Innocent Drinks is a company that sells over two million smoothies per week and holds 80% of the UK market share (BBC, 2009).With such domination within this market Innocent has successfully competed for this through having a competitive advantage.
According to Porter (1980) organisations are said to compete in two ways, either through Cost or Differentiation. A model for categorising this competitive advantage is Porter’s ‘Generic …show more content…
The company is then able to charge a premium price for their products. They operate in a narrow smoothie market but have shown diversity through innovation of new products and flavours (Mintel, 2015).
There are two types of differentiation as stated by Sadler (2003, p191-193).
Tangible differentiation, these are the things that customers can smell, touch and see such as Innocent’s product/ service characteristics. The quality of Innocence smoothies is said to be the reason why it stood out from competition at the start-up of the company. They do not use conservatives or flavourings that other smoothie making companies do, they instead were able to make something better tasting and more nutritious through taste testing trial and error (Innocent drinks founder Richard Reed on the importance of quality [Video], 2011).
Intangible differentiations are unobservable & subjective characteristics that appeal to the customer’s image.
These can be described through Innocents’ well known image, brand and their company reputation that their customers can and want to identify …show more content…
They have a high perceived value to the consumer which can then justify a price premium. Innocents’ branding and image plays an important role for their strategy as it allows them to be equal with quality as well as a price point. By only using natural ingredients, encourage sustainability and are always trying to improve (Emerald, 2008), Innocent are able to reflect this positive ethos into the hearts and minds of its customers.
In comparison to where Innocent is positioned a competitor such as a Supermarket own brand smoothies would be placed within 2 at low price, Tesco’s own brand smoothies are priced at 99p compared with Innocent’s £1.79 smoothies (Tesco, 2015).The customers at this position are concerned with price but the product still needs to meet their basic needs, however customers at position 5 want a unique product in which they are prepared to pay a premium price