Marketing Strategy

Evaluate the present marketing mix for Walkers Crisps and make recommendations for the development of the marketing mix in the future.

Introduction.

1) Introduction- this will show a plan and stages of my coursework.

2) Aim- this will explain what and how I’m going to do.

3) Background:

Walkers’ history, information about the Walkers crisps company.

4) Walkers marketing strategy:

Target Market:

Market research

5) Product:

Walkers’ packaging, development of new products, product life cycle.

6) Price:

Types of pricing methods, methods Walkers uses, graph about Walkers pricing strategy

7) Promotion:

Types of promotion methods

8) Place/Location:

Shop in shop system, types of outlets, tuck shops, machines and etc.

9) Conclusion, advice to the Walkers Company.

Aim

The aim of this assignment is to evaluate the present marketing mix for Walkers Crisps and make recommendations for the development of the marketing mix in the future.

Now, I’m going to write what I’m going to do in the first stages of my coursework. First of all I’m going to find out as much as possible information about Walkers crisps and its history. Then I’m going to collect information about a variety of Walkers’ products, visit shops and look what kind of flavours of crisps do they have, try them and see whether they’re good or not. Then I’m going to do a market research which will help me to know about the price, promotion, and possible competitors of Walkers Ltd. I have been given some information about what people prefer in Walkers from my Walkers Crisps questionnaires, which I gave to the people to fill in. In my questionnaire some people preferred some other crisps rather than Walkers. I’m going to compare products of firms and find out why some people chose other crisps by checking their products, flavours, location, and price.

Then I’m going to do an internet and newspaper research to find some articles about what people like or not in Walkers crisps. Also, I will be looking for the scale of growth of the Walkers crisps company to see how quick it grew, see any fallings in their economy or periods when their sales were the most high. I’m going to look how often Walkers changed flavours in their crisps and what kind of promotion/advertising did they do.

Once I’ve done all these steps, I can then start to analyze: results, data, and the whole Walker’s market in order to give them my own recommendations based on the evidence from my research. After all this I will be able to say whether Walkers business works well or not.

Background.

Now I’m going to tell a little bit more information about Walkers and its history. In the 1880s Henry Walker, the creator of this company, moved from Mansfield to Leicester to take over an established butcher's shop in the high street. Meat rationing after World War II saw the factory output drop dramatically and the company looked at alternatives to make use of the wasted capacity. With potato crisps being increasingly popular with the public, managing director R.E. Gerrard helped the company shift focus and began hand-slicing and frying potatoes.

Now Walkers are owned by Frito-Lay, which in turn is a subsidiary of Pepsico, though they are still a significant presence in Leicester and sponsor the Leicester City F.C. football team who play in the Walkers Stadium. Gary Lineker, formerly a Leicester City footballer is now the face of the company, starring in most of their advertising campaigns.

The official website states that an estimated "11 million people will eat a Walkers product every day”. The company employs over 4000 people in 15 locations.

In 2000, Walkers' 1995 advert starring Gary Lineker was named the 9th best television commercial of all time, in a poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4.

In February 2006, Walkers changed their brand label and typeset. They also announced they were to reduce the saturated fat in their crisps by 70%.

Many of Walkers brands were formerly branded under the Smiths Crisps name. This stems from when Walkers, Smiths and Tudor were the three main brands of Nabisco's UK snack division with Tudor being marketed mainly in the north of England and Walkers in the south. After the takeover by Pepsico the Tudor name was dropped and the Smiths brand has gradually been phased out in favour of Walkers.

According to the information given in the Marketing magazine by TNS on 23rd August 2005 Walkers Crisps is the biggest brand in Britain, with sales of up to £505 million. General business activity for Walkers Crisps is producing crisps and selling them to their customers. Now I want to talk more about their selling. After the crisps produced, they don’t go straight to the customers. We all know that there are three different sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary. And one of the most important things for Walkers is to sell and deliver their product to consumer. The role of consumer in this type of business will play different hypermarkets, supermarkets and all other shops which are interested in their production. Factory must meet the needs of several types of customers. Some of these are within the business, some of them outside it. Walkers have the head office in Berkshire, where the sales and forecasts are set. It also informs the factory about sales, trends and marketing changing. All the efforts in the factory must eventually satisfy the consumer. Walkers crisps must sell and this can only be achieved if they meet consumer and costumer expectations. There are lots of other firms doing the same ‘crisp and snack business’, so Walkers should be aware of them and look very carefully after all changes in the market.

Today, the main aim for Walkers is to deliver 98.5% of what a supermarket has ordered within 24 hours. When the product arrives at a store, it must have a 'shelf life' of at least nine weeks before the 'best before' date. The processes at the Walkers factory have to deliver exactly what customers need - every day. Today there are about 160 different variants of Walkers crisps and snacks and orders change constantly. So it’s very important that Walkers management monitors stock levels and products, which cope with variations in sales and compete with the other companies’ products.

Marketing Strategy

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31