MBA630 Discussion 1 Week 1

Unit 1: Discussion

Initiating the Marketing Process

We introduce the basic concepts of strategic marketing, which with the question, “What is strategic marketing”? Simply put, it is managing profitable customer relationships over the long term. The aim of marketing is to create value for customers and to capture value from customers in return. To do so, marketers engage in activities from understanding customer needs, to designing customer-driven marketing strategies and integrated marketing programs, to building customer relationships and capturing value for the firm.

In this unit’s case study, Video Case 1: Chobani: Making Greek Yogurt a Household Name, Chobani, a small startup company, used its marketing plan to move from a niche market to the mainstream yogurt market. From the start of the product launch, Chobani focused on the classic “4Ps” elements of marketing mix actions: product, price, place, and promotion. As the product and the market have expanded and matured, it has evolved its marketing strategy. The recent ad campaign, The Love This Life, ad campaign focusses on the strapline “To love this life is to live it naturally.”  According to Peter McGuinness, Chobani CMO, the objective of the slogan is to capture the “Mediterranean soul” of the brand rather than just to highlight its quality. This campaign moves from just highlight the quality of the product to how it improves life over all. The new ad campaign is expanding from TV to include social media and is meant to “refresh Chobani’s approach to marketing in a category that remains fast-growing and vibrant…”

Sources

Buss, D. (2015, May 4). ‘Love This Life’: 5 Questions with Chobani Execs About New Campaign. Retrieved June 30, 2016, from brandchannel.com: http://brandchannel.com/2015/05/04/5-questions-chobani-050415/

Kerin, R. A. & Hartley, S. W. (2017). Marketing. (13th ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Unit Learning Outcomes

ULO 1: Analyze the marketing process and identify the diverse factors that influence marketing actions. (CLO 1)
ULO 2: Analyze how organizations build strong customer relationships and customer value through marketing. (CLO 1 and 5)

Directions

Initial Post

Students are to review the following information about the real marketing campaign for Chobani titled, The Love This Life, ad campaign.

Background on Chobani Yogurt

• Read the video case in the textbook on pages 21- 23.
• Watch the Chobani case video (Links to an external site.)

Chobani’s The Love This Life ad campaign

• Read the following online websites and articles
  • How Chobani Squeezed New Flavor Into A Crowded Market (Links to an external site.)
  • “The Love This Life ad campaign”: How Chobani Plans to Continue Dominating the Greek Yogurt Market (Links to an external site.)
  • From 'How Matters' to 'Love this Life': Chobani unveils new media campaign (Links to an external site.) By Elaine Watson+, 01-May-2015
  • Love This Life’: 5 Questions with Chobani Execs About New Campaign (Links to an external site.)

Based on the information provided, put yourself in the position of an marketing consultant brought in to the company to critically examine the campaign’s ability to meet its’ objectives, and then formulate a set of well-developed and supported recommendations to the company’s senior leadership team. The recommendation should be logically presented, well-supported, and thoroughly vetted. 

IMPORTANT! Your grade for each weekly thread discussion will be determined by your analytical, integrative, problem-solving and critical thinking skills demonstrated by your posts and by your positive responses to the posts of your classmates.There is no minimum or maximum in terms of the word count; however, the response should explicitly address all required components of this discussion assignment. Your response should integrate external resources, which should be consistent with APA writing style and format (7th edition) and reflect higher level cognitive processing (analysis, synthesis and or evaluation).