Woolworth’s Growth Strategy

I want to take a look at a growth strategy for Woolworth’s Group, now this might seem like a very unbelievable brand to think of proposing a growth strategy for when they have already implemented a number of growth strategies such as extending their product line in terms of fashion with David Jones Limited, Country Road Limited, Woolworth Financial Services and their joint venture with Barclays Africa Group.

As most readers would be aware Woolworths specialises in selling food, as well as clothing, beauty and home-ware products, they also provide financial services to their customers.

So what possibly could Woolworth’s do to ensure a bigger and brighter future for the brand , especially in such a congested market space? I would think that we should take a look at some of their competitors such as Spar, Pick ‘n Pay, Shoprite on the food side as well as The Foschini Group and Mr.Price on the clothing side and see the one thing that they are missing. Majority of the larger Woolworth’s stores, have the food section as well as the clothing section in one shopping space, whereas most of their competitors do not, except for one, this would be Pick ‘n Pay, Pick ‘n Pay launched their first Pick ‘n Pay stand alone clothing store in 2002,now bringing them into the same market space as Woolworth’s but offering better prices. When I look at the two stores and compare them side by side in their product offerings, not necessarily the quality, there is one big thing that is missing. This would be the need for a dedicated section in their stores that sells toys.

I would propose an extension strategy for Woolworth’s and more specifically a line extension. The reason I have chosen this strategy and not the brand extension strategy is because Woolworth’s does currently have a hand full of toys to choose from within their stores, they mainly feature in the kiddies clothing section of the shops, as well as smaller items at the checkout in the food store, or occasions themed items that are sold during the holiday seasons such as Halloween, Easter, Christmas etc.

Introducing this strategy would show an increase in profits and I believe an increase in customer happiness as well as loyalty. This would create the ultimate one stop shop for all their consumers necessities as well as the more luxury product purchases, this would enable them to broaden their market size as well. This would be the ultimate vision for the brand, apart of their values are to be innovative, and to provide service by always putting the customer first. This would be the ultimate way to do it, consumers already have a preconceived idea of the quality of the items that are sold by Woolworth’s, they could potentially partner with Hamleys and even sell some of their toys as Hamleys is making a break into the South African market.

I would recommend the best option would be for Woolworth’s to start their own line of toys and launch this in all their stores, I would recommend in order to grab more attention, to have these toys placed in the food sections of their stores as this accounts for more than 60% of their turnover and in their own aisle as opposed to in the clothing sections, as consumers purchase food far more regularly than they do clothing, generally parents have their children with them when doing their grocery shopping and having this would increase the likelihood of parents purchasing toys for their children.

In conclusion, I would suggest that in order for Woolworth’s to maintain, or in fact to grow it’s current position in the marketplace, to become more relatable to their consumers and to understand their customers needs, they would need to implement a line extension strategy and to increase and dedicate sales of toys in their stores. Many shoppers have less and less time to get to the everyday tasks of a busy lifestyle, being able to provide more options and more of a one stop shopping experience that caters for the needs of all the individuals of a family with quality toy products, quality food and quality clothing, they would increase the amount of consumers purchasing from their stores as well as maintain consumers that already purchase from their stores.

Sources:

https://www.southafricanmi.com/woolworths-whl.html

http://www.fastmoving.co.za/retailers/pick-n-pay

Virgin – Brand Reputation

Virgin Group is a family owned growth capital investor, with a globally recognised and respected brand.

The investment team focuses on their core customer sectors of

Travel & Leisure
Telecoms & Media
Music & Entertainment
Financial Services
Health & Wellness

Virgin Group aims to deliver long term capital appreciation through investment in these 5 sectors. Virgin Group actively seeks need investment opportunities and to partner with like-minded investors.

These are the three ways in which the Virgin Group provides value to their investments:

Sector expertise and track record across their 5 core sectors
Experience and understanding of consumer behaviour, brands and marketing
Strong network of investors, management teams and alumni

Virgin Group is also an active technology-focused venture investor with a portfolio of over 35 companies spanning the consumer internet, fintech and sharing economy sectors.

The Virgin Group has identified all the brands within the organisation and have segmented it, into the 5 core sectors allowing them to be more focused on what the brand values and what it is they want to accomplish through their brand portfolio. They have the same graphics throughout their portfolio, with the Virgin Logo, making this easily recognised by their consumers. They have also clearly identified their brand scope as highlighted in the section above. This shows me that Virgin Group clearly understands the importance of a brand portfolio, and understands how to maintain the brand portfolio as well as bring it to life in their every day business objectives and they are effective at managing their brand portfolio.

Virgin Group Brands

In an age where consumers expect brands to be transparent in the ways they run their businesses and consumers are so involved in making or breaking a brands reputation, The Virgin Group and more specifically Sir Richard Branson understands this. While doing my research for this blog post, I came across this on their website, www.virgin.com when trying to find out what the brand stands for:

“Over five decades, the Virgin name and logo has become renowned for providing a unique and exceptional customer experience. Whether in banking, travel, entertainment, health and fitness or communications the Virgin Brand has become one of the most desirable brands in the world. The Brand’s backbone is its values; providing heartfelt service, being delightfully surprising, red hot, and straight up while maintaining an insatiable curiosity and creating smart disruption.”
Virgin Group

That statement alone speaks wonders about the brand and what it is they stand for and want to achieve, providing heartfelt service is one of the values that brand aims to achieve, they do this throughout all their efforts in each of the different brands.

An example of brands transparency and handling a crisis situation was shown with the Virgin Galactic test flight disaster in 2014. Sir Richard Branson was quick to post a tweet to the public and then go to the site of the crash and speak to the media as well as the public and vowing to find out what went wrong to ensure that a repeat of the incident never happens again. With such a huge tragedy, Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin Brand showed accountability, transparency and strong leadership.

The Virgin Group understands the value of their customers, however, more importantly they understand the value of their staff. As we have all discovered, a happy and positive employee will create a happy and positive customer experience. In a brand that is built and truly believes in providing heartfelt service, they take the extra steps to ensure their employees are happy as well. The customer plays a huge role in the reputation of any brand and nurturing that relationship is vital to the success of the business flourishing.

In Conclusion, Sir Richard Branson has definitely spent a lot of time to understand his target market and to make sure he engages with his customers on every way possible, he is very active on his own personal level on Social Media as well as public engagements with his consumers. This definitely has given the public a sense of trust with Sir Richard Branson, they feel as if he is transparent in his communications. The brand has a very large detailed portfolio and is definitely sustainable as long as the focus remains on their 5 core customer sectors and continue to provide value. I believe the brand should continue to ensure the values of the brand are firmly embedded within the corporate structure and is supported on every level to ensure they continue to deliver on their brand promise and that the brand promise continues and lives beyond its founder.

Biography:

https://www.virgin.com/virgingroup/content/about-us#page

https://www.virgin.com/virgingroup/content/our-brand-0

Cadbury

Cadbury is one of the best-know and most-loved producers in chocolate’s almost 200-year-old history, you are probably familiar with some of Cadbury’s high profile marketing campaigns that they have done over the years, such as the drumming gorilla or the triplet dancing and singing in the mom’s belly. Watch the TV Ad to the triplets here: Cadbury TV Ad

From their trademark purple branding to the incorporation of catchy slogans such as “a glass half full” and a “spoonful of joy”, to the newest tagline being
“taste’s like it feels”, Cadbury has become a household brand that very few are a stranger to. A lot of the success of the brand is down to consistency and innovation throughout their marketing efforts.

The product range of Cadbury is pretty large and they make it count. The products in the marketing mix of Cadbury are classified according to the seasons and they are also varied according to the sales in each country. There are a lot of standard products which are there. The other Cadbury products are based on festive occasions like Halloween and Christmas. The products are not only related to the chocolates but there are other products like beverages and desserts, which are also in their product line. We find that Cadbury also prefers to segregate the products according to the demographic areas. The Cadbury company has ventured into the ice-cream segment and biscuits. With such a huge product line up we can gauge the targeted customer base and they cater to a lot of people and their needs.

Cadbury is active on all the popular forms of social media and it is clear that they have invested a lot of money into marketing, in-store marketing, digital, tv ads, promotions and giveaways etc, and has created different Cadbury accounts for followers to follow to keep up to date with relevant promotions etc. in their Country. They also have a global account, The posts on the Cadbury global account tend to all be about the attraction, from behind the scenes photos of the staff at work, to images of their latest displays and events.

Regular competitions are held across their social media channels to win Cadbury’s products, which is a great way of engaging their followers and encourage users to contribute their own content.

The type of content that Cadbury share across their accounts is usually very light-hearted and relevant to their brand image, with comedy playing a central role in their strategy. They keep things fun with quirky stop-motion style videos and humorous graphics.

They frequently promote their latest products, however, they vary their posts about each product, adding a different creative spin to them, rather than reposting the same ads. They also regularly share recipes that people can make at home using Cadbury’s chocolate.

Cadbury is really good at interacting with their fans and respond to nearly all of their tweets whether they are fans of the brand showing their appreciation for Cadbury or slightly less happy customers issuing complaints.

They put a lot of character into their replies to fans comments and are sure to reply within the hour and are always polite and helpful when dealing with negative tweets.

Overall I think that Cadbury’s are pretty good on social media, particularly on Twitter, where they are posting on a regular basis and interacting lots with their followers. Though there is a lot of duplicated content across platforms and pages, this is understandable and it broadens the reach to different audiences.

They could benefit from a bit more consistency in their updates, as sometimes a week can pass without them sharing anything. They would really benefit from relaunching their Instagram account, as a lot of their existing content is really visual and fun.

One of Cadbury’s main strengths is engaging their fans, as they are really good at responding to comments and enquiries from customers and this really helps to build an approachable brand image.

https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/16751-cadbury.html

https://www.cadbury.co.za/the-story

https://linkhumans.com/cadbur

https://econsultancy.com/10-examples-of-cadbury-s-sweetest-marketing-campaigns-creative/

https://www.socialsamosa.com/2018/09/social-media-campaign-round-up-ft-cadbury-godrej-and-more/

Sunburst Electric brand contact planning and management

Sunburst Electric is an electrical contracting franchise that originates from the United States of America where it is known as Mr.Electric and was first introduced to South Africa in 2015. Sunburst Electric and their Service Professionals (electricians) are dedicated to providing world class customer service through their systems and processes and strive on getting the job done right the first time.

When you first come into contact with Sunburst Electric on their website, you are offered multiple ways in which you can request a service, you can leave an inquiry online, call the national call center or send through a WhatsApp, this suits almost everybody’s needs that is looking for an electrician.

When you get through to the call centre, you are greeted with “It’s a great day at Sunburst Electric, this is “x” speaking, how may we help you”, it doesn’t matter who answers the phone, it is always done the same way, providing consistency to customers and ensuring all customers receive the same service.

Once a Service Professional (electrician) is booked for the job, there are a series of steps that happen to enlighten the customer, keep them engaged with the brand, and to help them trust the brand. A confirmation email is sent of the booking, customer WhatsApp groups are created, the customer receives a reminder notification of the job they have scheduled. This already allows the customer to build a relationship with the brand before they have ever had human contact, based on the experiences before the Service Professional has arrived they can already determine the level of service they will receive from the brand going forward.

Sunburst Electric aims to create an effortless sales process with their electricians and their customers. Service Professionals all are equipped with ipads that allow them to quote and easily display quotes to customers to give them upfront, on time pricing, once again, allowing the customer to engage with the brand right there and then and make a decision on the spot if they would like to go ahead with the work. Training is given to all Service Professionals as well as call center agents once a week, where they do role play and go through their different steps of the CUSTOMER process and how to engage with customers. For Sunburst Electric it is more than just fixing an electrical problem, but also about building a relationship with their customers.

To keep their customers loyal to a certain extent, they also provide memberships to Sunburst Electric that allows the customer to receive VIP treatment.

Below we will look at some of the brand contact points of Sunburst Electric:

- “Have all product points of contact been identified?” In the Case of Sunburst Electric, this would be from the website to the time the van pulls into the driveway, a bright yellow van full of branding and the way the prices are given to customers in a visually interactive way on ipads in the customer’s home. The customer receives an email and WhatsApp communication when the Service Professional in en route to the customers home, they receive a picture of the Service Professional, his license number and a short biography of who will be entering their home.

- “Have all service points of contact been identified?” For Sunburst Electric this would be the well groomed and branded Service Professionals that come to the customer’s homes, with neatly branded uniforms, branded business cards in a branded vehicle.

- “Have all planned points of contact been identified?” Sunburst Electric aims to provide world-class expert electrical service to every customer they serve, this is proven through their Social Media campaigns as well as partnerships with other service providers in the contracting industry that strive to provide world class customer service.

- “Have all unplanned points of contact been identified?” Sunburst Electric has a very positive word of mouth, at the end of jobs, Service Professionals are encouraged to ask their customers for a referral. The customer is also encouraged to leave a rating on either Facebook or Google My Business. Word of mouth is the second highest source of turnover for Sunburst Electric.

Sunburst Electric company values are to live R.I.C.H, This stands for Respect, Integrity, Customer Focus and Having Fun in the process, this is demonstrated through the training that is done at a Head Office level through all staff involved in Sunburst Electric and is shown to the customer by respecting the customer, having integrity with their dealings, focusing on the customer and ensuring they have fun in the process, creating a happier work environment.

Sunburst Electric appears to be very involved from an internal to an external extent on training all staff on the purpose of customer relationship building and following the processes and systems within the brand. Sunburst Electric is a franchise and has multiple forms on monitoring each franchisee to make sure that everyone is following the brand promise and code of values. There is a company Intranet site in place, where positive posts are done and video training as well as training hosted at their Head Offices once every quarter. I think they have done very well at identifying a gap in the market and making sure that all the teams strive for the same goal, they do this through constant engagement and training.

The positioning and differentiation of Mr.Price

Who is Mr.Price?

Mr Price Group Limited is an omni-channel, fashion value retailer.

The Group retails apparel, homeware and sportswear through owned and franchised stores and online channels in Africa and Australia. Merchandise is predominantly own-branded and targeted at younger customers in the mid to upper LSM categories.

MR.PRICE SPORTS WEAR
MR. PRICE CLOTHING
MR.PRICE HOME

Mr.Price is a great example to look at when it comes to how brands can position and differentiate themselves. Mr.Price starts of with a great brand name that tells you exactly what it is they are all about, They are all about the price, Mr.Price has also taken the time to identify their target market and who it is they want to have purchasing at their stores or on-line.

They have targeted the younger consumers in the mid to upper LSM Categories, and they way they position themselves to target this market, is by looking at some of the key factors with a younger consumer base, such as, ease of shopping and price, as we are well aware, the modern world is extremely digital with easy access to doing everything online with very limited downtime to do the simple tasks of shopping, whether it be for clothing, or furniture, Mr.Price has brought a solution to their target market by offering an Online shopping experience to its consumers as well, so not only are they looking at giving the best price to their consumers but now they have also looked to give the consumers the best and easiest experience when shopping with them. Another great feature that Mr.Price has is their credit within their stores, allowing the younger market to be able to purchase furniture and items for their homes without having to invest the full amount upfront, as this would be more difficult for a younger consumer to achieve.

Not only do they look at providing furniture and home goods, they also have clothing, and to top it all off they also have active wear. They have taken the time to understand their target market and what it is their consumers do on a day to day basis and what lifestyle choices they are making, in this forever busy and changing world, people try to make the time to keep some sort of active lifestyle to stay healthy, with social media also being so easily accessible and everywhere, there is also a preconceived idea of how people should be dressing or looking when they go out and how their homes should look in case they were to have friends or family over, Mr.Price has now taken 3 of these problems and provided a solution to their consumers that they can trust the Mr.Price brand and purchase from them.

With Mr.Price expanding its product offering, they are able to generate a larger customer base and in turn generate larger streams of revenue as well into the business. 80% of the sales made in Mr.Price are cash sales, what does this mean for the brand? The brand is less impacted by the cyclical nature of retail. Not dependent on credit to drive sales, particularly during poor economic times. They are less exposed to bad debt, able to fund future growth without incurring debt and lastly strong cash flows will support future growth and maintain an appropriate dividend payout ratio.

Mr.Price providing value to their customers is at the very core of the groups purpose, this means that they need to sell products at lower rates than some of their competitors but at higher volumes in order to offer their excellent value. Lower markups mean that they are able to offer “everyday low prices” on quality fashionable items. Majority of the merchandise within Mr.Price has its own-branding as well.

In a world that is forever changing and developing and becoming more digital it is important to make sure your brand stands out and to remind your customers of what makes you different, I definitely think Mr.Price has done this by continually growing and developing their brand to stay relevant to the current market, especially with their target market being the younger generation, that develops and changes as quick as the technology around them.

Sources:

https://www.mrpricegroup.com/mr-price-group-about-us.aspx

https://www.seartec.co.za/3-sa-companies-with-winning-business-strategy

Visual and Verbal Language of Nando’s

The Visual and Verbal Language of Nando’s

The visual language of the Nando’s brand is easily recognisable from their logo to the iconic bird in their logo being the Barcelos cockerel as well as the iconic Nando’s periometer.

Nando’s has a very strong story behind them, they have this story on all their menus to share with their customers and let them feel apart of the Nando’s journey, and to give the idea that Nando’s is a lot more than just a restaurant, but to give you the feeling of Family and that you as the consumer are apart of their family as well, throughout a Nando’s restaurant, they use their iconic red colour as well as their famous Nando’s bird being the Barcelos cockerel. This Bird is an icon and plays a huge effect on the visual identity of the brand, any person who knows of Nando’s would easily be able to identify the bird and name it the Nando’s bird.

he Nando’s periometer is also a large factor of the Nando’s brand, they have used strong rich African colours to represent the different strengths of peri-peri for their chicken and it a great and unique way for customers to be able to identify the different strengths of heat/flavour when deciding what meal to go for.

One thing that really stood out to me when doing research for this blog post was the new angel that Nando’s has been using in terms of the angel when writing, on all the stories of Nando’s, you would know that Nando’s started in 1987, Nando’s has decided in order to celebrate this, to have all their headings at an 87 degree across all their designs. I think that this is something great and bold to do, it’s different so will make the customer wonder why it is being done and with the consumer knowing that there is always more up the sleeve of the marketing department as Nando’s it will make them curious and to re-learn the rich story of Nando’s.

The brand has created their own font to use for their Logo and other marketing efforts, the font allows the consumer to have the perception of a certain way that the brand speaks in terms of dialect, that relates back to the voice and tone used when Nando’s does any marketing whether it be TV ads, Radio ads, or any print advertising, when consumers read the ad’s they associate it with a cheeky tone. In terms of the way Nando’s markets itself, it is an extremely cheeky approach to marketing, they are always the first to come up with some sort of great campaign around any world event or situation that sparks headlines. They have a way of making some serious situations seem a lot more light hearted and to bring a smile to almost every face that sees their ads. An example of this would be the Load Shedding that we are dealing with in South Africa, Nando’s came out with an Ad in 2015 that made light hearted fun of the Load Shedding in South Africa as well as promoting people to come and eat at Nando’s when the power is out and the advertised a special that they were currently having at that point in time. Here is a link to the ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3x18auzFFg. This is something that definitely resonated with a lot of South Africans, with the gentleman in the video also saying “Hello darkness my old friend” quoting the iconic song ‘Sound of Silence’ from Simon & Garfunkel, this is a very popular song that many people are familiar with, this became the talk of the town for awhile with people quoting “Hello darkness my old friend” every time there was Load Shedding, immediately making the consumer think of Nando’s as well.

In conclusion, Nando’s has a very unique way of advertising themselves and have taken one step further with breaking the rules in branding themselves and making sure that they stand out from their competition.

Sources:

https://www.nandos.com/story/

https://www.creativebloq.com/branding/nandos-reveals-cheeky-new-visual-identity-11618922

https://www.behance.net/gallery/34184719/New-Nandos-Global-Visual-Identity-System

https://www.nandos.co.za/explore/brand-story