Ice Breakers Cool Blasts

Chews
Alex Dias, Greg Padula, Devin Racca, Erica
Rekrut, Kevin Sanda

Introduction
11% decrease in gum sales compared to previous 4 years
Hershey comes up with innovative product to try to close the gap

Target audience: 18- 24 year olds

Decision problem: How can we raise awareness as revenues?
Research Problems
Investigate alternative breath fresheners
Compare product locations
Determine which elements are important to customers

Secondary Research
Consumers are looking for unspecified mint flavors, meaning that there is a
strong peppermint dominant mint blend, as well as tea flavors
Millennials are influenced by social media posts, peer influencers, and
celebrities
Tic Tac Mixer Mints- known for iconic-shaped mints, unique packaging, dual
flavor pills changes from one flavor to the next
Hersheys Jolly Ranchers- #keeponsucking campaign

Focus Group

Overview
Key Issues:
Low Awareness
Effectiveness of the Advertisements
Consumers Opinion of Product
Description of the Group:
5 Total Participants
4 Females
Ages Range: 19-21

https://www.google.com/search?q=focus+group&biw=1366&bih=657&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0
ahUKEwiL2pif89nJAhUJKx4KHUGrA74Q_AUIBigB#imgrc=7P0lXgyneRi9HM%3A

Key
Findings
Key Findings
Positives

Negatives

Product

Strong flavor
Gives fresh breath
The packaging

The texture
Confusion on how to eat it
4 of 5 would not buy it

Current
Promotion

Clever
Catchy
Unique

Chewing Sound
Confusing
Weird/Odd

Limitations
All Focus Groups
Researchers reviewing the focus
group may have a bias outlook
when analyzing the data
Participants responses are greatly
influenced by the moderator

Our Focus Group

Only 5 of the 9 expected
participants showed up
4 of the 5 participants were
female
Some peoples responses were
influenced by the prior
persons response

Conclusions from
Focus
Group
Research Questions
Why is awareness low
How effective are the
promotional campaigns

What do consumers think

about the product

Findings

The current advertisements failed to describe

the product in a way that the consumer could
understand. As a result of the product being
new and the ineffective promotions,
awareness remains low
The focus group agreed that the product was
strong and provided them with fresh breath,
but its texture turned off many participants

Survey Research

Findings
63% of respondents chew gum greater than or equal to 2-3 times per week
29% of respondents consume breath mints greater than or equal to 2-3
times per week
56% of participants responded the importance of the product dissolving in
their mouth as either somewhat important or neither important or
important

Findings
Ice Breakers were the 3rd most known brand of breath mints, totaling 30%
behind Altoid and Tic Tac
Over 50% of respondents were aware of Ice Breakers Cool Blasts Chews,
however only 22% had actually tried the product
48% of participants would accept a free trial of the product, while 88% of
respondents were somewhat to very likely to purchase

Limitations
The mean age of the respondents was 20.8, tailoring the responses to one
age group and their opinions and preferences
61% of the respondents were female, with only 39% being male
Would look to create more of a balance in gender in future studies

Conclusions
Target market is the millennial age group
Focus group shows consumers care about textures as well as if the product
did its job
Ice Breakers brand is third most recognized breath freshener distributor
Only 22.5% have tried the product
Majority have not experienced the product

Recommendations
Social media platforms could be most effective in communicating to our
target market
focus on peer recommendations
focus on opinion leaders

Tea flavors as well as peppermint flavors

Implement in Mass Merchandisers
Free trials

References
Brown, Tom J and Suter, Tracy A. MR. Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2014.
"Millennials' Social Media Posts Influence Peers to Buy New Products - EMarketer." Millennials' Social Media Posts Influence Peers to
Buy New Products - EMarketer. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
"Tap Into the Power of Millennials, Peer-to-Peer Influence and Crowd-Contributing Why You Need To Start Now!" - Resource Center.
N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
Williams, Bob. "Digital Celebrities Pull Millennials Away From Movies and Television for Celebrity Marketing." The Brand Agent.
N.p., 28 July 2015. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
"Tic Tac Introduces New Tic Tac Mixers." -- SOMERSET, N.J., May 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
"Anomaly and Jolly Rancher Find New Ways to Suck Together." AgencySpy. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
Pew Research. "Social Networking Fact Sheet." Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. Pew Research Center, 27 Dec. 2013.
Web. 14 Dec. 2015.