Lewis Road Creamery Company shows excellent results in the New Zealand market and has good prospects to gain a great foothold in the international arena. One of the main strengths is the product’s high quality, achieved by Lewis Road and Whittaker’s joint efforts, and an ever-expanding assortment (Fernandez, 2020). The key weakness of entering the international market is difficulties with exports. Since the company cannot provide transportation of products with a short shelf life to other countries (Fernandez, 2020), the main emphasis in selling abroad is on products with a shelf life of about two years. Nevertheless, the company has great potential to develop in the international market. The opportunities are mainly supported by the proximity to the two hubs in the United States significantly, which helps Lewis Road Creamery implement sales abroad (Fernandez, 2020). The main threat is the growing popularity of the trademark with attempts at illegal registration. Such a case has already been registered in China (Fernandez, 2020), which the company was able to suppress successfully.
An important competitive advantage of the company is the emphasis on self-indulgence among customers. The strategy of relying on the rejection of austerity for the sake of momentary desires also helped to create an image of a premium product along with a high-quality implementation of the original idea. Since the company’s success is stable and has good potential, I suggest an expansion strategy. The construction of new factories in other countries would help to avoid problems with exports, gain a lead in the foreign market, and reduce the cost of an advertising campaign due to the great popularity of the brand.
Cooperating with Whittaker’s, Lewis Road Creamery resorted to using the branding strategy of the company name. Working with a well-established New Zealand brand contributed to the fact that in the minds of customers, a new product is associated with good quality. Moreover, the companies demonstrated the similarity of their values and approaches to sales (Fernandez, 2020), due to which major strategic disagreements did not settle the cooperation. Consequently, creating a common product with this particular organization led to high-quality results, minimal costs, and the fastest implementation of the project. Understanding these prospects was the main reason Lewis Road Creamery chose Whittaker’s as a team for cooperation.
To achieve a similar effect from the branding strategy in Australia, the company would have to find a similarly big name with a good reputation and the same values. For example, it could resort to cooperation with the Choco Nuts brand. This Australian factory is Australia’s leading chocolate manufacturer and supplier of panned confectionery, producing a wide range of products (Coconuts Australia, no date). Such a reputation could have the effect of subliminally positive associations in Australia among the customers. Moreover, the factory also positions its products as premium (Coconuts Australia, no date), which could serve as a reason to follow common values. Companies that are equally interested in creating a high-end product could conduct a similar successful campaign in Australia.
To analyze the three product levels, I took Cocobella Coconut Water and examined it from the position of a core benefit, an actual product, and an augmented product levels. First of all, the core benefit is the sweet water from the juice of young green coconuts. The company positions its product as a healthy drink saturated with vitamins and minerals (Coconut Water, no date). In the context of flavoured water, these characteristics are basic and are not used as winning trading advantages.
The actual product is a cardboard package with a minimalistic light tones design. Water is used as a refreshing and moisturizing drink on a hot day. The manufacturer also assures that this product can be used to add to cocktails or as an additional ingredient in recipes (Coconut Water, no date). In other words, the current product on the market can be presented as an alternative to fruit juice or sweet carbonated drinks.
The augmented product includes a concentrate of vitamins and minerals. According to the manufacturers, the water is made from a pure ingredient and does not contain sugar, flavorings, or dyes (Coconut Water, no date). It means that the health benefits aspect of coconut water is the main augmented element that the company can offer to the buyer. In the context of the third level, the manufacturer also reveals low-calorie content, stomach friendliness, protein saturation, and assistance in preventing muscle spasms as the four main aspects of promoting the product. The main advertising move resorted to by the manufacturer is to create an image of a healthy, refreshing, and light product for athletes. The target audience of such an advertising campaign is people who lead an active lifestyle or pay intense attention to the condition of their bodies.
Environmental psychology considers a person as an object of the external world and reveals the peculiarities of the relations between a human and the surrounding (Edgerton, Romice and Spencer, 2021, p. 15). In other words, it studies the influence of the general atmosphere and the environment that influences personality formation. Researchers are trying to increase the positive effect of human interaction with the outside world. This aspect includes studying advertising, mobile technologies, and many other elements as a lever of pressure on a person’s mental state.
Russell’s model of affect is also part of environmental psychology and can be used to analyze the impact of advertising campaigns. The model distributes emotions in a two-dimensional plane, one of which represents valence, and the other depicts arousal (Seo and Huh, 2019, p. 3). The degree of valence reflects a positive or negative reaction to an object, while arousal demonstrates the intensity of emotion. Using Russell’s model of affect, I would analyze the Target advertising campaign to understand its impact on the human psychological state.
According to the degree of valence, the Target aims at high indicators of positive emotions. The promotional campaign “Best friends for all kids” shows the happy faces of children and positive connotations in slogans (Target, 2022), as it helps to stimulate a positive reaction in a viewer. Too slightly increase the level of arousal, Target demonstrates children of different nationalities and physical abilities (Target, 2022), as it helps to create the effect of a personal connection with the company’s faces for people of diverse backgrounds. Thus, the company used a positive valence with a low level of excitement to attract new customers. Similar degrees based on Russell’s model are demonstrated in the promotional campaign “The holidays are meant to be shared”. Happy faces and a generally calm and uneventful atmosphere in the scenes of a family holiday (Target, 2021) tend to trigger approximately the same emotions that the previous advertising campaign tried to achieve. The analysis of the Target policy based on Russell’s model of affect helped to compile general trends in the emotional impact of the organization’s advertising on customers.
Reference List
Coconuts Australia (no date).
Coconut Water (no date).
Edgerton, E., Romice, O., and Spencer, C. (2021) Environmental psychology: Putting research into practice. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Fernandez, K. V. (2020) ‘Lewis Road Creamery: Lunch-time ideas’, in Armstrong et al., Principles of Marketing, Australia: Pearson.
Seo, Y. S., and Huh, J. H. (2019). ‘Automatic emotion-based music classification for supporting intelligent IoT applications’, Electronics, 8(2), pp. 164-184.
Target (2022) Best friends for all kids | Target.
Target (2021) Target Holiday | The holidays are meant to be shared.