Milk, a strength of Nature?

  On May 11th, an advertising campaign made the buzz on our screens with brave knights asserting: “Milk, a strength of Nature”. It was the first time a unique message about Milk was adressed to consumers of 7 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland & North Ireland and Netherlands. The aim of this campaign is to give a positive image of Milk to European consumers, whose consumption is shrinking.    This was born on the initiative of the EMF (European Milk Forum).

    

After watching this ad, I was impressed. First, the ad in itself worths the best special effects of the film industry. The investment is consequent. But above all, it's surprising to have an ad on an product and not a brand, this never happens. To me, this ad is a success but stretches my puzzle: how come the legitimacy of a product has to be rebuilt? In France, it was something completely new. However, to those who are familiar with the famous dairy campaign "Got Milk?", it rings a bell. We can think "Les produits laitiers" have wanted to export this American success.This advertising campaign encouraged the consumption of cow's milk and was later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers. It has been running since October 24, 1993. 

    Looking at the overall market of Yoghurt, one can easily notice that brands opt for the same marketing and communication strategies. Indeed, they all play on the benefits of Milk: Calcium, Vitamins & Phosphor among others. Dairy products are said to be nutritious for Health.
In that sense, the National Health Nutrition Programm recommends to consume 3 dairy products a day, a cup of yoghurt being considered as one dairy product.Brands of Yoghurt play on emotions and on what we can call the "health-conscious" that animates each one of us. Working on the conscious of people and on their blind confidence in Science, they make them feel like if they consume dairy products they will be in good health. For example, drinking Actimel will reinforce your natural defenses or Activia will facilitate your transit.Some brands also adress to Beauty: Perle de Lait will make you have a soft skin when Lactalis will make you more beautiful!    

 But behind all this marketing brainwashing is an old debate on Milk, and this time not on how much we should consume of it but on the nature of Milk itself. Indeed, flourishing Scientific studies intend to prove that Milk is not “nutritious for health”. It can even be responsible for some diseases like osteoporosis. Cow milk is saturated in fat (50% more than human milk) and in cholesterol and its benefits can be found elsewhere in the alimentation.    

But how come we have this controversy about Milk then? Why the debate has not been ended by the Scientific community?This issue remains unsolved. Some dare say we are victims of brand lobbies, trying to hide an industry of dairy products of too much economic interest. Behind Milk we have very powerful and established Big groups as well as Producers, can you imagine the economic disaster if Milk got “banned” of our alimentation? 

Are we the victims of Brand's conspiracy?  Up to you to choose your camp...


Cécile Vendeville

Strategy of Chobani

Today when we went online and we found that Chobani had 850 000 likes on their Facebook-page. We could see that people put up recipes and talked about their positive experiences with the brand, how much they loved it, etc.  People are encouraged to share ideas via Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, and Chobani's website also has a "featured blogger" series. In comparison, Oikos, Chobanis main competitor, has 520 000 likes on Facebook. It seems even though Dannon is the much larger company, people like Chobani the most because they were the first into the U.S market.

Nicki Briggs, who manages Chobani’s social media strategy, says that «We want to be warm and quirky, engaging and inviting." ¹. Also interesting is that Brigg’s says that the posts with the highest rankings are the ones with the brand’s common values and personality. Fans sharing these pages mean engagement from the customer, something every brand wishes for Chobani also uses Foursquare to promote local events, for instance sampling tours with Greek yoghurt and T-shirts. Chobani also gives 10 % of its annual post-tax profits to charity. These are great topics on social platforms. The company also sponsored the 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games (cf. Symbolic of the Brand on “Brands Identity” page), and "Business is all about relationships and creating strong connections," Briggs says.

Chobani's Facebook Twitter and Pinterest pages.

Chobani adopts a strategy of responsible and ethically profound company culture. Among Greek yogurt eaters, those who are loyal to the brand are health-conscious and hold Chobani in a higher esteem than its competitors.

In addition, trends relating to the consumption of yogurt were coming in the US: People are starting to eat Greek yogurt because they believe it is healthy for them. Indeed, it is low fat and high protein content. Therefore, Greek yogurt has rapidly increased in sales within the past 6 years according to its percentage of overall market: 0.7% in 2006 compare to 19% in 2012. (Badkar, 2011).

It really seems Chobani to know what they are doing. They are the first in the market, they produce a great product nobody thought there was a market for, and they keep their customers by interacting with them and being visible. They take marketing seriously and understand what it can do for the company. Vanessa van Edwards writes in her website: “I woke up one day and Chobani was everywhere. It was on billboards, on TV, and in every woman’s cart at the grocery store. I didn’t understand. Wasn’t the yogurt industry saturated? How was this new product battling for shelf space (and winning) in my local Fred Meyer?” ². It seems the yogurt market was already crowded and saturated, but Chobanis director of marketing, Niel Sandfort, says that” Especially in the food category, your product has to be great. I could point to a million examples of things that are really healthy, but not very tasty.” This apparently is the secret behind the success.

They wanted to make yogurt a main thing, not a sort of ”compromise” instead of a piece of cake. Chobani also had early fans that became hooked and spread the word around as soon as the product hit the shelves. Sandfort also says that “You need a community where fans can share their expression of the brand so new fans can see passion for the product. Whichever platform you use, you must invest in it from a human resources perspective, not a dollar perspective. ” Challenges were to stay true to the product when the growths were so exponential.

The founder of Chobani came from the Kurdish region of Turkey. There, this kind of yoghurt was quite common. This also meant that the yoghurt were to become a common product in the US, not only” for people on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.” People who bought the yogurt believed in the product and the message.

What is the potential future trend relating to the consumption of yogurt?

Currently, about 40% of Americans do not consume yogurt and is still perceived as feminine. So Chobani has long way to go in the US market but also and other countries like France?

Cécile Vendeville

1: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223999

2: http://www.fastcompany.com/3007540/how-chobani-squeezed-new-flavor-crowded-market

Competition and characteristics of market

One could say that the market for Greek yoghurt and Skyr is the same as the market for yoghurt, but in doing so, one would be incorrect. Both are tasty snacks and desserts, they are produced fairly similarly and they both consists of mostly the same ingredients. The key word to the Greek yoghurt the group believes to be “better”. It is more expensive, it is more nutritious and it is lower in fat. The more delicately flavoured Greek yoghurt—strained to remove the whey and thus packed with protein—was first available at speciality stores in New York City. The popularity however rose quickly in the late 2000s.

It simply gives all the “right signals”. The market will be people who actively search for these attributes, but also all the people who could buy the product if presented to them (even if they didn’t think about it). The extra protein appeal to health-conscious people. Danone have been giving out supermarket samples and advertised in men’s fitness magazines. They also put Greek columns on their plastic containers, and used a Greek-American actor to promote Greek yoghurt during the superbowl ¹. This has later shown to increase Oikos sales 165 percent from May 2012 to May 2013.

A way to get a larger market share and get more customers is to cut prices, and this is what  both Danone and Chobani has been forced to do in attempt to get more customers. The ones who can cut the prices the most is usually the biggest producer. This means that it is not room for too many producers if people go for the cheapest Greek-yoghurt/Skyr alternative. Sanford Bernstein Senior Analyst Andrew Wood said the market is big enough for at least two Greek yogurt gods, which seems a reasonable expectation. Ulukaya expects industry sales to double in five years, saying, “If all the manufacturers start making really good yogurt, there’s room for everybody.” ². Joe Pawlak says “Chobani is the leader and Danone has the marketing muscle.” ³. Maybe Yoplait and Fage is done for in the U.S?

It seems everyone want this products and everyone is an potential purchaser or influencer to the purchase.  Americans are eating fewer sit-down meals and favor hearty snacks on the go instead. Yogurt is portable, high in protein and consumers often perceive it as healthier than other sweet snacks. Over half of U.S. households bought Greek over the last 12 months, according to data from retail research firm IRI, provided by Stonyfield, the largest organic yogurt brand in the U.S ⁴. However, it isvery few households who buy exclusively Greek. The majority of people purchase traditional or a mix of traditional and Greek.

There is not a lot of risk in buying a pot of yoghurt. Either you like to taste and texture or you do not. Promotional samples in supermarkets will reduce uncertainties the consumer may have to the product. Everyone can potentially involve themselves in the purchasing process. It can be a mother who has heard about the product or seen an advertisement of it. It can be a father who have read about it, or perhaps a youngster who seek a healthy snack to school or training practice. The frequency of purchasing can be different. The product can be for instance be offered in big packs in a supermarket, or they can be served in cantinas or vending machines. 

The product can be twice as expensive as a normal yoghurt, so packaging and presenting the product is important to illustrate the difference: “high performance, taste, nutrition and texture”. The associations from the product are likely to be positive, and there are many possible rituals of usage. Here I mean every time someone is a little hungry but do not have the time to sit down for a meal. This can be in between classes at school, it can be in work, it can be in sports, etc. This is especially applicable because of todays world where it seems we have less and less time to actually sit down and eat.

Patrice Geffroy

1.   http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-05/greek-yogurt-latecomer-danone-eats-chobanis-lunch

2.    http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-27/yogurt-nemesis-danones-battle-plan-agaist-chobani  

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/danone-finds-yogurt-s-all-greek-as-oikos-chases-chobani.html

3.      http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324886704579052974211438870

4  

Yoghurt is a product many are familiar with and has been around for a long time. Recently, the popularity for new types of healthy low-fat yoghurts skyrocketed going from a $60 million industry in 2005 to a 1,5$ billion industry in 2011 ¹. The product packs a lot of protein without a lot of carbohydrates or fat. The popularity has also affected other similar products such as Skyr from Iceland ² . What kind of market has just opened itself up from nowhere, and what drives people towards this kind of new yoghurt? This growth is in the US alone, can one perhaps spread the effect to other countries or is this just a fad which will disappear as soon as it came?

The product in itself is quite simple. It does not cost very much, although it is more expensive than regular yoghurt. The price difference between Greek yoghurt, Skyr and regular yoghurt can be defended because the former two are regarded as healthier because of the protein and absence of fat. The customer sees the difference in the main product in tasting it and reading the nutrition label, then he already have had to buy it. This means communicating the message is very important: if people don’t know the difference, why shouldn’t they just pick regular yoghurt?

Greek yoghurt are for people who want to be healthy, communicate to others that they are healthy, and are not afraid to try new things. The nature of the product is simple, but I believe that is a certain kind of people who choose this product. It is not necessary and it is not something many people are used to eating. During this fall we will try to understand more about what can push people towards purchasing their first pot of Greek yoghurt or Skyr.

Cécile Vendeville

¹ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/how-did-greek-yogurt-get-so-popular/244025/

² http://midafternoonsnack.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/love-greek-yogurt-you-might-want-to-try-skyr/

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