MRK 106

Assignment# 2

Packaged Good Company: Quaker Oats

Tazreen Sikder

Professor Katherine Faubert

Friday, April 16, 2010

1. Why is understanding the target market(s) a crucial aspect of the communication

process?

In order to understand the target markets, we need to take one step back and clearly recognize the term

itself; The target market of Quaker Oats (1) represents the audience most likely to purchase their

packaged goods. The audience may include potential buyers of Quaker Oats, current users, individuals,

groups, particular public, or even general public. All in all, the audience must have something in

common that solidifies their desire for Quaker Oats products, and that something distinguishes them

from the market at large with various demographic dimensions (people of all ages, all income levels,

all education levels, all types of occupations, all social classes and all lifestyles). However, not

everybody's needs and expectations can be at exceeded at once due to their differences. Therefore to

breach the gap between their differences, picking a specific group of people from the market at large is

known as target marketing.

In addition, it is important to acknowledge exactly how the target market relates to the communication

process. Simply put, the communication techniques (different methods and styles) which are used by

Quaker Oats to target their market is known as the important aspect of the communication process. The

communication process involves the following seven elements (2):

Source (the party sending message to another party)

Encoding (process of putting thoughts into words or symbolic forms)

Message channel (the carrier transmitting the message)

Decoding (the transportation of the message from source to receiver)

Receiver (the party receiving the message sent by another party)

Noise (miscommunication during the process leads to wrong interpretations of the message)

Feedback (the response the receiver communicates back to the sender)

Thus, the target audience will critically influence the communicator's decision on what is to be said,

how it is to be said, when it is to be said, where it is to be said, and who is to say. By doing this, the

marketing communicator will comprehend how to motivate the target audience in order to increase

their state of readiness to buy.

2. How have each product or service differentiated itself from its competition?

Describe how each brand has been positioned in terms of product attributes, desired

benefits, beliefs and values?

Quaker Oats is always adapting and expanding to meet consumer tastes and lifestyles while still

retaining the brand's traditional identity; The smiling face of a quaker pilgrim. By providing

reassurance and quality to its first generation of consumers, Quaker Oats has been able to build

upon a reputation of offering healthy, wholesome food. Their brand maintains such a tight hold on

the breakfast foods industry. However, as tastes change over time, it has been necessary over the

years for Quaker Oats’ cereal division to find an enhancement to its plain old bowl of hot oatmeal

to compete with more sugary, more convenient brands, such as Kellogg's and Nestle. Quaker

launched products with a positioning based on nutrition, taste and easy-to-cook over the years. This

led to differentiated marketing strategy which provided solutions to these problems; In the 1950s,

instant oatmeal was introduced, and in the 1980s, along came microwavable single packets in

multiple varieties with added sweeteners in order to meet the desired benefits of taste, and easy-to-

cook breakfasts. This is also a clear example of packaging adaptability.

Changing tastes also resulted in the diversification of children’s traditional breakfast cereal with

healthy snack food bars, mixes and syrups, as well as rice cakes. Many of Quaker Oat's competitive

rivals such as Aunt Jemima and Kellogg's were already serving those products, they still saw this as an

opportunity and responded by implementing product developments by introducing new products to

meet consumer needs, which resulted in Quaker Oats' Quaker Chewy; currently the top-selling granola

bar brand in the US.

Quaker Oats expanded their product lines in order to satisfy new consumer tastes and needs (13), (14).

Another example of how Quaker Oats differentiated itself from its competition is through the reshape

its image. The Quaker pilgrim icon has been enlarged across the spectrum of oatmeal packets, while the

word “instant” is reduced since most existing consumers who purchase the oatmeal are aware that it is

now instant.

The old package (left) of Instant Quaker Oatmeal is clearly distinct from the new package (right) of

Quaker Instant Oatmeal (11), (12).

Moreover, I personally believe that the modification of the Quaker trademark has been the most visible

differentiation. The development of their symbol went from a sketched, immensely detailed, full-body

picture of a Quaker, into only a simple smiling face of a Quaker. The image of the Quaker was chosen

to represent “purity, simplicity, and quality”.

This represents the preference of customers today, as they like to remember products with straight

forward icons.

Various

Quaker

Oats

logo

have

been

modified

over

time

(10).

3. What stage in the product life cycle is the product. Explain (a) how you were able to

identify the stage.

Quaker Oats is currently in the market maturity stage of the product life cycle with the objective of

maximizing profits and defending market share. They have successfully accomplished various

competitions, full product line, and maximum outlets. Their promotional strategy is reminder-oriented,

constantly reminding their existing customers as well as potential customers about their packaged

breakfast products. Quaker Oats products have been successful for decades due to the company's ability

to develop strategies to extend the maturity stage of their products so they remain competitive. They

clearly did this by modifying their target markets, their offerings, or their marketing strategies. The

change in their packaging is a clear evidence of one of their marketing strategies:

The old packaging of “Quick” Quaker Oats (left) is simple, whereas the new packaging (right) is more

detailed and states “Quick 1-Minute” in order to reassure customers of their fast to-go breakfast.

Moreover, the message at the top of the new package “Oatmeal helps remove cholesterol” gives

customers a sense of comport and scientific knowledge of their products. Lastly, there is greater

emphasis on the face of the Quaker in the new packaging as it is more zoomed in than the old one. This

reveals the importance of the pilgrim symbol (18), (19).

Modifying their packaging helped Quaker Oats attract different customers by seeking new users and

finding new uses for a product in order to attract additional customers. For instance, the new packing of

their Quick Oats will attract more health-conscious consumers, as well as employed consumers who are

always on the run and are looking for a fast east-to-make breakfast. These types of customers are most

likely to have the characteristics of being either an early majority, or late majority. The increase in their

customer base also helped them extend the product's maturity stage.

4. What forms of mass media advertising was used to promote this product?

Explain the type of media used (identify the magazine, or newspaper, or television

program; radio, outdoor media social network, viral) were used? Identify the

promotional tactics used. Perhaps sponsorship events, sampling campaigns, consumer

contests, direct mail, ‘buzz marketing’, ‘Influencers’. Why do you think the marketers

made those particular choices?

To begin with, advertising is mass communication an advertiser pays for in order to convince a certain

segment of the public to adopt ideas or take actions of benefit to the advertiser.

Quaker Oats has used various forms of mass media advertising throughout the decades, such as

packaging, branding, and billboarding. Their cereal ads made up a large portion of the old newspapers

advertising space. Having a good breakfast was as important back then to customers as it is today.

Photographic Quaker Oats advertisement,

1897 (left), (6).

Advertisements in old newspapers (The Fine Print, 1905), (7).

Another form of mass media which was used by Quaker Oats is a vintage recipe folder featuring 12

different recipes, most likely published in 1938. This was a great way to promote Quaker Oat products

such as Quaker Oats flour and Mother's Oats, which are required in most of the recipes shown below:

The

attention-

grabbing

cover of

the recipe

folder by

Quaker

Oats (15).

Contents inside the recipe folder reveals the target market; health-conscious housewives with buying

power (15).

Pages from Quaker Oat's recipe folder (15).

Quaker Oats ran the following holiday paper advertisement, taken from a 1957 magazine, which

features Party Cream Puff Appetizers, Date Blended Oatmeal and Candy Cane Cookie recipes. The

back of the page is dated, December 1957:

Quaker Oats 1957 Magazine advertisement of more recipes (16).

The following Quaker Oats vintage billboard ad is not dated, but the message and the target market for

their products remain the same throughout all these other advertises, reminding their customers of

nutritious facts of their oats.

Quaker Oats vintage billboard advertise (19).

Although in the past, Quaker Oats would greatly rely on more traditional marketing, they chose to

make a transition into digital marketing; Their recent campaign on Yahoo! Depicts their involvement

with technological external market environment; The company show their support to eliminate child

hunger. This raised awareness within consumers, increased sales, and immensely gained publicity. The

marketers decision regarding going online created a huge impact on the company as the ad exposure

brought about more buyers by attracting new consumers, greater buying power of consumers, and

higher quantities on the average purchase occasion of existing consumers.

Therefore, it is important to comprehend that marketers made this marketing strategy of consistent

branding and billboarding with caution to compromising existing qualities.

The campaign “Go Humans Go” on Yahoo! revealed the effectiveness of Internet advertising, and

helped Quaker Oats benefit from it (5), (4).

5. Describe the importance of integrated marketing communication and describe how

the campaign effectively (or ineffectively ) integrates its marketing communication.

Integrated Marketing Communications, or just IMC for short, has been defined by the American

Marketing Association as “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a

customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent

over time.”

The Quaker Oats company utilized both traditional media as well as online marketing channels in

order to interact with their consumers in every way possible. The importance of IMC can be delivered

through their essential goal which to unify all different departments (advertising, sales, customer

services, public relations, direct marketing, etc.) of Quaker Oats company to work together towards the

same objective, rather than independently. This is important because this allows consumers to gain a

single brand message across from all of the company's marketing channels. Therefore, misconceptions

within the consumers do not take place, which would obviously be beneficial for Quaker Oats.

The campaign “Go Humans Go” effectively integrates its marketing communication because today,

there is more widespread internet use than ever before, Quaker Oats therefore has endless opportunities

of selling their brand and products online 24/7, outside office hours.

On the other hand, Quaker Oats company can more effectively integrate its marketing communication

by applying specialized media, rather than mass media, since consumers in this century are very

selective due to countless options from which they can choose from.

6. What do you think the advertising objectives are? To inform, persuade, or remind

customers? Given the target audience, do you think the advertising is effective, why or

why not.

Primarily, advertising objectives are the communication tasks to be accomplished with the target

customers of Quaker Oats. Out of the four advertising objectives, I believe Quaker Oats is striving to

achieve reminder advertising due to its current product life cycle; the maturity stage. This type of

advertising objective involves a strategy known as continuity advertising, to provide it's existing

customers with new and different information about their products. This is simply designed to build

customer loyalty.

Quaker Oats implements reminder oriented advertising to their customers, in order to maintain interest

and awareness of their well established products in the market, and considering their target audience,

this type of advertising is effective because it helps to maintain their leading position in the market.

7. What types of consumer sales promotion tools were used. Explain and provide

examples. Page. 433 Determine the objective of the promotion in relation to the AIDA

(attention, Interest, Desire, Action) model. For example a coupon might be used to

stimulate a purchase. In-store demonstration ‘sampling’ might stimulate interest and

action – purchase).

The types of sales promotion tools which were greatly used by Quaker Oats throughout were print

advertisements, coupons, and free samples. They use these coupons tools the most during launches of

new products, such as Quaker Instant Oatmeal offerings - Wild Blueberry Muffin and Hazelnut Latte,

which is currently offering a $1 off coupon for that particular product (20). Consumer sales promotions

are used by Quaker Oats to receive attention from customers about their new, improved products, and

to identify customer reactions towards their new products. Similarly, the free samplings are used to

hold interest, after receiving attention. In case a product is unexpectedly losses its customer base and

consumers run out of interest for that particular product, this tool of free sampling helps regain their

interest. It also gives the company a second chance to communicate a strong benefit of their products to

its consumers.

The free samplings eventually create a new desire within existing customers, as well as new customers,

for the company's products, increasing sales in the future. The objectives of promotion are therefore

very effective when put to use.

Quaker Oats' coupon (left), and their offer for free samples (right), (21), (22).

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