Are the Marketing Schemes of Innocent Effective? Essay

1. Introduction Innocent is a non-alcohol beverage company, which makes smoothies, juices, juices for kids and veg pot. Innocent started in 1999 from selling smoothies in music festival. Now Innocent, one of the subsidiary brands of Coca-Cola, has become UK number 1 smoothies brand. Innocent sales in 2012 increased significantly by more than 35% while Coca-Cola, majority stakeholder in Innocent, increase merely 0.8% in the year. Another beverage market leader, Pepsi sales rose gradually by 7.4%. It seems possible that these results are due to the extraordinary marketing management of Innocent founder. Innocent has been a unique-identity healthy and social responsible brand. The increase in innocent sale could be attributed to its unique marketing strategy. This essay would investigate marketing schemes of Innocent that could contribute to this success. This will include background of the brand, marketing schemes based by demography, company social responsibility and recommendation from this study Background Innocent was started in 1999 after selling their smoothies in a music festival. (Innocent,1999) It began with smoothies and expanded into food, juice and juicy water for kids. The name Innocent comes from the main characteristics of drink, which are pure, fresh and unadulterated. (Cheesman,2007) In 2009, Coca Cola Company bought stake from Innocent with 18% stake, Coca-Cola has then gradually increased its share, into 58% in 2010, and a more than 90% shareholding in 2013. (Price,2013) And since the deal with Coca- Cola, â€Å"Innocent has flourished: we’ve doubled in size, improved the social and environmental standards of how fruit is grown, got  our natural, healthy food and drink to more people across Europe and donated millions of pounds to charity† (Innocent, 2013) , (mintel,2013) Innocent is the number-one smoothie brand in the UK and in many of the European territories where the product is sold. (Williams,2014) Now Innocent is available in UK and other 14 count ries. Consumers could find innocent products in Supermarkets and coffee shops. With the good responsible to society, Innocent has donated 10% of profits everyyear to charity since 2004. Main competitor of Innocent is Tropicana, which own by PepsiCo. Tropicana and Innocent have been ranked as top brand of juice and smoothie over this century. Figure 2‑ Leading manufacturer’s shares in the UK’s off-trade fruit juice, juice drink and smoothies market, by value, 2011/12 and 2012/13 (mintel,2013) Figure 2‑ Pie chart of numbers of users of juice and smoothies (Kantar Media,2013) 3. Analysis SWOT analysis of Innocent Brand STRENGTH: S Leading smoothies brand in UK 100% from pure fruit – healthy brand identity Wide distribution channel Ethical brand ïÆ'   environmental, social Various product ranges WEAKNESS: W High price compare to other brands Coca-Cola hold share –> negative effect to healthy brand image OPPORTUNITY: O Lower the price to expand consumer market base Promote innocent as ‘quick and easy smoothies’ instead of ‘do it yourself’ smoothies. Expand market to emerging market THREAT: T Price sensitive market instead of premium product image Substituted products e.g. green tea High competition Table : SWOT analysis of Innocent Brand Table 1 shows the main characteristics of the innocent company, based on SWOT analysis. Segmentation and Target market of Innocent Consumer market segment Innocent main target market Product for target market Concern for Audience Innocent Marketing Approach Children Parents Kid’s beverages Child’s health and well-being Labeling, TV advertisement, Olympic sponsorship Children Fun, Toys Outstanding packaging (plus magnet) , game Teenagers X Juice, Smoothie Sports, Music Olympic sponsorship Young professionals Professional Health (Nutrition) Labeling Online Marketing Olympic sponsorship Middle ages Health (Nutrition), Ethical Corporate social responsibility (CSR) , Online Marketing Olympic sponsorship Seniors Seniors Labeling , TV advertisement, Corporate social responsibility (CSR) Table Analysis of marketing approach by marketing segment From the Table 2, it illustrates the variety of product line and the target customer ranges. Each specific marketing approach could get into most of the target segments. The Innocent product lines consist of smoothies, juice, kid’s beverages and food. From the table, main market target could be divided into 4 groups, which are parents, children, professionals and seniors. Marketing approaches are used differently regarding to the concern of each target segments. Healthy product, or a ‘healthy’ brand identity is a concerned issue for most of Innocent’s target market. Not only do adults buy themselves, Innocent, healthy brand identity products, but adults who have child will also buy their child Innocent because of its healthy brand identity. Promoting the product, which is good for health, can bring a trust to parents. (Mae, 2011Smith,2011) Mothers has also been the innocent target on television advertisement in order to significantly boost on the sales growth of children range . (O’Reilly,2011) With the strong brand identity, Innocent has got the hearts and wallets of the British public. (William,2013) Another outstanding marketing approach of innocent is corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR has become an essential part of a social-institutional framework. More and more people has experience growing  interest in CSR (Berger, Steurer, Konrad, Martinuzzi,2007) Figure 3‑ Fruit juice ,juice drink and smoothies usages 2013 (mintel,2013) From figure 3-1 brand usage(mintel,2013) , the number of ‘simple the best’ group is the majority of ‘fruit juice, juice drink, and smoothies customer. This group of people, with greater financial freedom than other groups, worries about their look and status. CSR create the positive brand image to consumer, which leads to the positive personal identity of this group customer. (Naqvi,Ishtiaq,Kanwal,Ali,Inderyas,2013) The CSR is then adding more prestige to the product, which this target group loves to buy. Innocent became an official sponsor of London 2012 Olympic game with Coca-Cola, its stakeholder. Smoothies and juices were served to athletes and to visitors in London 2012 Olympic game. (Baker,2011) As the result of the Olympic game, one of the most world popular event, Innocent took advantages to promote their unique brand to great number of people. Within a year of being an Olympi c sponsorship, Innocent sales had boosted by more than 35%. Innocent also provides fun to kids. Children could be attracted naturally with fun games and activities. Not only does Innocent provide entertainment activities to kids but it also provides fun learning resources to perfectly capture parent’s hearts. For instance, Innocent offered one of the various 6 easy to grow seeds within every box of kid’s smoothies and fruit tubes. (thedrum,2012) Compare strategies with competitors Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) Cooperate Social Responsiblility (CSR) might not be the most important of every business, although 97% of people would be more positive with the company. From MarketingWeek research(Tesseras,2013), more than 50% of people will buy product or service from a business that are contributing more to the communities. â€Å"Big Knit† the campaign since 2003 thatInnocent work with the Age UK, which is a charity for the aged, to keep elderly people across UK warm & healthy during winter. There has been a fundraising event in every year, which  Innocent has provided the pattern for consumers to knit the tiny hats. Then Innocent puts the hats on the smoothie bottles and sells in supermarket normal shelf. Every bottle sold, 25p goes to age UK. On the other hand, Pepsi and Coca-Cola focus on eco-conscious consumers. Both Pepsi and Coca-Cola have invested significant resources in order to develop and launch environmentally friendly bottles. These two companies try to prove their method to tackle waste and improve renewability. (packaging gateway,2011) Although Innocent, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are all beverage brand, they use different Corporate Social Responsibility dimensions as analyzed in the below parameter table Innocent Pepsi + Coca-Cola Product Juice/smoothies/veg pot Cola drinks CSR dimension (Dahlsrud,2008) Social dimension Environmental dimension Who involve in this activities ‘- Everyone who want to knit ‘- Consumers who buy smoothies with tiny hat ‘- Company’s employee How does the CSR promote ‘- Social media ‘- Company’s website ‘- Company’s website Who gain benefits from this CSR ‘- Age UK ‘- Innocent -> Positive to company + Sale increase from product difference ‘- Environmental ‘- Pepsi /Coca-cola -> Positive to company + Sale increase from environmental awareness person How’s the feedback ‘- Become viral ‘- Brand recognition ‘-This fierce rivalry create potential to effect genuine environmental improvements worldwide. Table CSR parameter table Since Innocent CSR dimension are in social dimension, people could deeply understand and follow more than in environmental dimension which might lead to more easily of the brand recognition in positive way. Big knit donation idea is concrete for customer to know the exactly amount of money they contribute for one product purchase. This can give rise to customer feeling of involvement. Both brands messages of CSR are added on the products. One is labeled on the bottle that it states greener product, while another one is wearing distinguished hat, which built audience a social responsible awareness. The Innocent campaign has become viral starting from official website to personal Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The photos of knit hat were spread without active pushes from Innocent Company. It is barely seen such a campaign that can connect to its consumers and have consumer’s engagement as same as this before. Feedback and result Figure 3‑ Leading soft drink brands ranked by buzzscore in UK 2013 (statista,2013) Regarding to Big knit, Innocent has a very strong brand reputation. It ranked as the highest with a score of 5.5, followed by Robinsons and Tropicana. The scores based on a survey of respondents that asks: â€Å"If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?†Ã¢â‚¬ ¨(Statista, 2013). The score show between January and December 2013. Table Leading brand juice market value (Mintel,2012) From many strategies of Innocent show the outstanding differential to other brands, as seen in table 3, and also the unique ability to make consumer trust. With consumer trust and innovative marketing, Innocent improves their market share of juice market every year. Innocent stands out the most; especially for women under the age of 35 .The simple idea is always differentiated with the use of dynamic marketing. However, Tropicana get the most trust from consumer. It is the number one fruit juice brand in usage, and this helped to boost trust within it. (Mintel, 2013) Figure 3‑ graph shown differentiation vs trust (Mintel,2013) (Statista, 2013) Recommendation With a strong CSR reputation of Innocent brand, other company can study and take innocent as an example to get the noticeable consumer involvement in CSR campaign. With the similar strategy, not only company will get positive image as an advantages, it will be also consumer market expansion. To clarify more, the similar social CSR dimension campaign will be used as an example. Thai Bev Company, which produces Chang beer in Thailand, distributes blankets to disadvantaged people during the winter. The beer company spread its awareness of CSR efforts via mass media that make lots of people know about the CSR campaign. However, the consumers do not felt into the social contribution while purchasing the product as same as the consumers of the innocent do in the BIG KNIT campaign 4. Conclusion After analyzing all the relevant information, it can be concluded that the market scheme of innocent is very effective in many aspects. Firstly, according to brand identities, innocent has its own unique style, which differentiate to other brands and make its product stand in the premium segment. Secondly, with creative style of CSR strategy, this not only makes the name of the brand spread rapidly, but also increases sales and positive image of the brand in the same time. Lastly, innocent CSR strategy may be one of the groundbreaking campaigns, which will be noticeably beneficial case study that other company should follow. References: Academic.mintel.com,. (2014). Login to Mintel Reports – Mintel Group Ltd. [online]. 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