Reference no: EM132384343

Congratulations! You have recently been appointed as the Marketing Coordinator at Mars Incorporated Australia. Mars Inc. is a leading consumer goods company, providing products to local and international markets in the Food, Confectionary and Petcare categories. Your role is within the Petcare division, specifically focusing on the Cat Food category. Mars owns cat food brands such as Whiskas and Dine.

Your Marketing Director is also new to his role and has commissioned some market research to collect data on people's cat food buying behaviour. As you are a recent Marketing graduate from UniSA, he asks that you analyse and interpret the data and share your insights with the department.

Your Marketing Director has given you a list of specific questions that he wants answered. Prepare a 2000-word report that addresses the questions outlined below.

Provide an Executive Summary (approx. 300 words) outlining the major findings of the report and the implications for the brands Whiskas. This is followed by the main body of the report divided up into the following sections:

- Understanding Buyer Behaviour
- Brand Performance
- Demographics and Segmentation

This should be followed by a reference list. Your work should make reference to material taught in this course via your readings and other sourced materials. You should include at least 10 references as a minimum requirement. You do not have to include the tables from this document.

Section 1: Understanding Buyer Behaviour

1. Your new Marketing Director believes that all consumers think deeply about the
purchases they make (including cat food purchases). He suggests that packaging and advertising for the Whiskas brand needs to provide more information, as this is what consumers need to make their purchase decision. Do you agree or disagree with this? Explain your answer using theories that help us understand buyer behaviour.
(400 words approx.)

Section 2: Brand Performance
Table 1: Brand Performance Metrics

Brand	Market Share W.)	Penetration (%)	Average Purchase Frequency	Category Buying Rate	Sharer of Categoy Requirements (%)	Sole Loyalty (%)
Dine	34	70	2.2	5.2	43	18
Snappy Tom	25	52	2.2	5.4	41	10
Whiskas	20	41	2.0	6.8	29	5
Fancy Feast	6	18	2.0	7.9	18	0
Purina	4	11	1.0	9.5	11	0
Average	100	38	1.8	7.0	27	6

2. Table 1 shows the brand performance metrics over a 3 month time period. Are there any patterns evident between the brand performance measures in Table 1? Describe the patterns and differences that you see between the competing brands, and specifically for Whiskas. (400 words approx.)

3. Your Marketing Director is concerned about Whiskas' performance in the market. He wants to grow the brand by implementing a strategy to double its average purchase frequency over the next 6 months. Explain if this is a good strategy to take. Why / why not? (400 words approx.)

Section 3: Demographics & Segmentation

4. Your Marketing Director believes that the Whiskas brand should focus on targeting a younger female demographic profile, i.e. females aged 16-25 who earn less than $50,000. Analyse Tables 4-6. Do you agree/ disagree with your Marketing Director? Explain your answer using appropriate theory from the course. (300 words approx.)

Table 4: Demographics - Gender

Brand	Male	Female	Male Dev.	Female Dev.	Average MAD
Dine	64	36	4	-4	4
Snappy Tom	60	40	0	0	0
Whiskas	61	39	1	-1	1
Fancy Feast	61	39	1	-1	1
Purina	58	42	-2	2	2
Average	60	40	2	2	2

Table 5: Demographics - Age

Brand	16-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	58-65	16-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	Avg
						Dev.	Dev.	Dev.	Dev.	Dev.	MAD
Dine	16	35	18	13	18	-2	6	-6	-2	3	4
Snappy Tom	16	31	24	18	11	-2	2	0	3	-4	2
Whiskas	23	28	20	14	15	5	-1	-4	-1	0	2
Fancy Feast	19	24	27	15	15	1	-5	3	0	0	2
Purina	17	29	30	13	13	-1	0	6	-2	-2	2
Average	18	29	24	15	15	2	3	3	2	2	2

Table 6: Demographics - Total household income

Brand	Less than	$50,000 -	More than	<$50k	$5O-$70k	>$70k	Average
	50,000	70,000	70,000	Deviation	Deviation	Deviation	MAD
				$	s	$
Dine	23	29	31	3	6	-7	5
Snappy Tom	21	19	43	1	-4	5	3
Whiskas	21	22	39	1	-1	1	1
Fancy Feast	22	21	35	2	-2	-3	2
Purina	18	24	41	-2	1	3	2
Average	20	23	38	2	3	4	3

5. Based on your demographic and segmentation analysis above, what marketing strategy recommendations would you make to your Marketing Director? (200 words approx.)