Marketing Communication Strategies and Applications in the Nutraceutical Industry in Uae

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American University of Sharjah
Master of Business Management
MBA 509 | Marketing Concepts
Spring 2015

Marketing communication strategies and applications in the nutraceutical industry in UAE

By

Nadia B. Azzam
ID 27379

Submitted to
Dr. Mohammed Sajid Khan

Submission Date
May 31, 2015

Table of Contents

1.0.        Introduction        

2.0.        Literature review        

3.0.        Application of Promotional strategies in Nutraceutical Dr. Nutrition Centre, UAE        

4.0.        Conclusion        

5.0.        References        

1. Introduction

In today’s society, consumers are bombarded with a massive number of promotional messages delivered to them through different mediums and from different organizations. Whether at home watching TV, listening to Radio, walking in the mall or driving through the city, consumers get exposed to those messages which they process through different channels, and eventually create behavioral responses. However, due to the competitiveness in the market, many businesses face difficulties in delivering their messages to their target audience. A problem with promotional messages is that they can easily fall into the trap of becoming simply noise. They crowd the market place, make things confusing to the customer, which creates a marketing problem and defies the whole purpose of the marketing message.  

This paper focuses on the effective marketing communication strategies, namely promotional strategies that can be used to market nutraceutical products to attract individuals who prefer to adopt a healthy life style and businesses concerned with health care. Based on relevant research, different types of advertising messages are analyzed for application in the context of nutraceutical industry.  We reimagine ourselves as the UAE Marketing Director of Dr. Nutrition Centre, a growing nutraceutical company with the mission of serving nutritious, healthy food and lifestyle solutions to its healthy customers.

1. Literature review

Concerns about healthy lifestyle are constantly increasing among urbanist and higher social classes levels. (Shariff & Khor, 2005) Promotional campaigns from governmental and non-profit organizations have raised consciousness about the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles. (Omar, 2002). This evolving trend in consumers' healthy lifestyles drives demand on health-related products and services. From a marketing perspective, this has created an opportunity to a number of businesses offering health products and services such as fitness centers, health food, pharmaceutical products and medical insurances (Yap & Othman, 2010). Healthy lifestyles result in behaviors that are associated with an increase in consumption behavior as it results in a set of activities, opinions and interests that are related to the consumption of various health related products and services (Kraft & Goodell, 1993).

The choices made by health-conscious consumers are a form of consumer behavior, which makes this type of consumers an excellent target market segment to health-care marketers. According to Yap and Othman (2010), it is important to understand the social cognitive profiles of these consumers. Based on this information, health care marketers are in a better position to make informed decisions about their target segments, determine the appropriateness of product, distribution and promotional strategies that target these segments (Yap & Othman, 2010).

One of the main marketing channels of communication is through advertising. By definition advertising is an impersonal form of presentation but with a clearly discernable sender because it is paid in order to be seen in a definite time and place (Nöth, 1987). As an information-cognition message, the advertisement introduces information with the aim of convincing the members of the audience it signals to  (Trendafilov, 2012). The advertising message combines three functions: it defines the brand identifying its existence, differentiates it from its competitors (from the noise of the environment) and proposes concrete reason for purchasing it (makes the unique selling proposition). Without this implementation, the advertising message does not achieve its goal of creating a change in the consumer's behavior, and merely acts as a visual art or entertainment to the receiver (Trendafilov, 2012).

Professionals and academics have tried to come up with different models and theories that frame the ideal marketing communication processes and explain how consumers behave and respond to the advertisements they get exposed to. (Karlsson, 2007)  Different communication process theories and models in today's literature are based on the concept where a there must be a sender to send out a message to a receiver. The sender creates a purpose with communication, chooses a message to send out through the right channel that can result into creating the desired need among the audience/receiver (Strategic Direction, 2006).

Many businesses develop their promotional strategies based on the AIDA model which stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. AIDA was created by Strong in 1925 who suggests that for an advertisement message to be effective it has to be one that commands attention and awareness, stimulates interest in the product, leads the customer to desire to own or use the product and eventually leads to action which is the purchase of the product (Mackay, 2005). AIDA seems to be a model that is being used in reality today. Just as Brierley (2002) writes in his literature,  AIDA is one of the strongest models within advertising today which is seen by customers to have strong roots in reality. (Karlsson, 2007)

The message theme or the outline of the key ideas transmitted through the advertising message plays a central role in the effectiveness of the ad to trigger a change in the consumers purchasing behavior (Clow & Baack, 2010). Advertising messages are designed with different strategies tailored according to the product type, and anticipated consumer consumption behavior. A message strategy is the primary tactic that will be used to deliver the message, and is categorized into three broad categories:  Cognitive, Affective and Conative Strategies (Clow & Baack, 2010). Cognitive messages are utilized when the approach is to present rational arguments or cognitive pieces of information to customers to persuade them about a certain product. Such types of messages promote the attributes or benefits of goods and services, with or without claim of superiority. Brand leaders often use generic messages which do not claim superiority since they are well-established and dominant in the market. On the other hand, some firms use preemptive messages which claim superiority based on a specific attribute or benefit of the product, and comparative advertisements which compare the companies goods or services, directly or indirectly, to those of a competitor. Comparative ads are often successful to capture the attention of consumers, and seem to work well when comparing a lesser-known brand to the market leader (Clow & Baack, 2010).