Sustainable Marketing

Sustainability can be defined as the ability to meet human needs without harming the future generations. Major corporations are adopting sustainability in their daily activities by involving their stakeholder groups.

Sustainability marketing is the adoption of sustainable business practices which help in creating better businesses, relationships and an improved society.

Corporate Social Responsibility is the method through which a company conducts sustainable marketing. CSR is a concept where a company integrates social and environmental concerns with its  stakeholders. It is a way through which the firm attains stability between its economic, environmental and social responsibilities.

ITC Sunfeast has initiated an environmental awareness programme called “Sunfeast Hara Banao” Campaign which went on for six months as an inter-school project contest. It had participation of approximately 70,000 students aged between 11-15 years. The campaign constituted the following –

• Reduction in usage of plastic bags: School children were given practical lessons on the disadvantages of the usage of plastic bags and the adversities faced - Plastic bags is one the leading damaging components of the environment. They were taught to recycle plastic in order to minimize the damage caused to the environment.
• Use of eco-friendly materials: Step-by-step instructions were given for using alternate & eco-friendly material such as waste paper to a make paper bags instead of plastic bags.
• Butterfly gardens: A team of experts introduced children to the concept of 'Butterfly Gardens', where special plants are grown to create a natural habitat for butterflies to breed.
•They organized a Signature Drive which was a pledge from people to support the Sunfeast Hara Banao Campaign for a better tomorrow. About two million signatures were collected by the students.

A sapling plantation drive was also conducted as a part of the “Sunfeast Hara Banao” Campaign where volunteers planted 300587 saplings across 17 villages in Andhra Pradesh. This campaign reached the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest number of saplings planted in a record time of 20 minutes.


These activities conducted by Sunfeast show the brand’s sensitivity towards environmental issues. Sunfeast, being a responsible brand knows that the impact of such activities will be long term and hence it invests time and resources to CSR.

Analyzing Consumer Markets

In order to understand the factors which influence a consumer to purchase a product, one needs to understand consumer behavior. Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals, groups and organizations select, buy, use and dispose goods, services, ideas or experiences in order to satisfy their needs and wants.

The following stimulus-response model helps us to understand the consumer behavior in a holistic manner.

For Sunfeast Farmlite,

The marketing mix elements act like the stimuli – the product offering, the price, the promotion reminds the consumer of the benefits of the product and the distribution makes the product available to the consumer. After these stimuli have reached the consumer, he/she goes through a psychological process, where he/she weighs the pros and cons of the product, compares it with the competitors products. This process is important in understanding the consumer’s characteristics and psychology, including motivation to purchase, perception about the brand, learning about the benefits and memory or past experience with the brand. The consumers’ characteristics also play a major role in this process – the society he/she has lived in, the cultural background and his/her personal characteristics such as age, education, occupation, economic circumstances and the personality type. Finally, the consumer makes the decision, whether to purchase the product or not. If he/she purchases it, then the post purchase behavior is also considered, whether he/she is satisfied with the product or not. 

Analyzing Business Markets

Business markets include those where the products are purchased for further sale to the final consumers. This is done through organizational buying. Organizational buying is the decision making process where formal organizations establish the need for purchasing the products offered by the manufacturing firm. They do this by careful evaluation of alternative brands and suppliers.

Business markets differ from consumer markets in the following ways –

There are fewer buyers, but they buy large quantities.
There is a close relationship between the supplier and the customer.
The process of purchasing is very professional in nature.
There are multiple buying influencers such as buying committees.
There are multiple sales calls.
The demand is derived in nature and is inelastic.
Demand is also fluctuating in nature.
The buyers are geographically concentrated.
There is direct purchase from the manufacturer, and there are no middlemen involved.

Business Markets for Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits include –

1. Distributors & Retailers – The distributors who stock the product and sell them to the retailer are included here. Retailers are the shop owners, both departmental and mom-n-pop stores who influence the final consumers to purchase the product. Distributors and retailers stock ITC’s products because of the brand name, the popularity among customers and also because if they did not stock, there are chances that ITC reduces the cigarette supply to their stores, adversely affecting their business.
2. Health & Wellness Centers – Health and wellness centers who offer yoga, Ayurveda and meditation workshops may purchase Farmlite cookies. These centers are places where health conscious people visit regularly, and if these places offer the biscuits, the influence on people will be high, resulting in a higher customer base. Hospitals and doctors could also act as influencers.

Branding

It includes the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts new customers and retains loyal customers. Positioning a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target audience is done through branding.


Branding Strategy

The branding strategy is how, when, where, what and to whom is a company planning to communicate and deliver its messages to. Consistent branding leads to a strong brand equity, which is the added value, brought to the company’s products that enable it to charge a price higher than that of its competitors. This added value may come in the form of perceived quality or an emotional attachment towards the brand.


Defining the Brand 

Defining a brand is like a journey of business self-discovery. In order to define a brand, the company needs to answer the following questions –

• What is your company's mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?


For ITC, the answers to these questions are -

 ITC’s mission statement is “To enhance the wealth generating capability of the enterprise in a globalizing environment, delivering superior and sustainable stakeholder value.”    

The benefits and features of the product are – It is a nutritious and filling snack, with a great taste and a convenient packaging.

Consumers are aware that Sunfeast is an ITC brand, under its food business. ITC's Foods brands delight millions of households with a wide range of differentiated, value-added products developed by leveraging ITC's in-house R&D capabilities, relevant consumer insights, a deep understanding of the Indian palate gained from its Hotels business, its agri-sourcing & packaging strengths, exciting, innovative communication and an unmatched distribution network.

The business continues to invest in every aspect of manufacturing, distribution and marketing to ensure that it can leverage emerging opportunities and fulfill its aspiration of being the most trusted provider of Branded Packaged Foods in the country.

The main qualities that ITC wants its consumers to associate them with are trust and quality assurance.
                           

Sales Management

Sales Management is the attainment of a firm’s sales goals in an effective and efficient way through the various organization roles including planning, staffing, training & leading. Since Sales is the only revenue generating component in a business, it becomes extremely important to manage it effectively.
Efficient sales management is carried out by a diligent, confident, and committed sales team.

At ITC, the sales team comprises of  -

ITC food's sales management comprises of the following characteristics - 

ITC uses FIFO method in order to reduce wastage.

They also keep the goods on a constant move from low sales area to a high one.

The company collects all expired items four times in a year and destroys them.

ITC also provides the retailers with hangers and racks to display the items. 

The benefits received by the retailers depends upon the location of their stores and sales volume.
The supply of products takes place on a daily basis in fixed quotas to retailers as per their requisitions and the anticipation of demand.
Having a strong distribution network for cigarettes, ITC uses this network as an advantage to push its biscuit brands.

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning

The STP process demonstrates the link between an overall market and how the company chooses to compete in that market. The goal of the STP process is to guide the organization to the development and implementation of an appropriate marketing mix, as highlighted in the following diagram - 

Segmentation, targeting and positioning comprise of a 3 stage process –

1. Segmentation- The needs, wants and aspirations of all the people in the population may not be the same. Someone may prefer taste over health while some other person may compromise on the taste of an item for its health benefits. In the process of segmentation, marketers divide the entire market into groups on the basis of the types of customers that exist. They identify and profile distinct groups of buyers who might prefer a particular product over the other. This profiling is carried out by examining demographic, psychographic and behavioral differences among buyers.

For my product, Sunfeast Farmlite Health Cookies, a segmentation analysis can be done to analyze the type of consumers targeted by the brand.

      2. Targeting – After identifying the market segments, the marketer decides which segment will provide the greatest opportunities which become its target markets. Target markets are chosen on the basis of how competitors are serving the existing segments, the size of the segment and its growth prospects and the analysis of how the company’s offering will serve the consumer’s needs.

      For Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits, the target market can be– 

     Closet Snackers - This group was chosen as the primary target market due to their positive disposition towards biscuits and crackers. They also have the positive trait of being a heavy usage group even though they are a relatively small percentage of the snacker market. It is believed that the younger females within this segment will be more adventurous to try out a new product with these unusual ingredients.

    Healthy Snackers - This group is seeking something that is nutritious and low in artificial additives. These are recognized qualities of the product. They are better educated and may be more receptive to an educational program explaining the health benefits of the product.

     3. Positioning - The final step of the process includes implementing the targeting. It involves the target market’s perception of the product’s key benefits and features, relative to the offerings of competitive products.

   Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits have been positioned as a tasty and nutritious snack. The company differentiates itself on the basis of taste, and because of that it has two variants. Competitors such as Britannia do not have variants in the oats biscuit category. 

The Promotion Strategy

Promotion can be defined as any message or communication which is designed to persuade the consumer to purchase a product. The aim is to drive brand interaction which may lead to current or future sales.


Usually, there is a sequence of events that a consumer goes through before he purchases the product. Different promotional strategies are used in the different stages so that the consumer purchases it. During the introduction stage of the product, it is important to create awareness, this was done by Sunfeast Farmlite on the Bengaluru Airport- passengers were asked to ride a cycle and manually make the carousel work. It also created awareness by giving samples on the airport and in the Mumbai Marathon.


The second stage is to induce customers to actually buy the product – this is done through giving retailers incentives to stock the product. It also uses mass communication strategies such as Print and Television to stay on the top of mind of the consumer. There are many TVCs and Print campaigns of Farmlite.




There are two main approaches of promoting a product –

The Push Approach – This involves strategies used to sell the product by price promotions & advertising.

The Pull Approach – The pull strategy emphasizes on creating demand for the brand so that consumers will come to the store to buy the particular product.

Sunfeast Farmlite uses the Push Approach as it is competitively priced and uses promotions to sell its products.


 Integrated Marketing Communications


Marketing Communications are the means by which firms try to inform, persuade and remind customers about the products that they are offering. It also helps the customer to know how, when, where and by whom a product is used. Marketing communications is basically done to create awareness and build a strong perception in the minds of the customer about the product and/or the brand.

Integrated Marketing Communications is an approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other. The task of IMC is to make sure that all messaging and communications strategies are unified across all mediums (traditional as well as non-traditional). Hence, the communication regarding a product should be uniform in all promotional methods used – Advertising (TV, radio, OOH etc), Digital, Public Relations, and Experiential.

The brand Sunfeast Farmlite, conducted an integrated marketing approach in creating awareness about its product. The message across all platforms was the same – Promote a healthy lifestyle.

                          1 Sunfeast Farmlite organized India’s first reverse run with P.T.Usha.

2. The product was launched in Mumbai by reaching out to the 7000 people in a marathon.

3. The activation in Bangalore airport in April 2014, where passengers were asked to peddle the exercise cycle in order to get the conveyor belt started and get their luggage. Post this they were introduced to the product. Brand launched with on ground promotional activity and distributed 1.50 lacs free sampling with simple message “Pick Me” at Bengaluru Airport. On –ground activity is one of the best strategy where you can connect direct end-users, brand reach level very high, generate strong awareness, get prompt review & feedback, brand recalling, and interact with end-users appropriately.

4. Online Presence

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

5. Print Ads

6. Television Commercials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8r7wsSpNnU

The Distribution Strategy

The place or the distribution strategy of a good involves the entire process of making a product or service available for the purpose of consumption to the consumer by direct or indirect ways. Direct ways mean that the producer is directly approaching the final consumer of the product, while indirect means that the producer is reaching the final consumer through various intermediaries.


ITC has a wide distribution channel, because of which it has a high market penetration. ITC cigarettes are available in all kinds of stores in urban and rural regions. As distribution was their strength, they decided to use it to their advantage and other FMCG products such as Sunfeast biscuits and Bingo Chips became a part of that distribution network. Now, ITC products are available in all forms of convenience stores, from “hole in the wall” paan and beedi stores to organized retail stores across the country.

The Pricing Strategy

Pricing is the value added to a particular product or service. It is done depending on the total cost that the company uses for a product’s manufacturing, distribution, promotion, advertising and sales of a product.

Pricing structures for the product are also decided depending on external factors such as inflation, competitor’s prices etc. Out of the four Ps of the marketing mix, price is the only revenue generating element.

The consumer looks for the value that the product is giving him, and is ready to pay the amount for it, accordingly. The customer’s basic motivation to purchase a product comes from a need and then a want.

The need – I need a health biscuit to satiate my hunger.

The want – I need to have Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits.

The factors which determine the effect of pricing on consumer buying decision are -

· Standard of Living
· Competition Price
· Income


For the manufacturer, the price is the only revenue generating element of the 4Ps, which makes it essential to price the product aptly. For most FMCG products, the following are taken into account while pricing a product –

· The cost of manufacturing
· The situation in the market (Recession/ Boom etc)
· The price of competitive products
· Quality of the product.


The price of Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits is Rs.50 for a pack of 150gms. This product is competitively priced because the market is growing and competitors are also offering health biscuits at similar prices. 

Britannia is offering its Oats biscuit at Rs.55 and Mcvities is offering its Oats Cookies at Rs. 38. Setting a price which lies between its two direct competitors could be a strategy used by Sunfeast

The Product Strategy

The Product
The product may or may not be a tangible one – it refers to anything that can be offered to the market to satisfy human wants. Product could include tangible goods, services, experiences, events, ideas, people, places, organizations and information.


The Product Hierarchy –

Need Family – Snacking
Product Family – Biscuits
Product Class – Healthy Biscuits
Product Line – Sunfeast
Product Type – Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits









The Product Level -

The product can be divided in five distinct product levels, each level adds more customer value and this constitutes the customer- value hierarchy.

1. The Core Benefit – The service or benefit that the customer is really buying. In the case of Farmlite Biscuits, it includes the benefit of snacking with the evening tea.


2. The Basic Product – The marketer must turn the core benefit into a basic product – the snacking benefit is derived by consumption of biscuits.


3. The Expected Product – This includes a set of attributes buyers normally expect when they purchase the product. In this case, the buyers expect a healthier version of biscuits and not the regular flour biscuits that are available in the market. Hence, ITC food division decided to introduce a health biscuit for its consumers, instead of flour, they introduced oats biscuits.


4. The Augmented Product – The product is made such that it exceeds the expectation of the consumer. ITC did this by introducing 2 variants – Oats & Raisins and Oats & Almonds. There aren’t any health biscuits in the market which have dry fruits in them.

5. The Potential Product – In encompasses all the possible augmentations and transformations the product or offering might undergo in the future. ITC can do this by introducing new variants in the category such as Ragi Biscuits and Oats Biscuits with Honey etc and expand its market share

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix of a product refers to the 4Ps of Marketing - the Product, the Price, the Place and the Promotion.

In order to implement the model of 4Ps effectively, it is important to connect it with the model of 4As by Mr.Jagdish Seth and Mr.Rajendra Sisodia.


The model of 4As consists of - Awareness Acceptability, Affordability and Accessibility.

• Prior to launching a Product, it is essential to know that it is desired by the target audience and that it caters to their need. This denotes that the product has to be acceptable to the consumer.In the case of Farmlite Biscuits, it was launched as a healthy option for snacking, acceptable to the health conscious consumer. 

• The Price of the product is essential because it may be the deciding factor for a consumer to purchase the product. It has to be affordable to the target consumers. Farmlite biscuits are priced reasonably, so that the consumers can purchase them. 

• The Place where the product will be available is of great importance because it needs to be accessible to the consumer at all points in time. Farmlite biscuits are available at all forms of grocery stores, be it departmental or local "kirana-wala". 

• Once the product is ready, the company needs to create awareness about it and this is done through promotions. Farmlite biscuits have done various print,television commercials as well as activation campaigns to attract its potential consumers.

Hence, in order to create a successful marketing mix, one needs to collaborate the 4Ps with the 4As.

Life Cycle Concepts

Product Life Cycle –


A product life cycle is a business analysis tool which attempts to identify a set of common stages in the life of various goods and services. It consists of four stages –


· Introduction – A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are non-existent because of heavy expenses of product introduction such as advertising and promotions.


· Growth – A period of rapid market acceptance and earning of profits.


· Maturity – A slowdown in sales growth as the product achieves acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits stabilize or start declining because of an increase in number of competitors.


· Decline – Sales show a downward drift and profits decline.


Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits is in the growth stage as it has started earning greater profits as compared to its introduction stage.











Brand Life Cycle -


The three phases through which brands pass as they are introduced, grow, and then decline. The three stages of the brand life cycle are the introductory period, during which the brand is developed and is introduced to the market; the growth period, when the brand faces competition from other products of a similar nature; and, finally, the maturity period, in which the brand either extends to other products or its image is constantly updated.


Sunfeast as a brand is also on the growth stage of the brand life cycle.



Industry Life Cycle –


A concept relating to the different stages an industry will go through, from the first product entry to its eventual decline. There are typically five stages in the industry lifecycle. They are defined as -

i. Early Stages Phase - alternative product design and positioning, establishing the range and boundaries of the industry itself.

ii. Innovation Phase - Product innovation declines, process innovation begins and a "dominant design" will arrive.

iii. Cost or Shakeout Phase - Companies settle on the "dominant design"; economies of scale are achieved, forcing smaller players to be acquired or exit altogether. Barriers to entry become very high, as large-scale consolidation occurs.

iv. Maturity - Growth is no longer the main focus, market share and cash flow become the primary goals of the companies left in the space.

v. Decline - Revenues declining; the industry as a whole may be supplanted by a new one.



The health biscuit industry as a whole is at the cost or shakeout phase, where the dominant players are emerging and economies of scale are achieved.

Competition Analysis

India is the 3rd largest biscuit market in the world worth Rs.150 million and is moving towards preimumisation. Premiumisation means creating a  bridge between the desirability of the luxury world and the function and necessity of the mass market.


Overall, the market for healthy and nutritious biscuits fall in the range of Rs 500-600 crore. The sector includes sub categories such as digestives, diabetics, oats and others.


The major competition for Sunfeast Farmlite is -

Britannia

The health biscuit segment in India is growing and one of the first brands to launch them was Britannia by launching Britannia NutriChoice Biscuits in the nineties and it was re-launched in 2006. The re-launch coincided with the trend of the market moving towards healthy foods. The brand is credited with the creation of a healthy biscuit segment in the market.


The success of this brand can be attributed to the timing, persistence and constant improvement. The brand went for a change in the packaging along with re- branding which made the brand look more up-market and attractive.


It also launched various variants in the market to keep the interest levels of the consumers high.


Its digestive biscuit range comprising Britannia NutriChoice Digestive and Britannia NutriChoice 5 Grain, offered at Rs 20 per 100 gm and Rs 50 per 200 gm, respectively.

Apart from Britannia, other players in this category are- United Biscuit’s Mcvitie’s, Parle’s Actifit and Unibic Oat Cookies.

Consumer Decision-Making Process

The consumer decision making process involves the customer to  identify his needs, collect information, evaluate various options and then make his decision. In order to be a successful marketer, it becomes essential to understand this process. For ITC Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits, the decision making process can be explained as follows -

1. Who buys this item?


Health biscuits are a category which is aimed at people with the following characteristics –


· They are conscious about the importance of healthcare and diet.

· Worried about the family’s nutrition intake.

· Intention to purchase International Items

· Affluent people with a high disposable income.

· Erratic Lifestyle

· Having a “go-getter” attitude. Competing and performing well is essential to them.


In other words, the people who are expected to purchase Sunfeast Farmlite Biscuits are those living in urban or semi-urban regions, educated and having a middle or higher level job in the corporate sector. These people are health conscious and are constantly finding ways to stay fit.


2. What problem will this product solve?


The target consumers are constantly finding ways to stay fit and healthy and they also don’t want to make any drastic lifestyle changes. They would prefer doing this step by step and Sunfeast Farmlite biscuits would be one of the steps in achieving a healthier lifestyle. These biscuits aim to change snacking habits, at home or at the workplace, from traditional fried snacks to healthy and tasty biscuits.



3. Which attributes are important and why?

The following attributes are important –

· Taste
· Health benefits (Low fat, carbohydrates and sugar)


4. If this decision is the first time, how will it go? If it is repeat, how will it go?


If the decision to purchase this biscuit is for the first time, people will generally do that to try its taste. Taste will be important, because if the taste is similar with the existing competitors, then repeat purchase is unlikely. The introduction of another flavor can add as an incentive for repeat purchase.

Customer Perceived Value

 Customers tend to be value maximizers. They purchase that product which they believe delivers the maximum value. The concept of Customer perceived value describes the difference between the potential customer's evaluation of all the benefits and all the costs of a product's offering and the perceived alternatives. Managers do this analysis on the basis of the following diagram, which describes the total customer benefit and the total customer cost, in order to understand the over customer perceived value concept.

Total consumer benefit is the perceived monetary value of the economic, functional and psychological benefits that a consumer expects from a market offering. For Farmlite Biscuits, the consumer benefits are - 

Total Consumer cost is the perceived bundle of costs that a consumer expects to incur in the process to evaluating, obtaining, using and disposing a product's offering. This includes monetary, time, energy and psychological costs. For Farmlite, the total consumer costs are -

About my Product

ITC foods entered the biscuits market in July 2003 by launching the Sunfeast range of biscuits. In March, 2014 it entered into the health biscuits category with the launch of Sunfeast Farmlite. These biscuits are made with oats and wheat fibre and are available in two variants – Sunfeast Farmlite Oats and Almonds and Sunfeast Farmlite Oats and Raisins. These biscuits are priced at Rs. 50 for a pack of 150 gms.