SESSION 5 Business Situation Analysis week of 11'9'09

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SESSION 5Business Situation Analysisweek of
11.9.09
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MILEstone of the week Where you should be in
your career search

• Attending all the Marketing Club sponsored
  corporate presentations
• GREAT way to get company-specific recruitment
  insights and learn about a marketing topic more
  deeply
• Focusing on networking with the companies youre
  most interested in
• Informational interviews with both the alumni and
  SYs
• Thinking about visiting off-campus companies
  during winter break
• Signing up for an interview slot during Final
  MILE Mock Interview Weekend
• Saturday, 11/21 and Sunday, 11/22
• Details to come
• Mock interviewing with your peers!
• Sign on the MILE Facebook page if you want to
  participate in small group practice or contact FY
  Liz Elser

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Where You Are in MILE
Brand Examples Market Sizing
Business Situation
Crafting Your Story
New Product Launch
Creativity Innovation
Behavioral Interviews

• Tell me about yourself.
• Walk me through your resume.
• Why do you want to work for company X?
• Why do you want a career in Marketing?
• Why do you want to be a brand manager?
• Why should we hire you?

• Tell me about a time you needed a resource to
  achieve a goal and how you went about getting it.
  
• Tell me about a time when you changed someones
  mind.
• What would you do if your packaging team told you
  they couldnt produce your brands new package
  until after your media launch?

• Name 10 uses for a ping pong ball.
• Name a good/bad recent product innovation.
• Give me an example of innovative media.
• Give me an example of innovative packaging.

• Life forms are found on Mars. Your boss want to
  sell snack cakes to them. How do you decide if
  you should?
• If you decide to sell snack cakes to the
  Martians, how do you do it?

• If you decided to launch a doggie biscuit bakery
  in Chicago, how would you size the market?
• Name a poorly marketing brand. What would you
  do as the brand manager? What would you do as
  the competitor?

• Mayonnaise's sales are declining but market
  share is same.  What's going on and how do you
  fix it?
• Youre the Brand Manager for Dannon yogurt. A
  competitor comes out with GoGurt" (yogurt in a
  tube) and steals two share points, what's your
  response?
• You want to increase your brands sales by 10.
  How do you do this?

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Agenda

• Session Goals
• Business Situation Analysis Questions
• Category Decline
• Brand Share/Sales Decline
• Competitive Threat
• Tips for Combating Private Label
• Practice
• Next Session

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Session Goals

• To show you how to answer questions framed as
• Youre the brand manager of a product whose sales
  have been flat for the last five years. However,
  market share has been shrinking 5 per year for
  the last 5 years. What is happening to the
  brand? What would you do about this trend?
• Your brand sales have been steadily declining for
  the past three quarters. What do you do to
  reverse the decline?
• Youre the brand manager on Charmin toilet paper
  and a competitor just added a softness claim to
  their package. What do you do in response?

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Category Decline Question Framework

• Step 1 Figure out what is happening to the
  brand.
• Sales Down, Share Up
• Sales Flat, Market Share Up
• Sales Down, Market Share Flat
• Sales Up, Share Down
• Sales Flat, Market Share Down
• Sales Up, Market Share Flat
• Step 2 Figure out why the category is shrinking
  (use 3Cs)
• Consumer
• Change in consumer habits or trends?
• Not consuming complementary products?
• Competition
• Greater use of substitutes or a new product
  innovation?
• Large player exited category?
• Company
• Increased cost of raw goods increased price?

Category is Shrinking
Category is Growing (most likely will not be
asked this)
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Category Decline Question Framework

• Step 3 If the category is shrinking, explore
  three options
• Harvest (sell), invest, or exit business (in
  interviews, always assume you invest)
• Step 4 Assuming you invest in the business,
  enact tactics to reverse category decline (use
  4Ps)
• Product
• Alter the product in some way to meet changing
  consumer needs
• Increase volume per purchase by encouraging
  increased product usage
• Increase purchase frequency by encouraging new
  ways to use the product
• Launch new line extension
• Innovate around the package to enhance a benefit
• Placement
• Gain additional distribution channels
• Promotion
• Increase advertising
• Remind consumers of the product benefits
• Promote a new product benefit
• Price
• Temporarily reduce price

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Category Decline Example

• Youre the brand manager of Listerine mouthwash.
  Sales have been flat for the last five years.
  However, market share has been increasing 10 per
  year for the last five years. What is happening
  to the brand? What would you do about this trend?

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Category Decline Example

• Youre the brand manager of Listerine mouthwash.
  Sales have been flat for the last five years.
  However, Listerine market share has been
  shrinking 10/year for the last five years. What
  is happening to the brand? What would you do
  about this trend?

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Brand Sales/Share Decline Question Framework

• STEP 1 Determine reason behind share loss (use
  3Cs and 4Ps)

• Consumer
• Are we not delivering against our consumers need
  anymore?
• Do consumers have a new need that were not
  delivering on?
• Competitor
• Is another brand delivering our benefit better?
• Did they come out with new product innovation?
• Did they lower prices?
• Company
• Did we deprioritize this brand internally?
• Did we lose a key quality/affordable/unique
  supplier?

• Price
• Did we raise/lower our priced relative to
  competition?
• Product
• Has our product quality changed? Our
  competitions? New products or SKUs with
  innovations or claims?
• Promotion
• Have our promotions/advertising decreased? Does
  our competition have new credibility, such as
  celebrity endorsement?
• Placement
• Have we lost distribution? Has the competition
  gained?

• Note If the question says only your product
  sales is declining, then ask if category is
  declining overall. If your sales are declining
  due to category decline, then use strategies to
  reverse category decline as well as strategies to
  reverse sales decline.

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Brand Share/Sales Decline Question Framework

• STEP 2 Reverse share loss by addressing problems
  uncovered in 3Cs and 4Ps by changing 4Ps
• Product
• Deliver benefit that is relevant to current
  consumer needs
• Develop product or packaging innovations
• Launch new SKUs
• Change packaging
• Promotion
• Increase or launch new promotions/advertising
• Counter competitors claims, reminding them that
  you deliver the benefit the best
• Placement
• Gain additional, and new, distribution points
• Consider end-cap displays and other in-store
  promotions at customers where competition is most
  threatening
• Price
• Increase/decrease price
• Re-evaluate price/value equation

Note Changing price is always the last option
because it most directly impacts positioning!
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Brand Share/Sales Decline Example

• You are the Brand manager on the nations
  leading laundry detergent, SuperClean. In the
  first quarter of this year, youve noticed that
  SuperCleans market share and sales are
  declining. What could be happening? What do you
  do?

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Brand Share/Sales Decline Example

• You are the Brand manager on the nations
  leading laundry detergent, SuperClean. In the
  first quarter of this year, youve noticed that
  SuperCleans market share and sales are
  declining. What could be happening? What do you
  do?

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Brand Share/Sales Decline Example

• You are the Brand manager on the nations
  leading laundry detergent, SuperClean. In the
  first quarter of this year, youve noticed that
  SuperCleans market share and sales are
  declining. What could be happening? What do you
  do?

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Competitive Threat Question Framework

• STEP 1 Assess risk
• Consumer
• Does the new competition meet a need for YOUR
  brands consumers?
• Competition
• How big are they relative to you?
• How much do they compete with you?
• Consumers, channels, positioning, etc.
• How credible is their threat?
• How much (or for how long) is the competitor
  willing to support the new product?
• Do they have a strong track record of success?
• Where are they sourcing volume?
• How loudly are they making the claim?
• Company
• Do we have the resources or equity to compete
  with their claim?
• Is the competitors positioning radically
  different from ours?

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Competitive Threat Question Framework

• STEP 2 Determine how to respond
• Decide if you need to respond
• If yes, how aggressively and quickly
• STEP 3 If risk is significant, then determine
  how you will respond
• Option 1 Do nothing, if the competitors claim
  doesnt meet YOUR consumer need
• Option 2 Leverage the 4Ps to counter threat
• Product
• Match or trump competitors benefit by altering
  product or adding claim to package
• Pricing
• Change the value equation (show consumers that
  you can provide more benefit for the price)?
• Promotion
• Divert attention from the competitor
• Increase loyalty to your product
• Leverage/reinforce your brand equity with ads and
  PR
• Place
• Offer your product in incremental channels or
  incremental locations within a channel (alternate
  placement in a grocery store, like a different
  aisle).

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Competitive Threat Question Example

• Youre the brand manager on Charmin toilet
  paper and a competitor just added a softness
  claim to their package. What do you do in
  response?

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Competitive Threat Question Example

• Youre the brand manager on Charmin toilet
  paper and a competitor just added a softness
  claim to their package. What do you do in
  response?

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Competitive Threat Question Example

• Youre the brand manager on Charmin toilet
  paper and a competitor just added a softness
  claim to their package. What do you do in
  response?

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Tips for Combating Private Label Competition

• Build Equity Communicate quality/image/emotional
  connection of branded products to consumers to
  increase regard for your brand. Establish a
  point of difference vs. private label.
• Understand Pricing Determine how much of a
  premium you can afford to charge before your
  brand starts losing volume to private label.
• Introduce a Fighter Brand With two brands in
  the category, you can position one brand as a
  fighter (value) brand to compete against
  private label. Offering consumers a branded
  option at a lower price is a way to maintain
  overall share in the category.
• Innovate Private labels dont have the RD to
  be innovation leaders, so innovate the product or
  packaging in a way that can enhance the benefit
  to the consumer
• Cross-promote Partner across categories with
  another brand with a lot of equity

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Individual Practice

• You are the brand manager of Bagel Bites and the
  price of cheese just skyrocketed. Because of the
  increase in the commodity price, your projected
  profit for this year goes from 12M to 9M. What
  are you going to do to make up that 3M in
  profit?
• Tip Focus on both top line (driving sales) and
  bottom line (cutting costs)
• Youre the Brand Manager for Dannon yogurt. A
  competitor comes out with GoGurt" (yogurt in a
  tube) and steals two share points. What's your
  response?

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Last MILE Session!!!!!!

• Session 6 Brand Examples and Marketing Sizing
• Tue, Wed, and Thur, 11/17-19
• 4-515pm in Seminar Room F