General Mills:
Yoplait Custard-Style Yogurt
Submitted By:
Bhupesh Verma 1011164
Kishoreraj T 1011322
Savita Elumalai 1011131
Selvakumar R 1011058
Vidhya D 1011218
Situational Analysis – Case A
The Yogurt Market
Comprised of three product segments
Not ver y popular – 45% American had not tried yogurt
Fragmented and Highly regional
Highly competitive
Fight for shelf space and inventory management
shift in the usage occasion of Yogurt from being a meal
to an evening snack.
Yoplait is a multiproduct company - considered
developing a Custard style yogurt
Custard-Style(Marketing issues )
Positioning ?
Premium product ?
Occasion positioning
Meal or dessert ?
Low on fruit and naturalnesss
Price ?
Packaging ?
Product development
Options for Name
Yoclair / Yofleur – To Position it differently from original
Yoplait yogurt
Yogourt classique / Crème de Yogourt – To bring out the
Frenchness aspect
Yoplait custard-style yogurt – Leverage the brand value
and position it as dessert snack
Final decision – Yoplait custard-style yogurt because it
built on the brand name
Product development
Options for Size
4 oz. – The custard style yogurt was filling and hence
seemed adequate, appropriate for dessert positioning,
keeps the unit price down, suitable for children and
eliminates waste
6 0z. – To position it more as a snack than a meal
substitute.
Final decision – 6 oz. because it scored highest in terms
of delivered profit margins
Product development
Options for Positioning
Meal substitute
Snack
Dessert
Final decision – Snack as Custard-Style seemed more likely to
attract light users and nonusers
Options for Packaging
Unique conical plastic cup
Vercon cup
Final decision – Vercon cup because of its higher score during the
random supermarket shoppers’ screening
Concept test Results
USP : Texture
Snack positioning – 6 oz vercon cup
Expand beyond yogurt target group
Estimated to add 36% incremental volume
Full fat product as consumers saw this product as a
snack and hence did not worry about nutrition.
No Fruit chunks in Yogurt
Product test market
Test market simulation (BASES)
BASES claimed advantages over other simulated test market
Less expensive
Did not require a finished commercial
Decision – Since Yoplait’s plants were not ready for
production and impact of price sensitivity was to be studied,
BASES is a good method for the product’s test market
But to get a true Marketplace evaluation, a Mini- Market test
could also be performed
Situational Analysis – Case B
Product chosen: Yoplait Custard Style yogurt in a 6 oz.
Vercon cup.
Saturated target segment: Aim is majorly to convert
other Yogurt users, not the non-users
Promotion: Frenchness, thickness, dessert image and
everyday use of Yoplait Custard-style
Price: Test done with prices 49c and 53c.
Mini Market Test
Advertising done on Radio and Newspaper – targeted
at women over 18
Product Sampling – Consumer promotion tactic using
in-store consumer sampling
Various trade deals
Consumer dynamics study – Three waves of
supermarket intercept study. Yogurt buyers were asked
questions about trial, repeat, future purchase interest,
product likes, dislikes and usage
Pros and Cons
Pros
Easily manageable due to the small size of the market and its proximity to
headquarters
True market experience
Costs significantly less than Full scale test market
Effective control over marketing variables
Cons
Highly regional – not a true national representation
Already a yoplaint market.
Limited test – Distribution was forced or controlled by the marketing
research firm
Doesn’t include the effect of different level of media and promotional
spending and also the effect of different prices on consumer buying
patterns
BASES test
Conducted in 12 geographically dispersed cities
200 respondents interviewed in each city.
Only a color print advertisement was shown
Questions asked on purchase intent, likes/dislikes of
the concept, price/value evalution, past category usage
before and after using Custurd style yogurt
Provided various exogenous variables for calculation
of Incremental value
Three national spending plans were simulated
Pros and Cons
Pros
Bigger impact of advertisements
High PULL strategy
Better national representative
Estimates available for each region
Effect of Price found out through interviews
Estimation of potential steal, hence its effect on other Yoplait products can be found
out
Based on extensive Empirical validation
Effect of various levels of Media and promotion spending shown in the results
Sensitivity to spending revealed
Studies the price sensitivity ( priced at 53 cent compared to 49 in mini market test)
Cons
No study of distribution impact
No real Market experience
Results
Mini market test
After adjusting for Radio media weight and stocking
level, Custard style volume would be 73-92% of
Original-style national potential, and total Yoplait
volume would be 168-207%
Percentage of Custard-style triers who repeated
consistently increased throughout the study.
Major reasons for buying : Flavor, natural fruit flavor and
texture
Results
BASES test
Incremental value of 57% under Plan A, 43% under Plan
B and 41% under Plan C
Cannibalization - 22% of Custard-Style volume would be
at the expense of Original style
Concept liked because of Flavor, Texture and nutrition
After use liking majorly because of Flavor and Texture
Copy testing
No significant differences in the pulling power of the
four executions
90% brand recall for Sanford commercial
The Sanford commercial can be chosen because it has a
very high brand recall. It also has a very high percentage
indicating the thick texture and Fruit in yogurt concept
which is important to position this as something more
dessert like and hence more premium than Original
style Yogurt.
Decisions
Region of Initial launch
The product must be first launched in East region,
because:
Validates the steal % of custard style from Dannon’s
dominance
Position for taste and texture against healthy Dannon’s
Highest Purchase intent after use
Highest Price/Value score on 5-point scale
Highest After use liking rating
Highest percentage of consumers found the product better
than expected
Decisions
Price
The price should definitely be more than Original style
yogurt because of its positioning as a dessert
Price was the second most stated reason for disliking the
product before trial but after use its share of mentions
were much lower
From BASES test we see that the Price/Value score
reduced after use in all regions
Thus the price can be set around 55c-60c but its promotion
should be done as a premium product
Decisions
Media / Promotion spending
In the East, they can go for Plan A Media/Plan B
promotion. East is currently dominated by Dannon
which makes it necessary to spend on Media to gain
Market share. Also Year 2 consumer volume is very high
if they go for this plan.
In the west where Yoplait is already well known, more
can be spent on Promotion to steal away Dannon Yogurt
users. Hence here they can use Plan B Media/Plan A
promotion
Thank you
