Saxonville Case

le Sausage

1. What is the current situation?

Saxonville, a 70-year-old privately held family business, is facing the flat sales in their bratwurst category nationwide with 0% volume increase. This reflected to their double-digit decline in revenue. Moreover, in breakfast sausage category, the company has underperformed the market and experience the decline. However, the company sees the opportunity growth in Italian sausage category. Vivio is its only existing product that available in just 16% of the nation's large supermarkets. With the flat sales in Bratwurst and Breakfast sausage and the growth of Italian sausage has influenced the company to try to expand the market either by developing a national product under the Vivio name or a new brand. However, the company was not sure of the way Vivio was positioned. Therefore, the company has conducted a marketing research and analyze the data in order to develop its new marketing strategy fort this Italian sausage product. This include the name of the product, the packaging, they way they want to advertise and its target customer.

2. How was the research methodology determined? Develop a research design and explain what behaviors, demographics, and lifestyle components you deem important and why.

The research methodology was determined by Ann Banks, the new product marketing director at Saxonville Sausage. Saxonville has never conducted market research on the Italian sausage customer as the senior management feels the business is growing just fine. Banks felt that to gain better understanding of who the Saxonville sausage customers are and how to target these customers, the research methodology is important. This will also help the company to find a way to link the Italian sausage product with the core values of their target consumer. Therefore, she decided on the methodology the company would use to research the Italian sausage consumer. This method is combined both quantitative and qualitative research. While the qualitative steps will bring out the ideas and understand the target consumers and their behaviors and needs, the quantitative part will validate those ideas across a broader population. Banks believes that once she is able to identify the target consumer and their needs, then she can use this finding to create the consumers values and link them to the product.

To develop the research design, Banks formed a team named "Project Score" included 10 colleagues from the research and development (R&D), packing and graphics, marketing, and sales departments. This team will start with a 4-step process:

1. A round of qualitative research - to understand the behaviors and needs of target consumers

2. A sequential round of consumer sessions - using the language they hear to develop and gain reaction to different positioning ideas

3. Actual concepts - by taking all of the new information and have consumer prioritize and improve them

4. Monadic testing - putting the concepts to test in order to evaluate what would work best with the target consumers

To begin with the new research, the team ran 4 mini pilot groups (each group contained 4-6 users, men/women aged 15-50) to understand what the current customers had to say about their use of the product and what are the benefits of Italian sausage.

After that, Banks along with Bishop (director of market research), Keller (a top brand consultant), and a professional from a marketing research company, has come up with the local "focus groups" to understand current behaviors, triggers to purchase, and their unmet needs in order to develop the core values for the product. These focus groups consist of females since they are the primary purchasers and preparers of Italian sausage. Thus, they were considered the best source of insights for the positioning work. Moreover, all the women in the focus groups described hectic family lives. Their ideal was to make wholesome meals that the entire family enjoys. Even though, the research found that the majority of the product's consumers are women aged 20-50 and use sausage 3+times a month, to pick only women in the focus groups as the target audience might leave half the population of consumers' values behind or undiscovered. The company should maybe create focus groups that consist of more diverse demographic. For example, a diverse group of women and men will help to bring out different data and ideas and identify other opportunities for the company.

As mentioned, the research finding of the focus group shows that the ideal for them is to make meals that the entire family would love to eat. And Italian sausage was revealed as a "meal solution" as it's easy to cook and can be prepared with almost everything in the refrigerator. This helps Saxonville