Targeting and positioning

For this assignment I created a short brand positioning questionnaire, which you can find with this link: https://www.survio.com/survey/d/V4W4L9E3J8J6M3E9E. It will only take a few minutes to make this short questionnaire. 

For the second part I created a positioning map for my product. In this positioning map you can see four beer brands, Amstel, Grolsch, Hertog Jan and Heineken. I asked several people their opinions on these brands concerning the price and quality. As you can see, Hertog Jan is the most expensive beer of the four, and Amstel is the cheapest. Grolsch has the best quality, followed by Hertog Jan and then Amstel and Heineken with the same quality. 

Bibliography

Sample Questionnaire. (2016). Brand Positioning Questionnaire. Retrieved November 30, 2016, from Sample Questionnaire: http://www.samplequestionnaire.com/brand-positioning-questionnaire.html

Segmenting Markets

A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organizations sharing one or more similar characteristics that cause them to have relatively similar product needs and buying characteristics (Renssen, 2016). Amstel aims for several market segments. The first market segment is age. Heineken, which is the manufacturer of Amstel, aims for people from the age of 18 to 34 (Balbi, 2013). When people turn 18 it becomes legal to drink alcohol, so it is logical that this is the minimum age where Amstel focusses on. The most beer is consumed between 18 and 34, because people are young and most people don’t have children yet or the children are still very young, so they can still drink alcohol. Once the children get older, the parents want to be a good role model and will drink less beer. So the family life cycle is also a market segment.

Another segment is gender. As you can see on television and in advertisements, beer focusses on men because they are the main beer consumers. There will be no beer advertisements in a women magazine, because they are not focusing on women. Also in beer commercials, no matter which brand, you will always see men drinking beer and not women.

Religion is another market segment. Some religions do not allow people to drink alcohol. Islam and some Christian sectors do not allow alcohol, so it would be useless to try and sell them Amstel. Amstel does not specifically focus on non-religious people, but they do focus on the people that are non-religious and religious people that are allowed to consume alcohol.

The region and loyalty are other market segments, which are linked to each other. As you can see on the figure, Amstel is most popular in the northern part of the Netherlands. The 3 provinces that consume the most Amstel are North Holland, Friesland and Drenthe. It is important that these customers stay loyal to the brand Amstel, because they are their main source of income. They will focus on their loyal customers to make sure they won’t switch to other brands.                                                                                                                        

The product positioning refers to the communication from your business to the customers. The 5 P’s are used to make this clear. The first P is product, which is what you are going to sell to your customers. For Amstel the products are the regular Amstel, Amstel Radler, Amstel Bock etc. The second P is price, which focusses on the price of the Product and that of the competitors. Amstel wants to keep their prices low so it is attractive for customers to buy. The third P is Place which focusses on where you sell your products, for example in restaurants and supermarkets. The fourth P is promotion and focusses on the advertisement of the product. The last P is people and focusses on the main target audience of the product. For Amstel this is men between the 18 and 34.

Effective segmentation has several criteria. The first criteria is the homogeneity of segments. This means that the people in the target segment should have similar product and service needs. The second criteria is the heterogeneity between segments, which means that people in different segment should have different wants and needs. Accessibility is the third criteria, so the market segment should be easy to reach, especially with promotion and distribution. Another criteria is  stability, so the segments are around long enough to take action (Renssen, 2016). Measurable is another criteria, and it means that the size of the market segment should be measurable. Substantial is also a criteria, and it means that the market segment should be large enough to get attention from the business. 

The market segments where Amstel aims for are age, life cycle, gender, religion, region and loyalty. The criteria of effective segmentation are met for these segments. The market segment age, life cycle and gender are homogeneous, because the men from the age of 18 to 34 consume the most beer, so they are similar in their needs. Heterogeneous is also met, because the needs of people in for example the market segment age have different wants and needs than people in the market segment religion. Also the segments are accessible through social media and television.

Bibliography

Balbi, F. (2013, January 21). Heineken. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/fbalbi/heineken-16104483

Biernet. (2016, February 16). Aandeel biermerken per provincie. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Biernet: https://www.biernet.nl/algemeen/weetjes/aandeel-biermerken-per-provincie

Renssen, D. S. (2016). Marketing Env2 Wk2 Ch7 Market Segmentation. Retrieved November 23, 2016, from Blackboard: https://leren.saxion.nl/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_1477773_1&course_id=_30261_1&framesetWrapped=true

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Marketing Research

For the first question I had to research the Nielsen retail panel and then decide which data would be interesting for my brand Amstel. I found out that they measure what consumers buy. They monitor shopper behavior for more than 250000 households in 25 countries. Nielsen also examines key business trends by product, category, channel or market (Nielsen, 2016). The manufacturer of Amstel could use the information of the shopper behavior. With this data they can see what consumers buy and they can adjust their products on the buying behavior of their consumers. By this they can expand their target group and eventually get more consumers and more profit.

Then I had to do the same but for a different company, GfK. It is a company that gives information about the relevant market and the consumers. This information enables clients to make smarter decisions. More than 13,000 market research experts deliver global insights matched with local market intelligence from more than 100 countries (GfK, 2016). The GfK could give information about the market and the competitors of Amstel. With this information, Amstel could improve their products and become a bigger threat to their competitors. They can improve their market position and get more consumers.

Finally I made a short questionnaire to research the consumer attitude towards the brand Amstel. 

Gender:

Male	Female

Age:

Amstel	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly agree
Amstel has a nice taste
Amstel is too expensive
The design of the Amstel bottle is original
The design of the Amstel bottle looks nicer than the design of other beer bottles like for example a Heineken bottle
I drink Amstel because it tastes better than other beer brands
I drink Amstel because I’m influenced by my surroundings
The size of a Amstel bottle is perfect the way it is
Amstel pairs well with the food I eat
Amstel advertises its products in a good way
Amstel has a wide range of choices, like for example Amstel Radler
When I go out, the only beer I want to drink is Amstel
I drink Amstel at least once a week

Bibliography

GfK. (2016). About GfK. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from GfK: http://www.gfk.com/about-gfk/about-gfk/

Nielsen. (2016). Solutions. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from Nielsen: http://www.nielsen.com/ssa/en/solutions/measurement/retail-measurement.html