How Does One Sell Cereal?

After reading The Tipping Point, I have learned many important “tips” in marketing. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, identifies three important concepts based on his deep studies throughout his life: “the Law of the Few”, “the Stickiness Factor”, and “the Power of Context”. These factors play essential roles in deciding if a particular trend will work in widespread popularity. He makes these concepts interesting and understandable.

the surge of interest in granola and natural cereals in the 1970s and 80s fueled this growth. By 1993, the

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.

Dist. LEXIS 96108 at *7-8. The box mimics the design of health food cereal boxes, despite “sugar” and “corn syrup” being third and fourth on the ingredients list. Sabach, Exhibit A. This contrasts with Videtto v. Kellogg USA, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43114, *7-8 (E.D. Cal. May 20, 2009), where fancifully design elements including the spelling of “Froot” and the mascot signaled that the cereal was unhealthy. Similarly, the box claims “100% nutrition.” Sabach, Exhibit A. This could be misinterpreted to mean that the cereal contains 100% of daily nutrition, like the possibility that “‘all natural ingredients’ could … be interpreted … as a claim that all the ingredients in the product were natural.” Henderson, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41077 at *31. Dominik Sabach implies that because of these factors, “he intentionally chose “Complete Blueberry Pomegranate” over other cereals…. Based on looking at the cereal boxes, Dominik believed that … other cereals … were likely to contain greater quantities of sugar and artificial sweeteners.” Sabach at 8. Thus, this packaging is “false, misleading, and reasonably likely to deceive the public.” Id. at

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 is very adamant on using a differentiation strategy to make one’s brand stand out in the minds of certain people. The companies break down the public into different target markets; and then make products that will be attractive to their target markets. Companies make different brands for young kids, teenagers, adults, and people who are health conscience. Currently, there are 387 different brands of cereal sold in the United States and each family is estimated to purchase 17 different brands per year. (O’Connor, Amy) Companies continue to brainstorm for new product ideas to attract the various market segmentations.

Special K is a successful brand, with a good level of innovation and communication. It has reached many consumers; especially women aged 20 to 40 yearsold, focusing on key elements such as beauty, shape, and weight loss. People are ready to pay more for Special K cereals, positioned as high quality products, with higher prices as competitors’. As the

The purpose of the cereal box lesson is for us to see how advertise work and how it’s made the effort on our lives. We believe in ads and buy almost everything that seem benefits to our live. Cereal box has so many things that can determine our health. Each cereal targeted on different consumer such as gender, age range, economic background, social background, group membership, and etc… If I were an entrepreneur selling products for women, my goal is to produce an attractive packaging for my promotional tool. Can a real gentleman eat Honey Comb’s and he doesn’t like concert or teenage

The Pillsbury Cookie Challenge is a case study written by Natalie Mauro under the supervision of Professor Allison Johnson. The case study creates an open discussion about what the marketing manager of the refrigerated baked goods category for Canada General Mills should do to revive his products. Ivan Guillen, the marketing manager, was faced with tough challenges. He was initially “…faced with the challenge of developing a strategy that would lead to improved business performance on his category” (Johnson and Mauro, p.1, 2011). To clarify, Guillen’s category is refrigerated baked goods (RBG), which means, this category is his marketing responsibility. The issue here is that “RBG was GMCC’s fourth largest category, and its performance over the past two years had been less than stellar” (Johnson and Mauro, p.1, 2011). It is important to note that GMCC stands for General Mills Canada Corporation. Pillsbury has enjoyed majority market share in the RBG category in Canada, however, recently, the market was experiencing only moderate growth. Guillen was disappointed that their goal of 5%-7% market growth was not being achieved mainly in the refrigerated cookie dough segment. To be exact, their volume growth for two years was flat and they were having difficulty reaching new households. There was a shift among consumer’s purchases, which Guillen was challenged to figure out why.

| Social: * Because of women are busy with their career now, we need to produce new type of cereal for those have no time to eat breakfast at table but they can eat in the car. The new product will have milk package on the top and cereal on the bottom cup, they need to use straw to push down so the milk will fill in the bottom cereal, then people can enjoy their breakfast in the car. * Meanwhile, we will put promotion in the cereal package for teenage to purchase. For instant, if you buy a box cereal, you will find one pin, this pin allow you download songs, and Hockey ticket coupon for the upcoming events, also scratch to win an Ipad or IPhone when you buy any Kellogg’s cereal.

Quaker Oats emerged from a turn of the century merger of three milling companies over 130 years ago. It grew to become one of the top companies in the world by providing reliable quality to its first customers. Quaker Oats has been able to build a reputation of offering healthy, wholesome breakfast foods by targeting female supermarket customers. Although advertising has gone from a “warm, healthy breakfast” to delivering messages about “vitamins and minerals essential to a female metabolism” (Standaert, 2003), the target market is the same. Quaker is also hoping to reach nutrition professionals and health-food retailers. According to Indra Nooyi, Chief Executive Officer of Pepsico (parent company of Quaker Oats), they “…do not market to kids under 12…” since they “…do not have a nutritious product…” they feel comfortable marketing to young kids (Farey-Jones, 2010).

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.

giant multinational breakfast foods company United Cereal, portrays the background of a launch decision for a new cereal product, the ‘Healthy Berry Crunch’.

This book report discusses the best seller nonfiction book, “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. This book is an interesting read to understand the science of epidemics in all areas of life. The author various examples to elaborates as to how small actions at the right time, in the right and with the right people can create a tipping point for a product/service. For instance, Hush Puppies ‘tipped’ in 1993, when a few fashion-forward hipsters from Soho New York started wearing the failing brand again. A chain reaction was triggered through this small event, which cascaded though the US increasing sales and creating a word of mouth epidemic. Gladwell explains three point plan of how any brand