Chapter 7 - Business Marketing

With Kraft being a food company, it's more in the category of a consumer product rather than a business product. But on a certain level it becomes a business product. When Kraft ships out tons and tons of it's different products to companies, such as A&P stores (also known as re-sellers), it is selling it's product over to a business. Thus, the business then puts these products onto their shelves where the product becomes a consumer product.

In order for a company to actually want to buy this business product, it'd have to have some reason as to why this product would be a good selling product in their business. This is known as relationship marketing. Nowadays people use all different ways of advertising their products. One way that's also being used by the Kraft company is their online Facebook account. Kraft's company has done well on behalf of it being both a business and consumer product.

 "Simply put, we've now reached the point where North American grocery and global snacks would each benefit from standing on its own and focusing on its unique drivers of success," Ms. Rosenfeld said.

While there is talk of Kraft being split up between it's products because it is doing so well, it still continues to grow as a business/consumer product to countries around the world including North America.  According to an article in the Times of India, "Kraft takes big India bite with Cadbury buy", " Kraft acquired a formidable presence in India through the Cadbury buyout. Cadbury India reported a 40% growth in the first six months of 2011 which Rosenfeld called exceptional. " 

Kraft as a company will continue to grow and be successful. It's a continuous growth that keeps recurring throughout the years that pass by. It's well known to it's businesses and provides exceptional products to it's consumers who will continue to show interest and appreciation in the business. 

Like Kraft's CEO, Rosenfeld, said:

"The success is indicative of the power in combining legacy Kraft and legacy Cadbury."

Chapter 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Segmenting has become a major source of targeting consumers today. Back in the days it wasn't so important but today knowing how to present your products and who your presenting them to count a lot. 

Kraft uses different types of segmentation such as market, geographical, and demographic segmentation. In an article written about segmentation an example is given of Kraft's geographical segments: 

"... example of geographical segmentation is Kraft General Foods’ Maxwell House ground coffee that is sold nationally but flavored regionally (i.e., stronger flavor in the West than in the East).#  Obviously, Maxwell House segmented the national market by region because it is a good predictor of flavor preferences."

Kraft has 97,000 employees in over 70 countries. There are two main headquarters for Kraft; Kraft North America Commercial & Kraft International Commercial. In North America, Kraft focuses on selling more beverages, cheese & food services, convenient meals, groceries, and snacks/cereals. Today Kraft owns Trident & Dentyne gums.

Kraft's international sales focus more on selling many of the same brands they sell in North America as well as selling international items such as food/candy. They have market shares in Australia, New Zealand, India, & Thailand. Different types of Cadbury were sold all around the world by Kraft.

An Addition to the Holiday Kraft Products

Chapter 11 - Developing and Managing Products

Kraft Foods is involved in developing and managing good products several times throughout the year. There are six categories of new products:

1. new-to-the-world products
2. new product lines
3. Additions to product lines
4. Improvements/revisions to existing products
5. Repositioned products
6. Lower-priced products

Here are some examples of these categories Kraft has taken part in:

New-to-the-world Products

Kraft has brought out new water flavorings. The product is called Mio. It's Kraft's first new product in the past fifteen years. It comes in six different flavors and it's said to "revolutionize the water enhancers category". It's supposed to take over the flavored powder products that people use to flavor their water. Since there are not many powders out there, Mio is supposed to take over as a new generation product when people begin switching to this liquid.

New Product Line

This year Kraft has introduced a new product line to cooking. Kraft came out with Philadelphia Cooking Creme in several different flavors. They recently just launched their new Tomato & Basil flavor to the cooking cremes.

Addition to Existing Product Line

Kraft has added new flavors of Cracker Barrel cheeses to it's company. These new cheeses contain seasoning. The new varieties include Red & Green Jalapeno pepper, Cracked Black pepper, and Mediterranean Herb. This will be Cracker Barrel's new addition to it's product line of cheeses along with many other additions to it's other products.  

Improvements or revisions of existing products

Kraft has redesigned the look of it's mac & cheese box with a "new, happier packaging, and marketing strategy with the 'noodle smile" on the front of the box. They also changed the colors to brighter colors on the box and more interesting font. This redesign was a drastic change but it was good one for the consumers eye as well.

Repositioned Products

In 2007, there was an article written about Kraft's new CEO at the time. They weren't sure if she would be able to bring the company back. Unfortunately, they underestimated her. A lot of parents weren't buying kool aid due to the fact that kool-aid was such a sugary drink. In Fortune magazine however, Rosenfeld (KFT's CEO) repositioned kool-aid as a healthier alternative to Coke and Pepsi. After doing that, sales began improving again. 

Holiday Specials from Kraft

For the holidays, Kraft is doing a lot for it's community. The company has just recently relaunched it's Facebook page and a new channel on YouTube. The Facebook page has tons of new holiday recipes and coupons. If you become a fan on their Facebook and send them an e-card, they will contribute 10 meals to Feeding America. This is just one of the many things Kraft is doing for the holidays. Here are some other examples:

With Kraft's Huddle to Fight Hunger campaign going on through January 9th, anyone can enter to help give away 20 million meals. You can help by:

1. Redeeming coupons
2. "liking" Kraft Food's on Facebook
3. Uploading photo's 
4. Watching YouTube videos
5. Sending Tweets on Twitter

All of these result in the donation of one meal. They'll donate at least four million meals through digital/social media.

This sweepstakes is called 'Kraft Delicious Days Home for the Holidays' sweepstakes. And it gives out a prize of $2500 to get your families together on the holidays.

For the holidays, Kraft is handing out $10 rebates to people in Utah. It's called the 'Jingle in your Holidays' rebate. All you have to do to enter is buy ten participating Kraft products and send in your rebate form along with your receipts to receive the $10 rebate. 

Kraft Foods teams up with American Greetings to help Feeding America. For every free* e-card sent to Kraft, they will donate a free meal to Feeding America. Their original core goal was to send out one million of these free meals but since that time till now, they've tripled in the amount of meals. Each e-card contains special recipes and tips for the holiday season. This program is called the Recipe for Joy program and it's taking place in Canada. You can read more about this here. An example of a moms e-card can be seen here

As you can see, Kraft Foods has done a lot to help out it's community. And it's helped communities around the world as well such as, Canada, Utah, and many others. Aside from helping out it's community around the world it's provided tons of new recipes on it's site that will help all of us get prepared for our upcoming holidays!

Chapter 16 - Integrated Marketing Communications

"When deciding what products to buy, a consumer passes through a series of behavior stages, and marketing communications can influence each stage". This is called the AIDA concept; attention, interest, desire, and action.

 

A - Attention


Kraft has numerous ways of grabbing a consumers attention to their product. This year, 2011, they came out with a new Philadelphia product that's to be used to help moms on a daily basis when it comes to dinner and cooking simple meals faster. This new product quickly grabbed consumers attention.

 

I - Interest


After capturing the attention of consumers, you need to get their interest in wanting the product. Kraft Food's did this by putting out advertisements all over the internet, promoting sales in stores, through AD's and television commercials. Philadelphia cooking creme came out with four different flavors to choose from. It showed different variations to notify consumers that they have options in taste.

D - Desire

Now that Kraft had consumers attention and interest, they needed to consumers to have the desire to buy their product. Therefore they began to advertise different recipes to show people all the options they had when it came down to making food with this product. These helpful recipes practically played a role in dragging customers to the grocery stores near them to pick this product up for cooking their favorite meals in a much simpler way.

A - Action

And lastly after gathering a consumers attention, interest, and desire, Kraft needed to find an easy way to make people actually get up and go buy this product over and over again. Kraft showed many desirable ways to use the product and it's efficiency on cooking. So lastly they came out with promotional coupons for the new product. Consumers would use the coupons to get this product at a discounted price and if people liked it, they'd be back the next week for more of this product with coupon or no coupon at all. It would eventually become a normal item on your everyday shopping list.