Product Sanitariums Weet Bix Marketing Essay

Weet-Bix is New Zealands most famous breakfast meal. Originally weet-bix was established in Australia by Bennison Osborne from New South Wales in 1920s. Firstly he tried his product on his nephews and nieces. He registered that name weet-bix in 1926. He got financial support from Arthur Shannon (Owner of Grain Products) for the production of weet-bix. Osborne was having a friend in New Zealand, who joined him for the marketing of weet-bix.

Weet-bix became a famous product in very short period of time. Then Sanitarium a famous company in food industry took over weet-bix(Grain Products). Before product was produced in Australia and shipped to New Zealand for sales, after sometime company set its plants in New Zealand on different locations like Auckland and Christchurch. Weet-bix has eight different flavours with different ingredients, which are original, high bran, oat bran, multigrain, golden crumble bites, mild berry bites, apricot bites, crunchy honey bites.

For every product marketing is a very important Function. To gain a good name in the market sanitarium used many strategies for making weet-bix a famous breakfast cereal and they succeed in this area, because weet-bix is today New Zealand’s favourite breakfast meal. They had undergone many factors before marketing their product in the market.

Demographic Factors

For any product or company it is important that they will aware of that what their potential customers are? What is the number of the customers? Which group of customers they are targeting?

As we all know New Zealand is a less populated country, about 4.5 million people live in New Zealand. So company has to spend money on advertising according to that, because they can’t exceed their expenses to much because they had a small market to sell their product as compare to other countries like Australia, India etc where there are large number of people are living. But a positive sign for this product is that all age groups use this product, because weet-bix has variety of options for all kind of people. So they need to attract all age groups to exceed their sales.

Economy Factor

The situation of a country’s economy has a larger effect not only on consumers as well as on companies who are selling their products. If country’s economy is in good position then definitely people will buy more, their buying power will be strong. If country’s economy is falling down then obviously people’s buying power will be less. As it happen during recession period few years ago. Sanitarium will spend on marketing according to the economic situation of New Zealanders, because they can’t afford to spend too much if there is no hope of gaining profits. But as we all know nowadays economy of New Zealand is in good position, company is spending good amounts on advertisements. They are paying high amounts to NZ rugby players to promote weet-bix, because New Zealanders follow rugby players. Weet-bix also organise many sports events of country as well.

Social and Cultural Factors

Social and cultural factors are also an important part of marketing strategy of a company. Customers can be different according to religions, education, language, communities, values etc. Their needs can be different, means it’s not guaranteed that all the people will buy same product, so company’s strategies should be according to that. Another factor is political situation of the country, means limitations of marketing. Companies can’t make advertisements as they want, they have to be in certain limits. They have to make sure that advertisement they are making, will not hurt anybody’s religious beliefs or culture or religion, damaging the image of competitors by using their name etc.

In case of weet-bix, there are no such big issues in terms f political situations, because New Zealand is quite a peaceful country and situation is quite stable. As we know New Zealand is a multicultural country and people from different religions live here. But weet-bix is a vegetarian product so there are no religious issues, but they need to market this product according to that, so that all groups will get attract to the product. As we know New Zealand is Maori country, so company should use their art and culture to promote their product, this will create a positive image of product in between customers.

Technology

As we all know technology is growing day by day. Every day new methods of marketing and advertising are been used by the companies. So weet-bix should make sure that they will use the right techniques and technology for the marketing their product. Like today Facebook is very famous in all age groups, so companies are taking advantage of that. They are promoting their products on Facebook. Even weet-bix (Sanitarium) is doing the same thing. Companies make their websites from where customers can buy their products, can give suggestions, can gain information about product, which is helpful to create a relation with customer.

Attitude towards Environment

As we all know that New Zealand is known as environment friendly country. New Zealanders love the greenery of their country. They prefer product which are safer to their country’s environment. Even the government is concerned about these things and they don’t allow those products to produce in the country which affect environment. That is the reason that there are very few factories in New Zealand.

Weet-bix is a healthy and chemical free product, so they can use this thing in marketing their product.

Fitness and Health

Nowadays people are more concerned about their health. Most of the people use products which are good for their health; they like to adopt healthy life style. So companies are marketing their products according to that. Even there are many new products coming to market due to that change in the lifestyle of people.

Weet-bix is in the market from more than 75 years now and a famous brand in terms of breakfast meals. It’s a food which is made of natural sources like wheat, bran etc. And they provide many options like different flavours, tastes, low fat etc. So considering the likes of people they market their product as a health friendly product. We can see that company use rugby players to promote weet-bix, so they are encouraging people to adopt their product in daily routine and be strong like them. And this strategy works as well.

Conclusion

So we can say that all these factors have a big influence on weet-bix’s marketing strategies in New Zealand. New Zealand is different from other countries in many ways, so all these factors must be considered before advertising the product.