Benefits of Chocolate

Executive Summary

This case study will talk about the issues that Cadburry faces when the company changed the cocoa butter ingredient to the usage of palm oil. The report will also cover the benefits of chocolate and how Cadburry will counteract the problems that they are facing. The report will also cover the motivational conflict that arises from the Maslow Hierarchy, how and why Maslow Hierarchy causes a motivational conflict. A few recommendations will also be provided at the end on how the company can use these recommendations to help the company gain back its market share.

Introduction

The report talks about when Cadburry changes it's ingredient in making chocolate from cocoa butter to palm oil and also the problems and challenges they face. By doing so, Cadburry have disappointed a lot of its customers because by using palm oil, it have disrupted the natural habitat of booming countries. The company now have to learn about the consumer's behaviour and how to counteract the motivational conflict to gain back its reputation.

Question 1

Why do people eat chocolate?

Chocolate have known to have a bundle of benefits to human health. Researchers have found out that chocolates would be able to help human beings in their physical mental state. Even though chocolates contains loads of calories in it, antioxidants that are found in cocoa can help increase blood flow to our human brain, helps in our cholesterol, improves human mental state by releasing chemicals that are anti-depressant, reducing risk of heart attack, help ease chronic fatigue syndrome, improves processing of blood sugar, helps out on weight lost and many more.

In the recent decades, researchers have found out the benefits of chocolate to human being and more and more people are eating chocolate be it to help them on their mental or physical state. In the past, there are a handful of people in the society that have had the wrong impression that chocolate are fattening and bad for health. These perceptions have made the society to control themselves to consume chocolate, and forget about the large benefits that chocolate can produce.

There are three kinds of chocolate that are being produces which is dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate. These chocolate may help a human body in different ways depending on what an individual need. For example, researchers have found out that people who takes dark chocolate has a lower BMI in comparative to those who shy away from chocolate. It is believed that the antioxidants and other ingredients that are found in dark chocolates promote weight lost. ( Jaslow R. 2012) People who would need an increase in weight can opt to take milk or white chocolate as it is sweet and this can help increase the weight as there is a higher content of sugar in it.

With all the research that proves how beneficial chocolate can to a human body, the demand of chocolate has been increasing in the recent years. Eating a little chocolate a day would help in a human health, but by taking too much of it would harm one's health.

Question 2

What is the relevance of self-concept to Marketing?

Self-concept is being defined as "the individual self-belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is" (Baumeister (1999). Self-concept of marketing is also found in marketing under the consumer behaviour section. It is important for marketing to create an image or influence the people in the market to successfully brand their product deem worthy to buy. Society dislike the use of palm oil even though it is healthier compared to coca butter because palm oil serves as a natural habitat for rare and endangered species all over the world. By using palm oil, it is endangering the wild life species by taking away their home. (Two Spoons,2009)

People who used to consume Cadburry chocolate would now feel responsible if they are consuming it. This is because they would feel that they are actually encouraging the use of palm oil rather than coca butter and this would encourage them to endanger the natural ecosystem. This is all due to oneself of self-concept. With this, Cadburry will have a big loss and loses its customer because of customers being afraid of aiding and supporting the use of palm oil instead of coca butter.

One of an example of relevance to self-concept marketing can be found in the question article where they say "younger consumers are widely regarded as having less well defined and weaker self-concept and through a symbolic self-completion are more likely to use products and brands to help them define and enhance their identity". Therefore in order Cadburry to regain its market value to where it used to be, it must first need to know what their market segments are. From the article, it is to the disadvantage of Cadburry because of the use of palm oil instead of coca butter and there are many governmental agencies that are making a big fuss out of it. Some customers would stop eating Cadburry as they would feel that it is inappropriate that they are buying chocolate from an unethical company. This would affect those who are specially having less well defined and weaker self-concept customer to stop buying their products because this would cause them to be judge by their peers.

Question 3

What other strategies have confectionary and food managers used to overcome motivational conflict?

Motivational conflict is being defined as "the simultaneous existence of two or more motivations leads to contradictory patterns of behaviour (e.g. to approach a human offering food in order to obtain the food, and to flee from the human)" (Encyclopedia, 2012) People would love to eat chocolate to satisfy their need and also to give them pleasure, but at the same time they are concerned about the content that are being used to make chocolates. This have already shown a motivational conflict when they are satisfying their needs at the lowest which is comfort and physical satisfaction and on the other hand they are at the self-actualisation state when they want to go green and save the environment by not eating chocolate. When a company wants to sell a product, motivational conflict will occur. Motivational conflict is being divided into three different kinds which are Approach/Avoidance, Approach/Approach, and lastly Avoidance/Avoidance.

Maslow