Objectives of Case Saxonville Sausage needs a well-thought-out positioning marketing plan to move their Italian sausage brand to national category leader and match up core values in the hearts and minds, of consumers with the attributes of a product portfolios to meet their specific needs
Current Situation of Saxonville
Saxonville Sausage is a private family owned company in Saxonville, Ohio, with revenues of approximately $1.5 billion. Their main focus is on pork sausage products that are always fresh. Saxonvilles main product is their bratwurst line, which makes up 70% of their revenues, breakfast sausage that consists of 20% of their revenues and their small Italian sausage line, named Vivio that only makes up 5%. Store brand product accounted for additional 5% of revenue. On the other hand, Saxonville's sales in bratwursts have been flat and their breakfast sausage line has been steadily underperforming in the market resulting in a double-digit decline in revenue. However, the Italian sausage was the one category showing growth across producers in the retail sausage market, having an annual increasing rate of 9% in 2004 and 15% in 2005. The one area where they have been consistently increasing is their Vivio Italian sausage line, primarily in the New England area. However Vivio was available in just 16% of the nations large supermarket, primarily Boston, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and South Carolina. Saxonville dont spend on the breakfast category as compare to other competitors. These sausages were eaten more at the special occasion, typically on weekends. Bratwurst is mainly prepared at the outdoor grilling. Management is thinking about changing their promotional campaign for this category but since they had fired their current ad-agency it was very difficult for them to get a new campaign developed and fielded. Saxonville hired a new marketing director in Ann Banks to "make her mark" and launch a national Italian sausage brand that Saxonville needed to bring to market in order to achieve profit objectives for the next fiscal year.
How was the research method determined?
Ann Banks formed multifunctional task force that would provide input and perspective in her investigation of the Italian sausage opportunity. In the meeting Banks pose the question to be solved through research. What is the ideal name for Saxonvilles line of Italian sausage? Should a national entrant continue with the Vivio brand name, or have a different Italianate name or utilize the Saxonvilles name to leverage company heritage and brand equity? She had a four step process to do positioning work. These are as follows:
Step One: Planning New Research on the Target Customer
This phase is to get quick handle on what current Italian sausage has to say about their use of the product. Each group contained four to six users. The work serve to confirm some of the basic information presented in A&U. This gave idea of language consumers used to discuss some of the benefits Italian sausage delivered. In phase II Saxonville engaged another two colleagues from Research Company. Main aim of this phase is to understand current behavior, trigger to purchase, unmet need, product benefits, attributes and ideals; and to develop soli feel for core values and the role this product plays. Since female were the primary source of usage they were considered to be best source of insights for the positioning. 103 women had qualified for the focus groups. Keller talked with each focus group member and got the clear idea about benefit and priorities they received from Italian sausage.
Step Two: Building on Learning from the Focus Group
Banks and Bishop learned about consumer behavior and they developed synopsis of the learning. All women in the focus group described hectic family life and their ideal was to make wholesome and appealing meals. They created perceptual map which clarified stressors in the respondents life. Italian sausage was revealed as meal solution helping women during trade off of time and skill to prepare meal against family member it would please. The next step on the path to positioning involved characterizing the womens ideals of family life which involved creating happy childhood memory for their children. This step brought six different themes for positioning the brand: Family connection, clever cooking, Confidence, Appreciation, Quick and Easy, and Tradition
Step Three: Building Positioning Concepts
Banks preferred to use Brand Ladder to build positioning concept. In this method they started with a core value, and then moved down to the emotional benefit, the functional benefit, and the product attributes that communicated those benefits. They made a list of values which are at the top of this ladder. These values were mostly about women doing great job as mother and homemaker. Now team must next identify how each of the six positioning territories delivered an emotional benefit that paid off to the stated value. They concluded that Quick and Easy would work better. In the final round they developed four mock concepts and consumers to prioritize. Family Connection received the highest vote next to Clever Cooking.
Step Four: Additional Research Delivers a Verdict or Two
Based on the qualitative research, Banks faced a quandary. In this phase they hired quantitative testing agency & field-tested the Family Connection concept with 250 target consumers and Clever Cooking with 256 target consumers. Of the two, Family Connection had scored better. They discussed how advertising might look and feel, packaging, product attributes and how in store graphics. They also work on naming along with considering sub-branding, finally picking the winner from the last two concepts.