transform the market into

what they want it to look like through convenience and efficiency in their way of home baking.
 Reference

Johson, A., Mauro, N. (2011). Pillsbury cookie challenge. Ivey Publishing.