Overview:
In previous chapters you’ve honed your understanding of the consumer, segmented the audience, and conducted research. It is time to pull all this information together and create an assessment of your client’s current situation. Marketers call such an assessment a situation analysis.
The beer industry is highly concentrated, with few historically dominant global operators controlling most of the industry revenue. However, global trends show a decline in revenue as other beverages such as wine and cider gain increasing market share. The decline only makes the various industry players compete more intensively for an ever shrinking market.
You’ve seen various ads from beer producers. As a consumer good that is sold B2C (Business to Consumer) brand awareness and increasing market share are critical. Your client has asked you to make an assessment of their current situation and to advise them on possible changes to their IMC Strategy that will increase Brand Awareness and Sales.
Your Agency has been hired by your client which is a Beer company. For this exercise, choose a Beer Company from the ones below:
Top 10 Largest Beer Companies and Beer Brands in the World 2020:
1) Anheuser-Busch InBev
2) Heineken
3) China Resources Snow Breweries
4) Carlsberg
5) Molson Coors Brewing
6) Tsingtao Brewery Group
7) Asahi
9) Kirin
10) Groupe Castel
Use the List below to organize your analysis:
Directions:
1. Choose a geographic region where your client competes; conduct market research at Grossmont Library or other sources that may be available for your research. Reports that can be found at Grossmont Library include:
Marketline Industry Report
EBSCO: Beer Company SWOT Analysis
3. Get information on your Client and their current situation. (Use the company you’ve picked above)
The company story: History, size, growth, profitability, scope of business, competence, reputation, strengths, weaknesses.
The Product or Service
The product story: Development, quality, design, description, packaging, price structure, uses, reputation, strengths, weaknesses.
Product sales features: Exclusive, nonexclusive differentiating qualities, competitive position.
Product research: Technological breakthroughs, improvements planned.
Sale History
Sales and sales costs: By product, model, sales districts.
Profit history.
Company Position in industry: Dollar sales, strengths.
4. Share of Market your Client currently has
Sales history industry wide : Share of market in dollars and units.
Market potential: Industry trends, company trends, demand trends.
5. The Market
Who and where is the market: How was market segmented, how can it be segmented, what are consumer needs, attitudes, and characteristics? How, why, when, where do consumers buy?
6. Past IMC appeals: Successful or unsuccessful? (Per your Agencies Standards and based on volume sales)
Who are our customers?
Past and future?
What characteristics do they have in common?
What do they like about our product?
What don’t they like?
5. Distribution
History and evaluation: How and where product is distributed, current trend.
Company’s relationship: With the distribution channel and its attitudes toward product/company.
Past policies: Trade advertising, deals, co-op programs.
Status: Trade literature, dealer promotions, point-of-purchase displays.
6. Pricing Policies
Price history: Trends, relationship to needs of buyers, competitive price situation.
Past price objectives: Management attitudes, buyer attitudes, channel attitudes.
7. Competition
Who is the competition: Primary, secondary, share of market, products, services, goals, attitudes.
What is competition’s growth history and size?
Strengths and competition: Sales features, product quality, size.
Weaknesses of competition.
Marketing activities of competition: Advertising, promotion, distribution, sales force. Estimated budget.
8. Promotion
Successes and failures: Past promotion policy, sales force, advertising, publicity.
Promotion expenditures: History, budget emphasis, relation to competition, trend.
IMC programs: Review of strategies, themes, campaigns.
Sales force: Size, scope, ability, cost/sale.
9. Marketing Advertising Strategy
How do they appeal to the targeted demographic? What psychographic elements do they appeal to?
Do you think this is the right strategy to increase revenues/market share?
Based on what you have learned about the industry and the competitors what is your final evaluation of your Client?
Do you believe they are successful in keeping their relevant market share or successfully increasing market share through their targeted IMC?
What would be your recommendation to your Client now that you have completed your assessment of their Current IMC?
You will present your findings to your Client in a Written Situation Analysis Report.
The report should be more than just a collection of key facts and figures; it should offer valuable market information and particularly an assessment of the factors and findings conducted.
Use charts and graphs wherever possible but explain them. Think creatively to make your presentation professional, well researched and informed. If you are showing videos, show appropriate video clips to support, or produce your own video clips to enhance your presentation, remember you don’t have a lot of time to present your findings.
All your sources of information must be clearly referenced. The assignments must be based on research, using online and global library resources and demonstrate your understanding of the readings and course concepts.
Your project grade will be divided between 90% for content (critical analysis, quality, and variety of research) and 10% for organization and presentation style. Organization refers to readability, flow, logic, professional organization and writing mechanics of the report. It should be clear, concise, with a logical flow of thoughts and ideas. It is important to use theory and concepts from your readings and class discussions to frame the information you present.
This is a business presentation; be sure to use headings and subheads as outlined. A recommended outline is shown below:
The Report for your Client:
Title Page
Executive Summary
Situational Analysis that covers all the points mentioned above.
Final Assessment and Recommendation based on your findings.
Bibliography/References
Organization and Mechanics of report:
Report should be well-‐organized, clear, and easy to read, laid out effectively, using headings, sub-‐heads and bullets. Points deducted for grammatical and spelling errors.
Research Project Resources:
You will find various tools and resources in the Grossmont College library of tremendous help in your projects. The library has several databases with a wealth of company, industry, and financial data.
Passport GMID, by Euromonitor International, is a global market information database and analysis tool containing data and reports across all industries, countries, and consumers.
Company websites: Very often you can download a company’s annual reports from its web site, and many companies also keep lists of press releases and articles that have been written about them on the web site. Good market insights can be gained from reading competitors’ annual reports.
Your Assignment will consider and be graded on the following components:
Quality of the report as measured by:
Quality of the Executive Summary (informative, summarizes key points).
Accuracy and thoroughness of the company analysis.
Quality of the market opportunity analysis, including the feasibility of the success criteria (Market share – key driving factors in the industry and market presence).
Accuracy and thoroughness of the market- industry analysis.
Quality of the arguments in support of the recommendations provided in the report (clarify, thoughtfulness, strength of the arguments – essentially how well you explain your decisions).
Proper use of relevant, reliable, and legitimate external sources and references.
Clarity of presentation, formatting quality, readability, visual appeal, grammar.
Absence of plagiarism – Turnitin automatically checks all reports for plagiarism and highlights sections of the report that have been copied from other sources without proper referencing.
AND… integration and application of the concepts learned in the course.
