Cereal Market

Cereal Market

It is rather difficult to enter into the cereal market. The cereal market is highly competitive with several large companies controlling most of the market. With cereal, it becomes very important to promote your cereal product and display that this product is better than all the rest. To help create a notable cereal product, marketing and advertising is a must. Everything down to the color, shape, and characters of the cereal box can be customized to manipulate consumers to purchase a product. To help with this, companies choose a specific target audience in which to market their product.

There are several barriers to entry in the oligopolistic market of cereal. The most difficult barrier to surpass would be brand loyalty. Other companies and products that are currently in the market have clear market advantages. The few large oligopolies are well known and trusted by consumers. Many consumers will stay loyal to the brands they feel comfortable with. As a new competitor in the market, there is no reputation. At first, people will curiously buy a new cereal. It can take quite some time, however, to develop the brand loyalty that the larger, more experienced producers have.

When marketing a product, it is always important to choose a target audience and appeal to them. Everything about your product should appeal to that audience. For cereal, the design of the box is the first impression. It is important to give a good first impression. When alluring a certain audience, color, shape, size and characters can all help. Targeting men over women will change the design of the box based on the difference preferences of men. Bright, pink, happy, and blissful will easily attract women and children. Blue, big, masculine, and cool will attract the male audience. It is crucial to have a defined target audience because people will usually not purchase the product if they are not the target audience. Sometimes the target consumer can be different from the target purchaser, but the product must still appeal to both. For my cereal, Man Bran product, the target purchaser and consumer are men. The design of the box is made to capture the attention of men with the manly graphics. The cereal itself is also supposed to appeal to men because it is hearty, satisfying, and nutritious. Cereal advertising is dominated by images of mom and the kids as a family. These cereal advertising are assuming that mom is doing the shopping, and these ads are meant to target mom, the shopper. Today, more men are shopping. Because there are fewer cereals targeting men, it will be easier to get their attention. Man Bran cereal will sell to the increasing male shoppers. Hopefully, because of the excellent quality of the cereal, consumer loyalty will form.

Advertising is key to gain the initial interest of consumers and to continue to sell to all in the target audience. Since men