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Critical Thinking Question

Student’s Name

Institution

Instructor

Date
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Critical Thinking Question

Discussion Question #1:

What branding activities, product line extensions, packaging, or product label modifications do

you think most contributed to the product identification and positioning that Doritos corn-based

chips enjoy? Why support your reasons.

Effective brand building does not involve one-size-fits-all activities but is an art and a

science that utilizes distinct strategies for different brands (Ravichandran & Devi, 2017). Brand

owners and managers should know beforehand what will be the most effective strategy in

building their brand. This was the drive-in Frito-Lay’s need for a new identity for their iconic

Dorito brand. To ensure the uniqueness of the Dorito brand, they embarked on research to

analyze and plan how the brand is perceived in the market. A key component of brand

management is the tangible element of the product including the look, price, and packaging

among others. For Frito-Lay, this involved focusing on the color, shape, and taste of the Doritos.

Effective branding strategies involve making a brand meaningful, knowing about the

market needs, keeping the conversation going, branding as a team, living the brand, as well as

keeping the brand alive and evolving (Ravichandran & Devi, 2017). In Frito-Lay’s case, the

branding activities that contributed most to the product identification and positioning of Doritos

corn-based chips is connecting with consumers by allowing them to choose their newest product

between two flavors. This allowed customers to have a voice in the brand that they love.

Concerning the strategies for effective branding as outlined in Ravichandran and Devi (2017),

this branding activity was a form of meaningful branding that was characterized by a
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commitment to take care of the customer’s needs. It provided the company an opportunity to

interact directly with the customers, ensuring that they can respond directly to their needs.

Connecting directly with the customers also ensured that we're able to demonstrate

knowledge of the marketing needs by providing products that were custom-designed to meet the

needs of their customers (Ravichandran & Devi, 2017). Also, through a video game that allowed

customers to have flavors for survival, the company was able to keep the conversation going

with the customers. While some people had seen this effort would yield nothing the company

respected the consumer’s needs by keeping the Smoking Cheddar BBQ flavor that consumers

had selected as the best flavor.

Frito-Lay also made a crucial product line extension that involved assigning broad colors

to each of their flavors, ensuring that customers can pick out their preferred flavors from stores

with ease. This is a strategy that enabled the company to create a brand positioning model as it

ensured the uniqueness of the brand and differentiated it from its competitors (Iskandar &

Aprillianty, 2021). Product line extension helps companies to increase their reach and target

audience without having to invest too much in preparation and development

(Nosratmirshekarlou, 2020). As such, Frito-Lay’s product line extension in combination with

effective branding can be said to have contributed to the product identification and positioning

that Doritos corn-based chips have enjoyed.

Discussion Question #2:

What building blocks of service can you describe that demonstrate the success of Sweetwater's

Service Marketing? How would you use any of them in a retail business you might own and

operate? Explain.
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Online retailers Sweetwater sells musical products and audio equipment and seeks to do

more than offer great products but also offer an excellent service. They have a huge selection and

offer excellent services, a longer warranty, free tech support, free shipping, and a no-hassle

return policy. They are committed to service and to making customers happy, establishing

expertise relationships where each customer who visits their store is assigned a sales engineer

who becomes their contact for life. These sales engineers know the products and their work with

the customers does not involve selling them the most expensive product, but it involves learning

their needs and offering them what they need. This form of business model has allowed

Sweetwater to hold more than 250,000 pages of customer information and to establish a strong

community forum.

By focusing on its relationships with customers, Sweetwater has been able to achieve

considerable success in its service marketing. According to Hollenbeck (2019), successful brands

exceed customer expectations, making them feel trusted and valued by observing such guiding

principles as listening to their customers, prioritizing actions, and making customers experience

an organization-wide concern. This seems to be the guiding principle for Sweetwater, which has

emphasized employing a workforce that is knowledgeable about their products and training them

on sales to ensure that the customers gain access to expert services both in-store and out-of-the-

store. Some of the building blocks of service listed in Hollenbeck (2019) that can describe

Sweetwater’s success include listening to customers at scale as well as prioritizing and acting.

Listening to the customers involves concern for what the customers have to say and it allows the

improvement of customer experiences. According to Henley Business School University of

Reading (2015), a deep understanding of the target customer group, which is the focus of

listening, can help in uncovering the needs of the customers. I can use this building block in a
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retail business to improve the experiences of my customers by applying the 5 Ws (and 1 H):

Who? Why? What? When? Where? And how?

Another building block of service that Sweetwater utilizes to achieve the success of its

service marketing involves prioritizing and acting. This involves knowing the actions that will

yield the most benefit to promote decision-making (Hollenbeck, 2019). For Sweetwater, this

involves identifying and assigning importance to expert relationships as the core of their business

model and then acting on that by hiring experts and training them on sales to ensure excellent

customer service. This can also be described as a sales strategy that involves a well-defined sales

process, solid execution, and excellent customer service (Henley Business School University of

Reading, 2015). This helps to create excellent customer relationships and to ensure that decision-

making processes are effective. Using this building block in my retail business would involve

professional conduct, questioning and listening to the customers, as well as presenting my sales

value proposition to the customers.

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References

The Henley Business School University of Reading. (2015, Sept 14). The building blocks of a

successful sales strategy. https://www.henley.ac.uk/news/2015/success-through-a-well-

defined-and-executed-sales-strategy

Hollenbeck, R. (2019, Jul 16). The Five New Building Blocks of Customer Experience Success.

Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/07/16/the-five-

new-building-blocks-of-customer-experience-success/?sh=6a0ff1214ffa

Iskandar, M. N., & Aprilianty, F. (2021). Building an Effective Branding Strategy: A Study Case

of Raiment. Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 6(9), 569-

578. https://doi.org/10.47405/mjssh.v6i9.1058

Nosratmirshekarlou, E. (2020). Customer Choice Modeling for Retail Category Assortment

Planning and Product-Line Extension. Wayne State University.