Situation Analysis for Yakult Company Essay Example

brief that we attended after this the situation analysis is presented and here we have the most important facts about the company , the products , its competitors and the market that Yakult is falling in. An important part in our repost is going to be the target audience, here we are going to show you our research that made us to decide on a specific target audience. Another important part is the brand concept plan and the insight of the new product, we reach this points by doing interviews, focus groups, survives and of course desk research.

The brief * Introduce the topic/the assignment For our Branding project we were asked to create a new brand extension for the brand Yakult. The new product has to be constructed on the DNA of its mother brand but still needs to be innovative and attractive for an out-of-home channel. The reason for an extension to an out-of-home market is to increase the sales of the company and create more brand awareness to a new customer segment. To create this new brand successfully, we need to conduct research in order to gain knowledge and get information on our potential new product for good results. What is the context of the topic? (brief) From the brief presentation, we know that Yakult is a global brand and in some parts of the world they already have experience in the out-of-home market. The approach that Yakult is using to reach its audience is a two-way communication strategy. However, nowadays they try to switch to one-way communication in order to adjust to the modern society and become more technology oriented.

Yakult is therefore trying to diversify its range of products on the Dutch market in order to become more attractive for a different target group than their usual consumers.

At this point, we were informed that their loyal consumers are older than 30 and have a family. However, the new product does not have to be addressed to this target market to reach more diversification of the main brand. In the Netherlands the company is currently operating only in the probiotic drinks market and it is offering its products throughout home channels. It has a brand awareness of 96% among Dutch consumers. In Japan the company has some other products for its customers and it is also quite successful.

Yakult is offering cosmetic products as well which are containing the DNA of the brand or more precisely the Shirota bacteria that only they can cultivate. The company consists of different departments and has its own facility for manufacturing the product in the city of Almere. The facility is fully equipped by which we mean that they have a laboratory for researches on how to improve and innovate its products. Problem definition The “problem” of the Yakult company is that they want to expand their business to an out-of-home market. Until now, the small Yakult shots are sold in supermarkets in packages that contain seven of the small, white ottles. The main consumer of the product are older than 30 and have their own family who consume the daily “shot of health” as well. Now, Yakult wants to have a brand extension to serve their customers in a new market and reach a different

target group. Sub goals like creating more brand awareness, increasing sales and keep the good reputation need to be considered as well. Project result description The result of this project will be a new product which will be introduced to the out-of-home market in a channel that Yakult has no experience with yet on the Dutch market.

With the new product, we can serve a new target audience and therefore create more brand awareness which might result in higher sales of both brands of the Yakult company. Besides, to achieve the goal, we have to select one channel segment which best suits the DNA of the already existing brand in order to keep the good reputation and awareness on the Dutch market. Afterwards, we will have to identify the needs and wants of our future customer segment to be able to penetrate this market segment effectively. This will help us to find a consumer insight with which we can continue to create a brand concept for the new brand.

After creating this concept, we can then start to create a brand book including a name for the new product, a slogan, a logo and so on. Everything will be then presented to one ICM lecturer and a professional art director or designer. Approach * Research approach (methods) Desk research For our subject we used several research methods: desk research and interviewing . We think that the best method is the desk research because in this way we can find and gather information from our existing sources, for example from books, magazines, journals, databases, internet and so on.

The literature is used in

a way that is guiding us through the steps of the whole project. Databases helped us to find more accurate information about the functional foods and from this we understood the needs and wants of our future customers. Thanks to websites like lexisnexis,dogpile,etc Yakult core values, our direct competitors market status, and to find which is the best out-of-home channel. This was the most time-saving and simplest type of research. To carry out this type of research we needed to be extra careful n order to find the real information out of the existing data, because even a small mistake could have lead us in a wrong direction and could have been a waste of time, especially on the field of Internet research.

We focused on the qualitative form of research methods, to make sure that our research was accurate, up-to-date and valid. Interviews The interview was carried out in person, thus face-to-face. We used a semi-structured approach which is letting the interviewee speak relatively free and at the same time allowing us to ensure that certain issues were covered and responded to.

We had a list of all our questions and a paper with the general results of our researches. When conducting the interview, we had to check the list for some answers, because taking notes can interfere with the flow of the conversation and we could have not properly followed what the interviewee said. Also, it would have been difficult to pay attention to the non-verbal aspects of the ongoing communication and to remember everything that was said and the way it was said.

The interviews were conducted with two

professionals in the sport / gym sector , and for the first interview we decided that a good option will be to interview our teacher Ms. Wood because of her previous experience in this domain, and for the second interview we went and had a discussion with the instructor form the gym university and this was really helpful as well. This both interviews help us to gain a better understanding of the market and of what people are really searching , also we gain some knowledge in what concerns the ingredients that a drinks may have in order the help the body develop in the right way.

Surveys In order for us to get a better idea of the consumers’ needs and wants we conducted a few surveys. This method is provided us with a first-hand information which helped us develop our new product further. It was also a good opportunity to understands customers’ opinion about probiotics products and thus see on what part of the positioning and promoting we need to emphasize in order to reach our potential targeted audience.

The surveys were conducted into gyms by two of the members of our team, we went on different day at different times in order to reach all our possible target audiences, on member went to a gym called InTenssion and the other one to Fitallday. In our personal opinion conducting a survey is a crucial part of the research process because the information comes straight from the consumer and it could be easily analyzed. In this way the results could be used for our furthers research and could be easily put into

our report.