Marketing Strategy - Hershey’s Take 5 Case Paper

BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

Hershey’s Take 5 Case Paper

A Class Paper Submitted for

MKTG 438.555

Marketing Strategy

Dr. Carter

by:

Tina Nguyen, Darius Aaron, Davon Davis, and Christina Wall

Due Date: Mary 7, 2017

Executive Summary 

As the marketing changes, there are many trends that may influence purchasing behavior for Hershey’s Take 5 market. The influential trends are demographic changes, alternations in customer needs, the development of new styles, and the development of fashions. It is important that Hershey’s Take 5 understand these trends because it allows them to stay ahead in their industry. The target market for the current relaunch for Take 5 are millennial. Take 5 take aim to target customer with characteristics of being ages 18 to 34, into modern style, cultural, and athletics. The need of the customer for Hershey’s Take 5 is a snack that is on the go, energic, simple, and can be purchased at any stores. Take 5 direct competitions includes Snickers, Pay Day, and Baby Ruth. Their indirect competitions are Planter Trails Mixes and Granola. By mid of 2013, Hershey’s has the highest market share with 30.8% of the market, leading Mars, Cadbury, Nestle, a Private Label, Russell Stover, and Lindt. With regulatory policy, labels that states milk chocolate without cocoa butter now are labeled as “made with chocolate” or “chocolate candy”.  Take 5 taking part in social media platforms can help it connect with young audience of the age group it wants.   

A SWOT analysis was done to strategize the best market strategy that would make Take 5 relaunch a success. The marketing goals and objectives of are increase Take 5 sales to match other of Hershey’s brands, increase brand awareness, and attracts new customers. Our recommended retail for the Take 5 bar is $1.15, which falls beneath the opposition, Snickers, by a few pennies. Customers are searching at a lower cost and getting five fixings enables them to see the value for the money. Hershey’s will promote Take 5 by using the marketing medias of television, billboards, websites, and social media platforms.

Section 1: Situation Analysis

Section 1a: Marketing Analysis

Internal Environment

Review of the Marketing Goals and Objective

As the marketing changes, there are many trends that may influence purchasing behavior for Hershey’s Take 5 market. The influential trends are demographic changes, alternations in customer needs, the development of new styles, and the development of fashions. It is important that Hershey’s Take 5 understand these trends because it allows them to stay ahead in their industry. Hershey’s Take 5 goals are to increase marketing that would then increase sales. Hershey’s Take 5 plans to reach their goals by reinvesting into their marketing strategy for their Take 5 brands. Their objectives from this is to successfully relaunch the Take 5 after discontinuing the brand in 2011. The brand was discontinued because Hershey’s currently marketing strategy plan for it did not increase sales for it, therefore decided that the advertising money used on Take 5 will be more worth it on Hershey’s main brand. As the relaunch of Take 5 happens, they need a marketing campaign that will work for their small brand.

Section 1b: Target Market Analysis

The target market for the current relaunch for Take 5 are millennial. The reason why Hershey’s Take 5 relaunched is focusing on millennial is back because millennial is the one that are health focus and since Take 5 only have peanuts, pretzels, caramel, milk chocolate, and peanut butter, it is a healthier choice for chocolate candy bar. To appeal, to millennial Take 5 changed their wrapper to like more modern. The wrapper went from a red wrapper with a picture of the bar on it to a black wrapper with some of the ingredients on it. The switch in color made the candy bar bold and appealing to the younger crowd. Another target market is customer that chooses to be health such as athletes.  The table below shows that target marketing potential customers and their compound annual growth rate.

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Section 1c: Customer/Customer Analysis

The relaunch of Hershey’s Take 5 target customer profile is different from that of its other brands, such as Hershey’s, Kisses, and Reese’s. Take 5 take aim to target customer with characteristics of being ages 18 to 34, into modern style, cultural, and athletics. However, when the product actually relaunched, the data shows the characteristics for Take 5 being different from what were predicted. The data shows that the customer profile as having characteristics of being ages of 35 to 54 years, White, has children, and has income of over $40,000 that lived in the regions of Northeast or Midwest of the country. This was the extreme opposite of who Hershey’s were targeting with Take 5.

Section 1d: Need Analysis

The need of a customer is the resources that will fix their problem and satisfy the problem. The want of the customer is the resources that would solve that problem as well, however it is what the customer preferred over something that fix the problem at the very basics. The need of the customer for Hershey’s Take 5 is a snack that is on the go, energic, simple, and can be purchased at any stores. Take 5 know that customer values these components when trying to find the right candy bar in stores therefore, Take 5 took all of these components when they made a relaunched. The new relaunched Take 5 candy bar has five simple ingredients (pretzel, caramel, chocolate, peanuts, and peanut butter) that provide the customer with energy to do their everyday tasks. The distribution has also been strategized to fix the demands of the customer (more on distribution in Section 4).

Section 1e: External Environment

Competitive Analysis

(Direct Competition)

• Mars’s Snickers is a chocolate candy bar that has the main ingredients of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate. This chocolate candy bar is advertised as “You’re not you, when you’re hungry.” using celebrities, such as Betty White. Snickers has the strength in having a slogan that customers recognized, where Take 5 does not have a popular slogan. Their weakness is the recall Mar’s had for Snickers in 2016, when customers complained that there were plastics in the candy bars.
• Pay Day is a candy bar that has the ingredients of caramel and salted peanuts. Though Pay Day is also a brand of Hershey’s, Pay Day is a competitor of Take 5 because their ingredients are very similar in that fact that it contains peanuts and caramel. Pay Day strength is having a fewer ingredients than Take 5, whom marketed to be simple because it has only five ingredients. The weakness of Pay Day is that it too, is not a popular in the industry such as Snickers or Kit Kat.
• Baby Ruth is a brand of Nestle’s and was introduced in the market in the 1920s. It has the ingredients of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate. The strength of Baby Ruth is that it has been in the market longer than Take 5 and it has the similar ingredients to Take 5. What Take 5 is trying to do is take loyal (long-term) customers of Baby Ruth and introduce them to a whole new candy bar. This is a challenge because it is hard to shift loyal customers. Baby Ruth weakness is because of it age in the market, it most likely not attracts younger customers of millennial (an advantage to Take 5).

(Indirect Competition)

• Planters’ Trail Mixes markets their products as having various mixes. They recently came out with trails mixes that have the flavors of desserts. There is trails mixes sundae flavor and raisin cookies. Trail mixes target market are adults ages 25 to 45 years of age that often snacks around and has a family. Their market share is currently the same Granola. The image that Planter changed from a cartoon Mr. Peanuts to an animated 3D Mr. Peanuts. This change made a statement that they not too modern like other brands, but has the same great classic taste. Granola market their product by being a healthy hearty snack for everyone. They market to kids that it is a great snack to have at practices for young athletes and adults with heart problems. The image that Granola presents is an image of healthy simple and easy snack.  

1f. Economic Trends

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CHART 1                                                                                                                                                                                      

The  chart one, above, shows the economic trends of Hershey’s and it competition. From the chart, Hershey’s has the highest market share with 30.8% of the market. The brand with the second highest is Mars, Inc, with 30%, which is the owner of Snickers. The following brands in the market share are Cadbury, Nestle, a Private Label, Russell Stover, and Lindt with, respectively 5.6%, 5.3%, 3.2%, 2.5%, and 2.4%.