1. Central Issue
What is the overall issue facing Saxonville Sausage? That is, what question needs to be answered at the upcoming meeting?
The central issue is how to achieve their profit objectives for the next fiscal year by leveraging the growing sector in the sausage industry, Italian sausage. Saxonville needs a well-thought-out positioning plan to move from their current position in Italian sausage to national category leader and make their product one that every major grocery account in the U.S. will want to carry.
2. Current Marketing Environment & Product Offerings
Summarize the current marketing environment and product offerings for Saxonville.
Italian sausage was the one category showing growth across producers in the retail sausage …show more content…
Saxonville also offers store-branded products that account for an additional 5% of revenues. The company’s sales have been flat in all categories except breakfast sausage in which the company has underperformed and suffered a double-digit revenue decline. As of December 2005, Saxonville was ranked 6th among eight national breakfast sausage brands, with Vivio matching that level of category growth. However, Vivio was only available in 16% of the nation's large supermarkets, primarily in Boston, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and South Carolina.
3. Four-Step Product Development & Evaluation Cycle
Summarize the results from the 4 step product development and evaluation cycle. What critiques, if any, do you have about the research process?
Step One: Planning New Research on the Target Customer …show more content…
Project Score implemented another month of qualitative research, which included four mock concepts asking participants to prioritize their top three. "Family Connection" and "Clever Cooking" received the highest total scores, with "Family Connection" getting the most first-place votes. Banks warned that they had a few constraints when launching successful tactic strategies. "First, each tactic had to be realizable by the slated date for the brand's national launch early in 2007, and second, that management wasn't willing to discount the product's price, currently set at parity with the top competitors (page 6)". She argued that "discounting programs [were] inappropriate tactics given who [they] probably want to be as a brand (page
What is the overall issue facing Saxonville Sausage? That is, what question needs to be answered at the upcoming meeting?
The central issue is how to achieve their profit objectives for the next fiscal year by leveraging the growing sector in the sausage industry, Italian sausage. Saxonville needs a well-thought-out positioning plan to move from their current position in Italian sausage to national category leader and make their product one that every major grocery account in the U.S. will want to carry.
2. Current Marketing Environment & Product Offerings
Summarize the current marketing environment and product offerings for Saxonville.
Italian sausage was the one category showing growth across producers in the retail sausage …show more content…
Saxonville also offers store-branded products that account for an additional 5% of revenues. The company’s sales have been flat in all categories except breakfast sausage in which the company has underperformed and suffered a double-digit revenue decline. As of December 2005, Saxonville was ranked 6th among eight national breakfast sausage brands, with Vivio matching that level of category growth. However, Vivio was only available in 16% of the nation's large supermarkets, primarily in Boston, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and South Carolina.
3. Four-Step Product Development & Evaluation Cycle
Summarize the results from the 4 step product development and evaluation cycle. What critiques, if any, do you have about the research process?
Step One: Planning New Research on the Target Customer …show more content…
Project Score implemented another month of qualitative research, which included four mock concepts asking participants to prioritize their top three. "Family Connection" and "Clever Cooking" received the highest total scores, with "Family Connection" getting the most first-place votes. Banks warned that they had a few constraints when launching successful tactic strategies. "First, each tactic had to be realizable by the slated date for the brand's national launch early in 2007, and second, that management wasn't willing to discount the product's price, currently set at parity with the top competitors (page 6)". She argued that "discounting programs [were] inappropriate tactics given who [they] probably want to be as a brand (page