Generic Products vs Brand Name Essay

This report is Part 1 of assignment for Marketing MBA 565-MBOL1 to Dr. Stephen Baglione

Everyone has his or her own personal preference towards buying generic or name brand products. When shopping in a grocery store does the type of pasta really matter to you? How about the type of macaroni and cheese you reach for? Same ingredients, same directions on how to mix and stir up the final manufactured goods but is it really the “same”. To a lot of people it might not make a difference, but like me, a lot of people prefer spending the extra 50 cents on a box of “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese” and it’s worth every penny.

5) Capital Requirements: in order to enter the industry, there were huge capital expenses to be sustained by firms, such as a minimum of $ 100 million for capital investments, and at least 125 employees to run a plant that could produce both packaging and cereals themselves. In this framework, advertising expenses may be added too, since they’re a great part of the expenditures a RTE Cereal firm has to face, and they also represent a great Barrier To Entry, being an amount close to 1/5 of the sales generated by the company.

The ready-to-eat (RTE) sector has increased sales and therefore have given the Breakfast cereals market an advantage to have a higher market share of 4.2% in 2013. The emphasis is more to the value and the convenience of cereals rather than the quality. However people are starting to be more heath conscious and are going to the higher nutritional brands which tend to be the well-known ones such as Kellogg 's, Weetabix and Nestle.

There is a growing threat from generic competition due to their global operations that can achieve lower-cost of supplies. Also the threat

External Environmental Analysis We chose Kellogg’s cereal category because Kellogg’s has over 100 years history and we have14 kinds of breakfast cereal products. Our products sell to 180 countries across the world. Our mission is still to provide you and your family with better breakfasts that lead to better days, and now you eat flake corn is the same way W.K. did back in 1898. It just tastes better that way. Kellogg’s cereal provides a variety of nutrition’s cereals that deliver the benefits of grains, and provide important nutrients like iron, B vitamins, zinc and fibre.

The cereal industry has only really worked on one pricing strategy, price discrimination. They have used price discrimination by giving out tons of coupons to potential customers. Coupons are designed so that customers can use them to buy the cereal of their desire for a lower price.

The threat of customers finding substitute products from other manufacturers in the food industry is high. In the ready-to-eat breakfast cereals segment, General Mills’ primary business focus, there are a variety of similar products being

For over a hundred years, the H. E. Butt Grocery Company stores have provided people in Texas and Mexico with superior products and service. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, H-E-B was the 11th largest grocery chain in the United States. Florence Butt founded the company in 1905 with a $60 investment. A few generations later and four failures later, Charles Butt became president of the company in 1971 and took the family name to a higher level.

G. Myth – generic drugs are cheaper because they are made in poorer conditions than brand name drugs.

as the older brands already existing in the market and those that they are familiar with.

The company that I selected is Johnson & Johnson and the product I will be writing about is Listerine. Listerine was originally marketed by Lambert Pharmacal Company later known as Warner-Lambert. In December 2006, Johnson & Johnson acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer healthcare division is what led to the manufacturing and distribution of Listerine for this company. The inputs put into making Listerine is Raw Materials, design, and the manufacturing process, with these inputs we will analyze them to see how the effect the production and cost of making and selling Listerine.

Sales of private label cereal grew 50% from 1991-1994 in the Ready-to-Eat breakfast cereal industry. Some of the factors that contributed to the entry of private label cereal manufacturers and their subsequent growth include - lower costs related to manufacturing, packaging, marketing, R&D compared to the Big 3 cereal companies, product quality approaching that of branded products, higher margins for grocers, lower priced products. Some observers blamed higher prices and elaborate expenditure on coupon printing, distribution, redemption and reimbursement of grocer's handling fee for market share gains made by private label cereal products. The policy of "price up and spend back" seemed to hurt the Big 3 firms.

It gives the consumer an alternative to buy products that have still not saturated the market.

The generic strategy allows the firm to react to the five forces better than their competitors (Worthington & Britton, 2006). According to Porter (1985), an organization can enjoy competitive advantage by focusing on the generic competitive strategies. The organization could enjoy competitive edge by either offering the product at low cost or differentiating the product from the competitors or by focusing on a specific market. Porter (1985) emphasized that the generic strategies should be at the centre of the strategic plans.