If you would build a new brand in the food industry, what would you choose? My team and I went for an African meal package brand, that combines the flavors of Africa & the convenience required by today's fast consumer lifestyles. The result? A great branding campaign. Have a look !!
If you think of oriental food you think of the flavors of Conimex. If you want to cook a nice authentic Italian food you buy Bertolli. Interested in some fiery Mexican food? Then Casa Fiesta is your brand of choice. Looking for a simple Dutch meal? Then you are likely to pick up Unox from your local supermarket chain. But what about African food? Are we not ignoring an entire continent? Well, from now on, if you are interested in preparing an African meal, just look for HakunaMatata, the new umbrella brand that offers you a complete extensive range of authentic African products that enables you to prepare the most delightful and diverse African dishes in the privacy of your own home.
Before we proceed to developing our brand, we would like to tell you what is already on the market, and how we mimicked the structure of an existing successful brand to fit our own. For the purpose of analysis, we chose Conimex. The brand is focused on Indonesian food and has a complete wide range of authentic Indonesian products that enables you to prepare the most delicious and varied Indonesian dishes. Our analysis indicated that Conimex is an incredibly well-known brand in the Netherlands. In order to understand the role of Conimex in the mind of the consumer, we conducted a quantitative (20 subjects) and qualitative research(10 subjects). For our qualitative interview, we used personal face-to-face interviews with subjects targeted by the brand, conducted by our brand management team, who received thorough training before conducting the interviews. We interviewed four Dutch students, a young couple, two single recently employed people, and two working moms. The reasons behind our selection were rather simple: we believe the Conimex brand promise would be the most appealing for their lifestyles. We started by asking our customers to make some free associations by phrasing the following questions:1. What are the first three things that come to your mind when you think of Conimex?2. How would you describe Conimex products?We found that Conimex is associated with Indonesia, and is highly familiar among this target group. Our brand equity analysis indicated the following free associations existing in the mind of the Dutch consumer: Asian, Indonesia, logo, meal packages, quick meals, convenient, reliable, NassiGoreng, prawn crackers & sambal. The Conimex ingredients were described as „authentic Asian, original, wok, rice, meat spices, exotic, Asian with a Western twitch “. We probed for secondary associations and found out that consumers believe that quality ingridients come from from naturally processed vegetables, that authenticity requires the products to be produced in Indonesia; that in order for it to be original, it needs to offer a variety of combination methods and that the exotic taste comes from the traditional Indonesian flavors that make their way to the consumer through Conimex. The Western twitch came from the modernity of the packages and the fitting into a busy lifestyle with little free time for cooking.
We continued by trying to understand the associations the participants already had with Indonesia and that they could be projecting onto the brand. For Dutch people, Indonesia is a sunny touristic destination, with exotic islands, rice fields and a nice tropical climate. The country is seen as in touch with the simple life, as although people are poor, they have a complex spiritual life.We used projective techniques to find out the source of Conimex‘s brand equity, so we asked participants to tell us what would Conimex look like if it were a person. It seems most participants believe the CONIMEX brand is most likely to be a rice farmer working in his garden under the sun, collecting fresh vegetables and cooking them for his family. Some saw it as a caring Indonesian woman that picked only the best ingredients to prepare a meal for her family. Some saw it as a busy Indonesian chef surrounded by wok dishes in a huge kitchen, while some associate the brand with a beautiful exotic Indonesian woman with a taste for nature. To continue evaluating the brand‘s personality, we used Aaker‘s five factor personality types, and discovered that Conimex is perceived as an exciting (daring, spirited, imaginative and current), competent (reliable, intelligent, successful) and sincere (down-to-earth, honest and wholesome) brand.How did this translate into the positive brand aspects of Conimex? Our respondents saw the brand as tasty, and original, easy to prepare and part of their every day life. Its herbal mixes were praised by most participants, who saw them as having high quality. On the negative side, some respondents believed that the price of the products was rather fair, while others believed Conimex to be a bit pricy (especially the students). Some disliked the fact that most dishes can only be prepared for two people, so rather uncomfortable when cooking for a family or a dinner party; others disliked that it only offers ingredients and not complete meals, while others were rather upset when Conimex removed one of its mixes, Tracy.
So what makes Conimex unique? Consumers see it as the only wok-brand on the market, with an authentic Indonesian offer, reliable quality. Conimex products stand out on the shelves and offer a wide range of combinations. The brand was, however, found to be similar to Knorr, and other house brands, and equally reliable or offering the same value as them: high quality products for a fair price.People choosing both meals were seen as hard working, and having little time to prepare food. List 1 was believed to be for when trying to cook for more people, by more adventurous people, that like to try new things and are looking for an exotic taste. The meal seemed to make things students think of what they would themselves buy. List 2 was believed to be chosen by more conservative people, as it was seen as a safe choice, with an American appeal. It was seen as something a lazy person would shop for in the supermarket.When probed about the exact situations when they use Conimex ingredients, our respondents indicated it is mostly at dinner time, when cooking Asian food. They use the products when have little time for cooking, or have friends coming over. Some mostly use it during holidays when they would much rather prefer spending time engaged in more pleasant activities. Conimex is used more during winter than summer, maybe due to the extra spicies in some of the ingredients. The usual food combinations consist of Conimex ingredients, meat and vegetables.The respondents varied in terms of their eating habits: students were more likely to eat more Asian meals than the mothers, who had a more diverse menu, consisting of pasta, salads, or typical Dutch meals. Most participants cooked at least 3 times a week, and used Conimex at least for one meal a week. They normally eat lots of chicken and vegetables; the recently employed reported eating out quite often due to a busy work and social life. Students, the couple and the moms spent more time at home cooking, as the price of eating out would be higher or the activity of cooking was seen as a social binding one.
Our online quantitative analysis (http://survey.crystalwebdesign.nl/index.php?sid=74675) on 20 subjects revealed that Dutch consumers are highly aware of the Conimex brand, with awareness levels at 80%. Most respondents were able to connect the brand name with its characteristics and imagine the brand in their minds. Graph 1 shows you the Conimex brand awareness elements.Some respondents had some troubles recalling the logo. In the figure below you can see the spontaneous brand awareness for foreign meal packages. When compared to the competitors, you can see that Knorr has a better spontaneous brand awareness than Conimex. Honig is equal to Conimex.
In a closed question respondents answered that in for a 5 eurocent premium, 95% prefer Conimex instead of Euroshopper. We kind of underestimated this, because in the open question, in which we asked respondents how much they would be willing to pay extra for Conimex. On average, respondents were willing to pay 0,33 eurocents extra. The price of Conimex is ranked high. Respondents believed Conimex is highly priced, but none of the respondents answered in the strongly agree extreme, indicating that they might be preconditioned to believe prices are high, but are not entirely bothered by this fact. Also the respondents disagree generally with the low price. Respondents on average think Conimex is slightly expensive.
In general, our 20 subjects perceived the quality of Conimex to be very high, as you can see in the graph. Also respondents ranked Conimex as reliable. Hardly any respondents strongly disagree with one of the questions. Considering the customer loyalty, the majority of the respondents don’t see themselves as loyal customers to Conimex. The majority also disagrees with the question that they won’t buy another brand when Conimex is not available in the store. Thus Conimex mostly enjoys behavioral loyalty and less brand loyalty. Conimex also isn’t often the respondents’ first choice.
Our consumer can range from the student that is away for the first time and is just learning how to cook, to young professionals that are looking for an easy to prepare meal at the end of a busy day of work, or a normal mom trying to add variety to the weekly menus. Thus, our goal is to target a wide range of consumers based on activities and lifestyle. We offer diversity, flavor and a fast, easy to prepare meal.Segmentation Criteria:Identifiability: The group which meets our criteria is not a specific group but a broad range of people among all layers of the population. Sinc our target group is very diverse, it is hard to identify this group and to apply really focused communication. Thus, mass communication might be appropriate to create brand awareness among this broad range of consumers.Size: as already mentioned, we want to be the next in line of region-based umbrella brands in the FMCG-sector aimed at offering various food components with an African touch. Competing brands, such as Conimex, Bertolli or Casa Fiesta have been successful on the Dutch market, and can be found in each supermarket in divided shelf spaces. Therefore we expect our market segment to be large. Accessibility: This brand is specially designed to fill up a supermarketshelf and will be mass-marketed as many other FMCG.Responsiveness: Competing brands showed that mass marketing is an effective strategy. Niche marketing campaigns are difficult since our target group is very varied. However, we can clearly identify various subgroups of our market:house moms, students, African imigrants people, DINK’s, young professionals or. They are likely to respon more favourable towards tailored marketing campaigns. We believe our dishes fit with the belief that dinner is becoming an increasingly social activity, involving more people. We are targeting people that are curious and eager to try new dishes, and want to explore cross-culinary borders. Our consumer cooks several dinners per week, and is interested in a healthy lifestyle, and thus healthy cooking. We want to promote a positive attitude towards other cultures, promoting cultural exchanges and travelling. They also shop mostly in supermarkets.
Our consumer can range from the typical teenager trying to get her mom to diversify the weekly menu, to the student that is away for the first time and is just learning how to cook, to young professionals that are looking for an easy to prepare meal at the end of a busy day of work, or a normal mom trying to add variety to the weekly menus. Together, these consumers make up almost 40% of the Dutch market and share about 11% of their wallet on food & non-alcoholic beverages throughout Dutch supermarkets.