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School of Business
Bangladesh Open University
Assignment No: 1 2 3
( Please Put)
Program: Masters of Business Administration (MBA)
Course Title: Integrated Marketing Communication
Course Code: MBA 4 3 2 0
Submission
1 9 2 2nd 4th
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PERSONAL INFORMATION OF THE STUDENT

Name (In Capital Letters): ALIZA SUBORNA
ID (In Numbers): 1 9 1 - 3 3 - 8 1 6 - 3 0 9
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Study Center (SC) Where You Are Submitting Your

Assignments: Dhaka RC  RC DHAKA

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Mailing Address:

8 No. Ward, Meher Ali Road, Trishal,

Mymensingh.
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Cell Phone: +8801633550131
E-mail: alizasuborna9@gmail.com
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Integrated Marketing Communication- 4320

Question-1: Analyze the initiatives taken by Nescafé’s marketing team aimed at increasing the
sales of the company?

Answer: Nescafe, being a product of a famous brand nestle have been successful in capturing a
high market share of instant coffee. The word Nescafe is actually the portmanteau of two words
that are “Nestle” and “café”. Max Mergenthaler along with his team members had worked hard
for almost seven years to make coffee powder. On April 1, 1930 for the first time in Switzerland,
they succeeded. It was launched in the United States with a brand name known as Taster’s
Choice Nescafe. However, the brand name was once again changed and was then known as
Nescafe Taster Choice.

Marketing structure

Marketing strategy

Nestle is one of those products that is considered to be people and brand oriented rather than
being system oriented. Their marketing strategy is designed in a way that gives importance to the
needs and lifestyles of their consumers. The product is of high quality they also try to improve
their pricing strategy and distribution networks. Along with all these priorities they are able to
generate annual profits.

Illustration not visible in this excerpt

Nestle Nescafe has been able to satisfy its customers by providing them with products of good
quality. This is given intense value. Nescafe seeks to have loyal customers for which they
renovate and innovate their products. Nestle prefers to have increased flexibility in its business
for which it has become decentralized. To gain the satisfaction of its customers it involves itself
in improving its activities along with segmenting its market, targeting different group of
customers and positioning. The market of coffee is intense around the world. Out of 73% of the
instant coffee market nestle has been able to occupy around 72%. This shows the brand loyalty
and their marketing strategy that Nescafe adopts around the world (Greff, 2010).

The three vital elements on which the marketing strategy of Nestle is dependent on is shown by
the following formulation:

-Consumer
-Competition
- Quality
The discussion of how, when and where to compete is considered less important for Nescafe than
quality that they produce to satisfy their consumer’s wants. This is a part of their effective
marketing strategy.

Target market

The company is mainly targeting the class of consumers that are socio-economic. Those people
who accept that Nestle provides products that are of good quality are its potential consumers
(Student Murat’s Blog, 2003).  However, the prices of its products are not very low, and
therefore, not everyone can afford it. Following is a strategy that they use to choose the market
that they plan to target:

-Quality realization
-Education
- Income level

The positioning strategy:

Three steps that are used by Nescafe in their positioning strategy are:

-To identify the correct competitive advantage

- To choose the correct competitive advantage
- To select the correct completive advantage

This is then communicated effectively by the company and then delivered to the selected market
position. It is strongly believed by nestle Nescafe that they are unique in their product and its
benefits.

Brand Positioning Strategy

- The composition of the product

- The distinguishing position
- Being concerned about the health of its consumers
- Combination of taste with quality.

Question: Consider yourself to be the marketer of an international coffee retailer in Bangladesh.

Now, how do you plan on positioning your coffee brand in the minds of the consumers who are
more used to with tea consumptions?

Ans: The first step for any new business is to ponder how to occupy space inside a target
consumer’s mind, which is called ‘Brand Positioning’. It can also be termed as a consumer’s
perception of a brand with respect to competing brands.
Why does your brand need to enter his or her mind? If you ask a consumer to name a cola
drink, ‘Coke’ name will spurt out. If you ask the consumer to name a toothpaste that comes
immediately to the mind, most probably, Colgate name would pop out. If you ask about
a photocopying brand, ‘Xerox’ name will spurt out. If you ask them the name of an energy drink,
the red bull name will rush out. If you ask an Indian to name a noodles brand, most of the
time ‘Maggi’ name would jet out.

Why do these brand names stay at the top of the consumer’s mind so that it can be recalled
immediately?

Coke is the first cooldrink to enter the consumer’s mind under Cola category. Seven-up is the
first cooldrink under the Un-cola category. Redbull is the first cooldrink under ‘energy drink’
category. Xerox is the first brand under the ‘photocopying’ category.

Being №1 in a consumer’s mind will help a business to grab a major market share and have a
sustainable business. The above brands show that the easiest way to get into a person’s mind is to
be first.

So, how can a business enter a consumer’s mind by being first? The business has to create a new
category that doesn’t exist in a consumer’s mind.

What is the need for categories? Our human brains are wired for categorisation to help us
remember things. Without that, we would be quickly overwhelmed by the vast amount of
information.

Nicole Branan writes in ‘Scientific American’, “Picture a living thing — say, a dog. Now
imagine a hammer. Thinking of a dog activates an area that deals with animate objects, whereas
a hammer excites one that processes inanimate things even if you had never seen a dog or a
hammer before”.

Whenever we come across new things, subconsciously, we would file them under different
known categories in our memories. If a consumer sees your product, he would automatically file
the product under a known existing category. The problem with this filing under the existing
category is — your product would be filed several layers below the other products and the
consumer would fail to recollect your brand name at the top of the mind. Example -Coke is the
first product under the cola category. Pepsi is the second brand. Do you remember the third
brand? Fourth brand? If you ask people, they may not recollect beyond two names. How many
energy drinks can you name other than Redbull?

How To Create A New Category? -The new category should be based on the value offerings a
brand can offer to the customer. For that, the company has to observe customers’ needs, desires,
pains and choose value propositions that will solve customer’s pains and also match the
business’ core strengths and core values. This is also called ‘Brand Differentiation’.
Michael Porter writes, “A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference
that it can preserve. It must offer greater value to customers or create comparable value at a
lower cost, or do both”

We build a sustainable business by widening this differentiation and evolving the value
propositions based on the changing needs and attitudes of customers.

BRAND POSITIONING OF STARBUCKS

As we saw earlier that to create a category, we need to first freeze the target customer
segment(Niche Market) and understand their requirements.

Focusing On a Niche Market. The general rule is to start small. Smaller the segment, it is easier
for the entire company to focus and meet the customer needs, wants and desires. Once you
become a leader in the niche market, you could grow your market.

How to find a niche market? A market exists when a customer has a problem that needs to be
solved -Find and Focus on a particular need, work on it, make your product distinctive and
dominate the niche market.

Starbucks’ Niche and Customer’s Pains -By 1970s, three trends emerged -
1. Most of the Americans were unhappy with the coffee experience as it is mostly made from
cheaper Robusta beans. Particularly, the younger generation disliked the coffee taste. Robusta
beans are of very inferior quality compared to Arabica beans.
2. Coffee beans packed in the cans and sold in the supermarket shelves were also going stale,
affecting the tastes.
3. In the same period, people were becoming health conscious and began to cook their own food
at home.

Starbucks’ original founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel and Gordon Bowker saw that there was a
considerable number of coffee lovers who were tired of all the available options and also looking
for a naturally processed, authentic coffee beverage & was willing to grind the beans in their
home. Unfortunately, they were struggling to find authentic coffee beans. The founders,
themselves being passionate about coffee, could understand the problems faced by those people.
They felt that it was wise to meet the needs of this target segment. So they opened the first store
in Seattle to sell authentic coffee beans to this tiny niche of gourmet coffee lovers. The brand’s
quality spread by word of mouth.