History And Background Of Julies Biscuit Marketing Essay

Perfect food was established in 1981 which located in Alor Gajah, Melaka. At first, the companys biscuits were marketed by wholesalers before the Sai Ah Sai and Sai Chin Hock became the major shareholders of the company in early 1984. Six years later, the company was expanded up to 8 branches throughout the peninsular Malaysia. In 1987, Perfect food use “Julie’s” as there biscuit’s brand name. Julie’s earned the first supermarket entry at Parkson Grand, Johor Bahru when Peanut Butter Sandwiches became popular in 1988. Julie’s Love Letters was introduced to market for the following year.

1.1 Vision

Be the leading quality biscuit manufacturer. They are confident that the quality of Julie’s biscuits can be better than other well-known international brands. They conceive “Julie’s” become one of the leading brands in the international market in future.

1.2 Mission

Constantly upgrade baking technology and improve the quality of products so that can always remain ahead of all the competitors. To give satisfaction in goods or services to customers, Julie invests in contemporary high-speed equipment, changing the packaging and upgraded ovens with new technology.

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 Quality

Julie’s is synonymous with quality.

1.3.2 Cleanliness and Hygienic

We believe in being the first taster of our own products.

1.3.3 Integrity

We conduct business in a responsible and ethical manner.

1.3.4 Innovation

Continue to create new products to satisfy the needs of the day.

1.3.5 Long-term Relationship

Julie’s biscuits are here to stay

1.4 Nature of business

Julie’s company produce variety of crackers, cream sandwiches, wafer rolls, waffles, wafer and cookies. The most famous products are Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Love Letters. Both products now become market leader as most of the consumers love this product very much.

1.5 Target market of the brand

Target market of Julie’s biscuit is children, adults and elder. The target market for Peanut Butter Sandwiches is more to adults whereas the Love Letters is target to children. Oat or hi-fibre biscuits are target to youngster and eldest who concern their health.

2.1 Product

The company concern about building long-term trust and confidence of the customers rather than producing variety of products. Therefore, the company set an objective- “baked better biscuits” focus on the quality, safety and hygiene of the food during production. So, the ingredients they used are natural although it is costly. The types of products that are in the market are Sandwich, Love Letter, Wafer Rolls, Assorted Biscuits and Crackers. The packaging for the products is easy to carry because they packed in tins, boxes and Tupperware and small packaging. The colour of packaging is same as the other brands, the only difference is the design of packaging and the brand name. Besides, a signature trademark of eight biscuit holes at Peanut Butter Sandwiches is used as it can differentiate the original from the pirated ones.

Sandwich and Love Letter are the most popular products in the market. For Sandwich category, it well known for Peanut Butter sandwich as its taste better compared to other brand. The original taste of the peanut butter had successfully attracted many customers. For Love Letter, it has many flavours such as, chocolate, strawberry and coconut with vanilla. Consumers choose Julie’s Lover Letter during festival because it is delicious and many flavours compare to the ordinary home made love letter which is original.

Besides that, Julie’s also created line extensions which have different flavour and packaging. They have cheese, lemon, mango, chocolate, orange and vanilla flavours of biscuits. The second preferable of consumer is the cheese crackers because only Julie has this flavour at this moment. The variety of the products gives customer more choices to fulfil their needs. Compared to the products above, products like assorted biscuits and wafer roll have a low demand in the market but they never give up. Julie does also try to work out for many solutions to compete in the market with competitors such as Munchy, Kraft and Jacob.

2.2 Distribution

As the quality of life increase, the demand for better quality biscuits is on rise. Julie’s products are well received by Malaysians as well as overseas consumers. Julie’s has become a household name in the relatively short period. Nowadays, the lifestyle of people has change. Most of their times are spend on work especially those who live in town area with fast pace of life. Therefore, Julie’s biscuit are widely distributed through all major hypermarkets chains including Giant, Jusco, Tesco and Carrefour as hypermarket provides convenient for them to purchase all the things they need. Besides, Julie’s biscuits also distributed through mini markets and small grocery such as 7 Eleven and 99 Speed mart which are mostly situated near the residential area. Therefore, people can easily find Julie’s biscuit at the shop that they visit frequently. Furthermore, Julie’s biscuit also found in grocery shop in rural area. Julie’s biscuit distributed their product through different channel from urban to rural area so the products can be sold everywhere possible and all sector of community can easily find Julie’s biscuit when they want it.

The distribution of Julie’s biscuits in the local market is carried out by their subsidiary company, Julie’s Marketing Sdn Bhd. Julie’s Marketing has 6 branches strategically located throughout peninsular Malaysia to cover the whole country, both urban areas as well as rural areas. It may save a great deal of money by having its own distribution division as they do not need to pay higher cost that outside vendor charge. However, Julie’s biscuits are distributed by TLS Marketing Sdn Bhd for Sabah and Sarawak due to the distance.

In order to be one of the leading brands in the international arena, Julie’s expand the opportunity by widening its brand presence in European markets and Wal-Mart outlets. Since 2005, Julie’s biscuits have been exported to more than 50 countries, including Asian, the Middle East, Japan, Taiwan, China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, France, Spain, Portugal, Pacific islands, Indian Ocean islands, South Korea, Africa, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

2.3 Price

Julie’s biscuit is considered as an “odd-even pricing”. Price is varying in type, flavour, weight, packaging and location/place. For example, the price of Julie’s biscuit is slightly expensive in east Malaysia compare to Peninsula Malaysia. This is because the manufacturing company of Julie’s biscuit is located at Melaka. The products that distribute to East Malaysia like Sabah and Sarawak needs a sole distributor to act as an agent. It has gone through a long way and involved some transportation fee before arriving to the end-user. Thus, small quarter of charges will be added on the product. Consumers in East Malaysia able experience a high-quality product although the price is slightly expensive.

Julie’s biscuit is using profitability approach as the pricing strategy. This can be obtained by establish a price that largely cover the variable costs and fixed costs used in the production and operation of the company while bringing tremendous profits. However, the pricing of the products are still reasonable and valued for the customer.

As Julie’s biscuit is placed at the pure competitive market, competitive price strategy is applied in the pricing. This strategy is to reduce the emphasis on price competition by matching other companies’ prices like munchy’s and krafts and to stay competitive in the market. They have slightly different in price between the competitors but still within a small range. Even though Julie’s biscuit is using competitive price strategy, the marketers still have to make sure the price setting is profitable to the company.

The pricing strategy of Julie’s biscuit is closely regulated and marketers have evaluated and adjust the price consistently to accommodate changes in the competition market and economic status.

2.4 Promotion

Promotion is essential for marketers to promote their products and persuade customers to buy. Julie’s biscuit had done many promotions in several ways.

First of all, Julie’s has broadcast advertisements through mass media and social media such as television, radio, Facebook, and so on. These methods of promotion are most expensive but also most effective. Mass media are the fastest and easiest way to convey information to target customers. Normally, Julie’s will do advertisement in television during the specific festivals like Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, and Deepavali. For example, in Chinese New Year of this year, Julie’s had broadcasted an advertisement about three housewives with different races which is Malay, Chinese, and Indian and they were doing one kind of Chinese pastry together.

Besides that, Julie’s employed some part time promoters during they introduce new product. When Julie’s introduce a new product, they will promote it in hypermarket and supermarket with giving sample bag or taste tests to customers. Julie’s can get feedback from the customers by taste tests whether customers like the product and the opportunity of the product to grow in market place. It also can inform customers the existence of new product.

Julie’s had established a “Share The Love” corporate social responsibility campaign which can share the good feeling they have on their company with the public and increase the reputation of Julie’s. In this campaign, Julie’s had shared one million packs of ‘love’ which is Oat 25 with the community throughout Malaysia in the one-day ‘Share The Love’ event in Kuching. Julie’s also had donated biscuits to victims of natural disasters. For example, Julie’s had donated 1846 cartons of Julie’s biscuit to the flood victims in Thailand, Myanmar, Pakistan, and China and tsunami in Indonesia. Begin on many years ago, Julie’s also started donating to charitable organizations such as orphanages, Old Folks homes, and schools.

Lastly, Julie’s had sponsor many activities and road shows such as 988 road shows at Penang and “A Date with Bloggers at Melaka 2012” events. During “A Date with Bloggers at Melaka 2012” events, Julie’s was public the process of making Julie’s biscuits to bloggers. It can let them to understand deeply about Julie’s biscuits. Julie’s also sponsor Starwalk for past nine years with donated 15,000 packets of Oat 25 Strawberry Biscuits and 15,000 packets of Oat 25 Ten Grain Biscuits. These actions can cause the attention of public to Julie’s and make Julie’s become well known.

3.0 Market opportunities

3.1 Julie’s Baby Mum-mum Biscuit

Government has called up the citizen of Malaysia to increase the population of Malaysia up to 700,000 people by Year 2020. This has created a potential market for the company and marketer as the number of new-born baby is increasing tremendously throughout the years. We also notice that the new-born baby nowadays is very skinny, maybe this is because their body is lack of certain nutrient or caused by other external factors.

Julie’s company can actually come out a new product which is rich in nutrient and easy consumed by the baby. Julie can introduce new product namely Julie’s baby mum-mum biscuit that target to new-born baby and toddler. Julie must make sure that they baking the crackers with minimal use of sugar and fat and without the use of artificial colours or preservatives in order to produce healthy biscuits. Julie also has to make sure that they introduce the product that suited to those who have allergen sensitivities.

In addition, Julie can come out with different flavours such as strawberry and caramel, apple Cinnamon and white Cheddar that attract toddler to consume them. Besides, Julie can also introduce spinach or carrot biscuit that contain essential vitamins to kids as nowadays kids did not like to eat vegetables. Besides, Julie’s baby mum-mum biscuit is a solid food that will dissolve easily in the baby’s mouth and somehow it can be made into biscuit porridge by adding hot water. So, the baby can easily consume it to prevent choking. This can make sure that toddlers are safe when taking this biscuit.

The price of Julie’s baby mum-mum biscuits have to be competitive pricing so everyone afford to buy it. As we know, most of the consumers will judge a product based on its price. If low price, consumers will think it is low quality product, so Julie has to come out with reasonable price in order to compete in this market. Julie can be sold these products at hypermarket, supermarket, and grocery shop such as seven-eleven. To promote this product, Julie can organise test market and get feedback from the parents who purchase this products to their children.

3.2 Julie’s Fat Free Oriental Rice Crackers

Due to the dramatic increase of the awareness and desire for healthy, nutritious biscuits, the general public has made lifestyles changes within the last few years’ reference to introduce and more concern a health conscious lifestyle. This is good for Julie as they are a healthy alternative to some other biscuits which have unacceptable flavours and ingredients. Therefore, Julie needs to adopt push advertising and marketing approach to ensure the target woman age 18 to 45 are aware of Julie’s nutritional value and their good taste.

Julie can create an entirely new target market with the new product, Julie’s Fat Free Oriental Rice Crackers. Julie’s marketing communications will be primarily directed toward women ages 18-45 that are health conscious. The target market lives in the urban part of the city and resides in the middle to upper middle income range. The psychographics of target audience are the desire to be healthy and fit, yet have a pattern for low self-control or self-discipline in regards to what foods they consume. The target market will purchase the new product for themselves and possibly their spouses.

Julie’s Fat Free Oriental Rice Cracker is more to healthy product which is easy to consume everywhere they want as a breakfast in morning rather than consume unhealthy foods. Consumers who love to eat snacks but concern about their health, they can consume Julie’s new product which is fat free with 0 g of total fat per serving and less sugar. Together with the increase of Internet users, Julie can offer promotions to women age 18-45 to increase sales and opportunities. For example, customers generally visit products website if they need directions about the detailed nutrition information and have events so the customers know the venue, location and so on.

To reach the target audience, which consists of health conscious women ages 18-45, Julie can run advertisements in magazines and TV with limited budget in order to prevent loss. They can also supplement the campaign with consumer promotions. Julie’s crackers main method of distribution is through large hypermarket chains including jusco, Giant, and Carrefour; these supermarkets such as 7 Eleven, 99 Speed mart, K&K, and small grocery shops are situated in almost every town in populated Malaysia covering a wide range of locations.