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.