Implementation of Marketing Strategy at Nexba Beverages Australia

Question

Topic: Nexba Beverages
(https://startups.venturecrowd.com.au/deal/detail/nexba_seriesaextension)
(https://www.nexba.com/)

Task Description
Assessment 2 requires students to work individually on their selected new product or service (nexba beverages) to create a comprehensive strategic marketing plan. This is an individual assessment with a maximum word limit of 2500. Your assessment should be an application of relevant marketing concepts learnt in the unit. There is no need to go into details about explaining marketing concepts, rather it should be an applied discussion.

Any assessment with a ‘Turnitin’ similarity score of more than 25% will be checked by the marker for plagiarism although it may not necessarily mean that you have plagiarised. If there is a substantial similarity score in the ‘Turnitin’ report, your assessment could be forwarded to an appropriate office/authority.

Assessment Criteria
Title page, table of contents, executive summary and introduction (3 marks): – Includes a title page, table of contents and executive summary that are professionally written and organized. The executive summary contains the key points of the whole report in 3-5 paragraphs written in single page. Introduction section should provide background information of the product or service chosen in assessment 1. You can summarize the key information from assessment 1 in the introduction section. Specifically, you will be assessed on the following aspects:

• Executive summary
• ) Introduction
• Situation analysis recap

Discussion of the segmentation, targeting and positioning approach (10 marks): A discussion on the potential customer segments for your product or service and which one(s) you wish to target with good justifications. Also, discuss the desired positioning for the product or service. Develop a clear positioning statement. Specifically, you will be assessed on the following aspects:

• Problem statement
• Discussion of potential market segment
• Discussion of target market and positioning

Set 3 marketing and 3 financial objectives: Provide realistic marketing and financial objectives. Specifically, you will be assessed on the following aspects:

• Marketing objectives and goals
• Financial objectives and goals

Formulation of a detailed marketing mix strategy (10 marks): should cover specifics of the product, price, promotion and place aspects. Specifically, you will be assessed on the following aspects:

• Marketing mix – how are they to be applied?
• Marketing strategy proposed implementation

Budget allocation for promotion mix : Should provide the media and budget allocation for each of the promotional mix elements and mapped against the objectives of the promotional mix elements. Put special emphasis on digital communications strategies.

Conclusion and reference (3 marks): Includes a summary of the key points of the presentation. Provide a list of at least 15 (fifteen) citations and references of some published academic and research papers, textbooks and authentic Web sources. Referencing should follow the APA style.

Evidence of research (6 marks): The quality and integration of research in the writeup to support key points. This should include theoretical and empirical research findings from a combination of academic journals and textbooks. Any website which is used to find statistical information is also considered as part of evidence of research but not part of academic journal or textbooks. Useful websites include Australian Bureau of Statistics, Austrade, CIA Factbook, Doing Business and any state or commonwealth authority websites.

Mechanics : Use of headings, sub headings, cohesion of paragraphs were of high quality. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are of exceptional standard.

Answer

Executive Summary
The report discusses about a sugar free drinks producing company known by the name of Nexba and it is situated in Australia.

In the report the marketing plan of the sugar free drinks offered by the company is discussed in detail. The report starts with discussion of the problem statement and then segmentation, targeting and positioning of the product is discussed. In the next part the financial and marketing objectives are discussed along with the Marketing mix and promotional budget of the product being offered. The market segmentation is also discussed in the report. The report ends with conclusion and a list of references.

Introduction
The report is based upon the case study of Nexba beverages and it includes marketing plan of the sugar free drinks being offered by the company. The Founder of Nexba were AussieBoys , followed by troy and drew in 2010. The company Aims to provide people with healthy options in soft drinks. The mission of the company is to be in the fast position of sugar free soft drinks. The Vissio of the company is to transform lives through delivering the naturally soft drinks and sugar free products. The Major competitors for Nexba are Dr. Pepper Snapple, Pepsico, and General Mills. There are many strengths of the company one is its increased market demand by 300% in the last one year, which signifies that demand for sugar free drinks is on rise.

Discussion of the segmentation, targeting and positioning approach
Problem statement: People have now become more conscious about their health and they prefer intake of sugar free soft drinks in order to slow down the health risks (Keaver et al, 2017). Nexba offers sugar free soft drinks which are an attractive option for customers who want to drink soft drinks but avoid drinking them due to health concerns and also these drinks have not received any criticism from health agencies.

Discussion of potential market segment: The growing awareness among consumers and increasing interest of the customers towards sugar free and healthy beverages has driven the market growth from the year 2017 to 2023. The growth of food technology and advancement and innovation in the packaging technology introduced new attractive packaging which has helped in boosting the beverage sales. The increasing trend of diseases like diabetes, obesity and heart ailments has lead to transfer of the consumer interest from carbonated drinks to sugar free and gluten free drinks. This is one of the main variant of sugar free beverages in the market. The healthy diet trend due to prevalence of life style diseases has played a great role in increasing the sugar free beverage market at CAGR of 7.1 % during the period between the years 2017-2023 (Taylor, 2017).

The importance of the market segmentation is to determine that while customers are consuming healthy and sugar free drinks their needs, demands and situations are different across different market segments which determine that consumers are seeking different benefits from the same products (Taylor, 2017)

In this market segmentation for sugar free drinks, eight different market segments have been identified. These segments are based on mixed market situations:

• Thirst quenchers
• Energy boosters
• Looking for variety
• Health concerned
• Players /sporty
• Sugar conscious
• As per mood

Thirst quenchers: The group of consumers is looking for a simple function benefit from the drink to quench their thirst. The group looks for something like juice or water and avoid caffeinated and milk based drinks, therefore they end up consuming whatever they get at hand. These consumers will be attracted to the words like hydrating, refreshing and healthy (Hoare et al. 2027)

Energy Boosters: The sugar free drinks can anytime work as an energy booster for the consumers who feel tired or feel rundown of the energy or want to start the day on a healthy note. According to Crino (2017), the consumer preference has changes overtime and instead of coffee etc the consumers are reaching out for cold beverages as an energy booster, and if the drink is sugar free it will serve all the important purposes.

Looking for variety : These consumers are not product loyal and tend to shift from one product to another depending upon their situation and taste. They tend to try everything they get at hand. Variety seeker is a very common market segment in all the food and beverages markets. They are also known by the name of brand switchers and are heavy consumers as well; the goal of the companies is to increase the inclination of consumers of this segment by increasing the product range with variety. (Hoare et al. 2027)

Health Concerned: Now days the consumers of this segment are increasing at an exponential rate. The heath concerns of people are increasing due the advent of life style diseases, the consumers who belong to this group want to make all their beverages and food items healthy and safe. In beverage market these consumers are mainly attracted to juice which is sugar free or vitamin water without added sugar. (Hoare et al. 2011)The consumers of this section are brand loyal and they keep on using the products on which they trust that they provide health benefits to them. These consumers are attracted to every offering which promises them to offer health benefits and are very less responsive to the sales, offers and promotions outside their normal choice of brands and products.

Players/Sporty: This market segment includes consumers who are health freaks and do physical exercise on a daily basis and the other set of consumers are the ones who keep on participating in sporting events or are themselves into sports or are the players. The people working out at the gym usually consume sugar free drinks while they are in the gym.

This segment is different from heath concerned market segment as these consumers do not essentially look for healthy food or drink but instead they like to use them when they are doing strenuous workouts or other activities.

Outside the sport activities these consumers do show signs of consumers of other market segment but they always keep in mind that the food and beverage they are taking do not hinder their daily nutritional requirement; they are loyal to the brands that offer clear functional benefits. (Hoare et al. 2027)

Sugar Conscious The diabetics, obese and heart patients are highly attracted to sugar free diet drinks. These help in dealing with particular need of the consumers such as maintaining blood glucose level, weight loss regimen or want to cut calories from their daily diet.

The market segment differs from health focused market segment as they are forced to use and consume such sugar free drinks and products because of their general health and wellbeing concerns. This is why they are attracted to sugar free drink varieties and is less interested in carbonated drinks. They are heavy users and are very responsive to the sales and promotional activities; they are very brand loyal as well.

In this segment the consumer’s mood and situation determines the demand of the drink and food. The habit is also a reason, in this segment the consumers do not necessarily seeking to quench their thirst or health benefits. These consumers drink products for refreshment and enjoyment purposes only (Hoare et al. 2011)

Discussion of target market and positioning

Positioning of the sugar free drink is done on the following consumer driven positioning map categories:
Flavor options: The positioning can be based on the flavor options available in the market. Nexba offers flavors like coconut, watermelon, mint, cucumber and coconut flavor (Mesirow et al. 2015).

Effectiveness: The effectiveness can be availed by the people suffering from lifestyle diseases, diabetics, heart patients, obese and health conscious consumers.

Style/Trends: Increasing awareness among consumers about bad health effects of drinks containing sugars. The Awareness of the malevolence of drinks containing sugar and, specially fructose the second form of sugar has created a momentum that created a market for healthy drinks and food items such as sugar free drinks and food products, as researches have proved that drinks containing sugars like carbonated drinks are the unnecessary way to intake huge amount of waste sugars. The market trends like consumption of flavored water trend and sparkling water has also helped in positioning the sugar free drinks on the basis of prevalent styles and trends.

Taste: Positioning on the basis of taste is a very old method used for marketing of a product. Nexba uses methods like removing of sugar and adding alternatives like natural flavor, fruit extracts stevia and Erythrotol. Therefore it focuses on providing sugar free drink in naturally sweetened taste (Mesirow et al. 2015).

Packaging: The packaging is something that attracts the consumers a lot, and it is the point where customers get to know that what product has to offer as per their requirement. The packaging positions the product in consumers mind in a way that enhances its image and advances its brand. Focused and customized packaging helps in positioning of the sugar free drink as a healthy option of beverage being offered by the company.

Set 3 marketing and 3 financial objectives
Marketing objectives and goals: To make company able to control, it’s long term and short term marketing goals.

To motivate the team members and staff to reach a common goal

To offer a consistent focus on agreed upon agreed upon goals which are consistent with all the functions of the organization (Peters et al. 2014)

1. Objective related to Market Share: To gain 71% of market share of sugar free drinks by the year 2018.
2. Objectives of Profitability: To achieve, 35% of the return on the total capital investment
3. Objectives related to product promotion: To increase product awareness by 20%-30% in the target market
4. Market Survival objectives: To survive the current market competition by providing different and unique product to the consumers
5. Growth Objectives : To increase global market of Nexba by 8%

Financial objectives and goals

• First objective is to increase Revenues
• Goal is to increase revenues by 30-40%
• Second objective is to decrease costs
• Goal is to decrease cost by 10-15%
• Third objective is to improve margins
• Goal is to improve margins by 20-30%

Formulation of a detailed marketing mix strategy:
Marketing Mix:

• Product
  • Sugar free Soft drinks
  • Sugar free iced tea
  • Flavoured sparkling water in different tastes such as lemon, raspberry, water melon, cucumber, mint, mango and strawberry.
  • Sparkling infusions like combination of different flavours in one pack.
  • Sugar free cola for people who want to enjoy the taste of carbonated drinks but without sugar. (Peters et al. 2014)
• Price
  • The pet jar of 1 litre is approx 2.5 $
  • The pack of 12 bottles of 1 litre each is of 30$
  • The price range of sparkling water is 41$ for pack of six bottles of 1 litre each
• Place: The product is available at all the supermarkets and retail stores like wools worth, Coles, new sunrise , dominos, seven eleven etc.
  The products can also be bought from the online store of the company and the facility of payment on delivery can be availed.

Promotion: The promotional strategies involve direct interaction with the customers.
Marketing is done internally.
The TV promotions and advertisements are used to promote the products

The promotion will basically focus on offering customers solutions, at the acceptable costs, at the convenient place and with proper communication methods (Peters et al. 2014).

Marketing strategy proposed implementation
The tagline naturally sugar-free must be changed into naturally healthy, as it will include all the benefits provided by the drink like nutrition’s, vitamins in addition with sugar free characteristics.

The marketing strategy applied here can be diversification of the product offerings by the company. The pricing strategy can be changed and products must be offered in bundles and in fewer prices in combination with this the products can be marketed on the basis of their nutritional value plus sugar free characteristics (Renold, 2017).

Word of mouth can be used as an advertisement method. A sale and promotional program must be set so that the potential customers may be gauged and targeted accordingly.

Referral programs of loyal customers must be started so that already present customers can act as the catalysts to bring about more customers.

Networking events will help in creating a buzz of the newly developed product by the company.

Segmentation marketing can be done by targeting the customers who are diabetic, obese, heath concerned, workout freaks, in sports or are suffering from heart ailments.

Renold (2017) suggested that this will help in creating a clear target market for the product which has a lot of untapped potential; this target market is growing at an exponential rate as the lifestyle related diseases like obesity and diabetes are increasing continuously.

Budget allocation for promotion mix:

Table 1: Budget allocation for promotion mix
(Source: Self developed)

Conclusion
The sugar free drink introduced in the market has a lot of potential to attract a large chunk of revenue from the drinks market as the growing knowledge of consumers about ill effects of sugar consumption has increased the market potential of such drinks. People are becoming more and more concerned about their health and the awareness of lifestyle diseases has also increased demand of sugar free drinks. Therefore it can be concluded that sugar free drinks market has lot of potential to grow in the near future and it should be marketed on its characteristic to provide sugar free, healthy and tasty drink. Major competitors of Nexba in Australia are Dr Pepper Snapple, Coca Cola, Pepsi Co, Mondelez, and General Mills. The Sugar free products do not receive any criticism from the health sector. The major weakness of the company is that it offers drinks in limited flavours and the product range has a very low awareness. The sugar free drink offers probability to tap greater market share and is a new and attractive market for health conscious people. The problem company can face is high competition in future because of substitutions.

References
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