Target Market

As I have already said, Walkers needs to control all changes which occur in the market, otherwise it will lose a big part of it. From my point of view today the main Walkers’ competitors are: KP, Pringles and Golden Wonder. However, there are many other brands, so Walkers need to control changing in varieties of flavours and segments as of their products as of Walkers’ competitors products as well. By the way, I think SWOT analysis will be a good thing to do. I think Walkers should check all their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, comparing to the other companies. They should do a structured analysis of the operations they do. This will help to Walkers to have another look at their real opportunities. After that they will be able to see whether they should change their strategy, in order to avoid any weaknesses and become more competitive, comparing to the other companies.

There are different segments in Walkers market. For example, they have Walkers Lites crisps which were specially made to be suitable for vegetarians. They also have crisps and snacks suitable for children and for different diets. It’s very comfortable that Walkers has all this kind of information about nutrition, diets and how useful their crisps are on their website, so people can choice what they want. There we can find that Walkers products are suitable for everyone and they keep this target up by adding and developing new flavours and types of crisps and snacks.

I think there is always a target which the company is trying to achieve and after the company achieves it, they will have another one. So I think that Walkers have a target. Also they have very few types of crisps which contain less 33% less fat (Quavers and Walkers lites) and there are just three flavours of these crisps. Some people may want to try other flavours, but they can be on diet, so they can’t buy them. Walkers need to think about it and try to develop snacks or something suitable for people on diet or active people doing sports. If we are talking about spending, it will lead to a new advertising program which will of course cause a lot of spending. But on the other hand it can increase the popularity and efficiency of Walkers crisps, so more people will know about their production and more people will be likely to buy it.

Market segmentation depends of different kinds of products produced and people who buy it. They are different types of products: electro technological products, chemicals (such a toothpaste, shampoos and etc.), clothes, and food. Of course this list can be much longer. But these were the main types. Also there’s a different segmentation of people. It can be an age group, gender, or nationality of people. Sometimes it is a marital status of people, especially when we talk about Rolls Royce, Rolex, Aston-Martin, or Bentley companies. For Walkers it doesn’t really matter what marital status their customers have. They have a big range of products suitable for all most all people. The price of the product is not expansive so all most all people can afford buying a pack of Walkers crisps.

Product

Walkers have a big variety of products. They have different types of crisps suitable almost for all people. Walkers also own other crisp brands. They are:

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Some of the brand names have different impact on the people. Sometimes it affects so that people are more tend to buy the product.

Life cycle is a span over which consumers will want the products. They have different types of crisps. In the product cycle there’s growth, maturity, saturation and decline. Walkers’ main product is crisps. Walkers don’t have any maturity, saturation or decline at all. All their products grow very quickly. They have different types of crisps, so when there’s a recession in one of the types of their crisps is coming, Walkers tries to think about an improving of their product or development of a new one.

According to the primary research (Questionnaire) that I’ve made, I have plotted a graph which shows the preferences of different flavours of Walkers Crisps.

However, I think some of the Walkers crisps are on the different stages at the moment. On my diagram there are five stages of the life cycle of a product. Most of the Walkers crisps’ brands were launched before 1999. For example Quavers brand was launched in 1968. The first stage on my graph is introduction. Therefore, I would put Walkers Lites, Doritos Latinos and Dippas crisps on their first stage. I think Walkers is still introducing these new crisps, which no doubt, are going to occupy the place on the market for a very long time. The second stage is growth, the third one-maturity, the fourth is saturation, and the last one is decline. From my point of view Quavers, Doritos, Sensations, French Fries, and Max can go to the second stage, which is growth. I decided to put them in the second stage, because Walkers started promoting these products not a very long time ago and the sales of these brands growth very quickly. I would put Salt & Shake, Potato Heads and Monster Munch crisps in the third stage, because the sales of these products are not increasing any more. The sales of these products are on its highest stage, but are not going to fall yet, because Walkers does its best in order to keep the sales of these crisps at the same stage as long as it’s possible. Actually Walkers doesn’t have any products at all, which could go to the stage of decline. However, I think that the sales of Wotsits crisps have already started falling down. Wotsits might go to the maturity stage about six months ago, but at the moment I think nobody buys these crisps at all. It also became quite difficult to find this type of crisps in the shops. Therefore, I think that Walkers really needs to start thinking about developing, or replacement of these products, or at least start to make some new offers in case to keep sales going. According to my own research, people don’t buy these products at all. Also, according to my primary research, many people think that Walkers needs to give 25% free or free DVD. I think this could be a very good idea of how to improve their sales. Also many people wrote that it would be a very good for Walkers to introduce some veggie crisps, pop corn, dried fruits, or raisins. Walkers have many different brands and flavours. It works very well as far as they control the demand on all these flavours. I feel that today Walkers really needs to look at their products again and think whether they should stop or decrease production of some brands and flavours, and think about alternatives.

What about Walkers’ new logo (at the bottom of this page). It is also one of the methods how the company can improve life cycle of their products. The old logo is on the left, the new one is on the right.

The main strength of the Walkers is the quality and the way their crisps are made. Walkers know how to advertise their quality and it does it quite well. Apparently, they select the best potatoes and thoroughly wash them. On arrival at the factory they're checked again for quality and any damaged or inferior potatoes are not used. They are again washed and peeled before being sliced. All these washing and checking processes show, that Walkers cares about the quality of their product very much and tries to improve it and find out, if there are any weaknesses in it. The second strength of the Walkers strategy is that they have a very strong advertising programme. If they introduce any new flavours or types of crisps, they make sure they advertise it at the right time and at the right place, using different offers and features.

For me Walkers doesn’t have any weaknesses at all. However, there are some. Sometimes Walkers doesn’t control the sales of the products, which people don’t buy at all. They don’t advertise old types of crisps at all. Yes, people still buy them, but Walkers could improve in this, by giving new offers and thinking about using other flavours in the old types of crisps.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31