Promotional Strategy for a chocolate

My product is a chocolate bar and so for my promotional strategy I will hopefully include branding, advertising and product placement as these have all proven to be successful in the past. However it depends on the cost of each and the funds available. To begin with I will be using advertising as this is one of the most successful strategies. I will promote my product on television, in magazines and on billboards as these all reach the widest audience and therefore should prove to be the most effective.

However, advertising is the most expensive method of promoting a product and so it is likely I will only use it to launch my new product onto the market and to promote it during the beginning of its’ sales. Then I’ll gradually lesson the amount of advertising used, depending how well the product sells. For example, I could start out with a 30 second advert. Then, after a few weeks cut it down to a shorter 10 second version in order to reduce costs but still remind viewers of my product. Advertising should be fairly easy when aiming my product at 8-16 years olds.

I could show my advert before and after cartoons, and during Saturday morning TV. Hopefully the kids will pester their parents into buying my product or use their pocket money to buy it for themselves. I will also advertise in kids magazines and in family/food magazines which parents read as they may see a new product and think it would be good for the family 0 perhaps a treat. Branding is another strategy which I will be using. Cadburys is obviously a very well known brand and buy using such a big company to sell my product I am hopefully setting myself up for a lot of sales.

This is partly down to ‘Brand Loyalty’. This is when customers know and trust a company as they constantly deliver successful, quality products time and time again. Some customers won’t even try the product beforehand and buy huge amounts just because they trust Cadburys. Finally I will be using Product Placement to help with the sales and promotion of my product. For example, In a well known kids TV show I could place my product in the background of a shop when certain characters enter so it can be seen.

I also could also ask TV show writers to make certain characters such as heroes or villains to eat my chocolate bar during the programme. Children will hopefully see this and think something along the lines of ‘If Superman eats ‘Explosion’ then so can I! ‘. This can go either way and may or may not be successful. It all depends on the programme used, the time it is shown and who watches it. I will be using various promotions in order to sell my product in its first few weeks of sales.

I will use specials offers such as ‘BUY ONE GET ONE FREE’ , ‘2 for 1’ and also tokens on the back of packets which can be collected. However, I have to be careful when design token offers as Cadburys last offer was a failure. This is because they offered free sports equipment in exchange for tokens. It seemed like a good idea but the amount of tokens needed for the equipment would mean people would have to consume thousands of chocolate bars resulting in them becoming very overweight! This was obviously not a well thought through plan.

I may also place discount vouchers in family/food magazines and hand out free samples in supermarkets so people can try before they buy. Strategy Evaluation In general I think my product is likely to succeed quite well as I have done a lot of research into consumer wants and needs, and I have carefully thought through all of my strategies (including extensions) and which market segments I will be aiming at. Since my product is a chocolate bar I believe it will be successful as chocolate is loved worldwide and is affordable to anyone and everyone which means no one has to go without because they cannot afford it.

England Is clearly a chocolate loving country as can be seen from just 20 questionnaires and some research. I am confident my product will do well and hopefully will become one of Cadbury’s best sellers in the future. I understand that this is a lot to hope for but I can at least hope that my product will be on the market for a long time to come. However, I do understand that from time to time products do fail. Even small ones that seem so hopeful – such as chocolate bars.

If this does happen to me then I can either use my extension strategy to help of let my product go into decline. Obviously I do not want this to happen but I have to understand there is a possibility of failure. I think I have planned my promotional strategy well and my advertising and special offers should help in the sale of my product. In conclusion I am confident my product will do well. My Product My product is a chocolate bar called ‘EXPLOSION! ‘. It will be made up of layers of milk and white chocolate with a soft caramel centre – or caramel ‘explosion’.

This is because I have found out from my research that Cadburys Caramel is one of the biggest selling chocolate bars and also that many people can’t decide whether they prefer milk or white chocolate – so I’ve included both! The packaging will be bold bright colours with a big title in the centre saying ‘Explosion! ‘ There will be pieces of exploded materials surrounding the writing as though the writing itself has exploded. I will be selling my product in newsagents, supermarkets, vending machines, high street shops and garages to promote it as much as possible.