Advertising and Sales Promotion

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 1

The Problem 3

SWOT Analysis 3

Target Audiences 3

Behaviour Objectives 4

Communication Objectives 4

Brand Positioning Strategy 4

Media Strategy 6

Media Tactics 7

Sales Promotion 8

Public Relations 8

Direct Response 9

Internet 9

Recommendations 10

Appendix A 11

Appendix B 11

Appendix C 12

Appendix D 12

Appendix E 12

Appendix F 13

The Problem

The performance of General Mills Canada Corporation's (GMCC) fourth largest category of products, refrigerated baked goods (RBG) has been suffering. Volume growth for RBGs, under the Pillsbury name, has been flat between 2004 and 2006, and household penetration has fallen to a five-year low. Ivan Guillen, marketing managers on the RBG category, would like to develop a strategy that would lead to improved business performance on this category.

The refrigerated-cookie product (RCP) line represents 62% of total RBG sales and therefore its performance has a significant impact on the performance of the RBG category as a whole. Volume growth for the RCP line has also been relatively flat at 1%, and household penetration has also fallen. Gullien hopes to focus efforts on how to improve the RCP line performance.

The RBG category is already dominated by Pillsbury, with an 85% market share. Therefore the primary goal is not to increase market share but to expand the size of the market.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths - Of all the users of refrigerated baked goods 85% already purchase Pillsbury. Pillsbury is a familiar brand across Canadian households and is synonymous with one of the top 10 advertising icons of the century. Being affiliated with General Mills Inc. in the United States, provides the opportunity to benefit from their promotional efforts in respect to the RBG category, reducing the financial requirements for reaching consumers.

Weaknesses - The RBG category has been experiencing slow growth and household penetration due to the fact that efforts weren't made to expand the market. Dependence on US data is also a weakness as it has led to false assumptions and incongruent marketing communications.

Opportunities - There is an opportunity for Pillsbury to expand their market by competing against substitutes and not direct competitors. These substitutes include pre-packaged cookie products and boxed cookie mix products. There is also an opportunity to improve the product offering with a change in recipe and usage situation.

Threats - If consumers value convenience more than anything, pre-packaged cookies could become the norm. Alternatively, if consumers only prefer baking from scratch, they will not appreciate the convenience of refrigerated products. These substitutes are Pillsbury's main threats.

Target Audiences

Currently Pillsbury's target consumers are mothers in their mid-30s to 40s who lead active and busy lifestyles. To expand the market, Pillsbury needs to target non-customers. This is because we have the largest percentage of market share so we feel we will not lose our current consumers to other brands. Pillsbury is a familiar brand in households around Canada, however there are still households who do not use the product at all. We need to attract consumers who prefer the other substitutes, whether it be from-scratch users, boxed mix users or pre-packaged users. We will do so by focusing on promoting refrigerated-cookie products as the smarter alternative to all three. The alternative that is convenient, easy and fun. These three characteristics are not only important to mothers, but also to the entire family unit. Pillsbury should move to targeting the family as a whole, not just the mothers. Targeting the family will establish a view of family involvement and fun. It will also help to promote the establishment of relationships within the family and promote the appeal of convenience. Plus, the children of these families often encourage the purchase decision, as parents are more likely to purchase junk food related items if their children ask for it. We want to focus on those families in the low-middle social class up to the high-middle social class. We believe these consumers will be the ones most likely to purchase our product on a regular basis. This is also going to be a national campaign, so we will be targeting all of Canada rather than certain geographic areas within the country.

Behaviour Objectives

(Zoe)

Communication Objectives

Category Need

One of our communication objectives is to emphasize the fact that this product offers significant advantages over alternatives in terms of the characteristics of the product itself. We want the target audience to see that refrigerated-cookie products offer more convenience than baking mixes, are fresher than pre-packed cookies, and are easier to make than cookies made from scratch, yet provide the same social bonding experiences. This product category offers the best of both worlds and consumers should not settle for less.

Brand Attitude

We want consumers to evaluate the entire brand in terms of its ability to feed the sense and create happy moments. We want to communicate to consumers that Pillsbury is not only about making the cookies, it's about making memories that will last forever. We hope to achieve this by presenting the cookies as a "blank slate" that can be customized and decorated as a family.

Brand Awareness

We want consumers to be aware of Pillsbury as an option in the scratch user, baking mix and pre-packaged cookie segments. This product fits into each category because it has similar characteristics to all three. They key here is to ensure that consumers know that Pillsbury is also the better alternative in each of these cases

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