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Frito-Lay developed the Skinny Chip that is classified as a healthy snack for those health conscious chip lovers. It is critical to the success of the Skinny Chip to align the product offering and branding plan with their core business values and mission. The purpose of this paper is to blueprint the product offering and branding plan for Frito-Lay’s new Skinny Chip.

Detail the Target Market Profiles

Frito-Lay, Inc. manufactures and markets Skinny Chip to customers and consumers in more than 200 countries and territories. Innovated for health-conscious, but “fun” snack-eaters on the go. While Skinny Chip is in the process, Frito-Lay's team of marketers and Field Engagement Specialist are in the field. They are sampling the chips to new and regular customers, getting feedback from the customers, and creating reports to give the company insight into the wants, needs, and preferences of the consumers. Also, marketers and engagement field specialist are the ones that are driving Frito-Lay's day-to-day business and seeing their competition.

To beat brands like Pop Chip, Frito-Lay's customers were looking for a chip that portrayed a more culinary appearance. Therefore, Frito-Lay found that it was imperative to incorporate culinary arts into the development of Skinny Chip. With a chip that was considered more of food versus snack, Skinny Chip had to fit the trend of today's restaurant and food industry.

Detail the New Product/Service Offering

Frito-Lay has launched Skinny Chip potato chips. The all-natural, gluten-free, low calorie, multi-grain chip combined with a zesty flavor for an unforgettable taste. Skinny Chip is considered Frito-Lay's new millennium snack. The organic potato chip meets a variety of the targeted consumers' needs and preferences. It's the perfect snack for those looking to add or avoid certain ingredients in their meals. With natural ingredients and simple preparation processes, Skinny Chip is Frito-Lay's signature meal.

Skinny Chip was produced to provide a healthier alternative to chip lovers and offer a whole grain/wheat option. Skinny Chips is a healthier option for consumers; they targeted people who maintained a health-food lifestyle, and customers that preferred the natural flavorings and organic grains. Unlike Pop Chips, Skinny Chip was made to portray a positive consumer image; as well as suggest the light, wholesomeness, of the chip.

Frito-Lay's primary goal is to maintain "performance with purpose" to allow the company to deliver sustained value by providing their consumer with a healthier snack food alternative. Skinny Chip will lower the company's costs through energy and water conservation, reduce their use of packaging materials, and minimize Frito-Lay's impact on the environment. With a variety of sizes of bags to choose from, all packaging is resealable for fun and convenience.

As the company’s sales grow and Frito-Lays’ competitors’ snacks slow, Frito-Lay is “seeking to cash in on the faster-growing premium and value segments of the market” (Frito-Lay, 2016). Frito-Lay has taken a step backward from the top end of the market and left it for competitors, like Pop Chips and Herr’s. Now selling more on dollar store and natural food shelves, Frito-Lay has to introduce products Skinny Chip Low Fat on the high end, and Skinny Chip Originals, a less expensive, higher-calorie chip marketed to dollar stores, on the low end.

Identify any other Complementary Products in the Product Line

As earlier on learn, people are always changing their eating habits from just eating popular main dishes to substituting them with potato chips, unlike any other fries. Thus, the popularity of potato chips eating culture is widely spreading across the world. So businesses that just concentrate on preparing potato chips are just mushrooming, as for Frito-Lay the best complementary product for their chips is tomato-onion paste.

About the Product-Tomanion:

Most of the people prefer taking their potato chips with a dish of sliced fresh tomatoes and onion sandwich, which adds more flavor and taste to the potatoes. However this potato-onion sandwich is traditionally prepared and because of its increasing popularity, the next big innovation is commercializing it. When developing the commercialization for a new product, there needs to be a strong branding strategy for it to get into the deepest and furthest end of the market. This salad, however, is not just enough for the larger number of customers. Once prepared, the salads do not stay for long without going bad ; hence, the need to hygienically pack and preserved then to stay fresh, clean, and tasty for so long (Plunkett J.W & Plunkett Research Ltd, 2002).

Packaging:

The best way to present these products are by slicing the tomatoes, and onions into very fine pieces and putting them in ¼, 1/2, 3/4 and 1kg air-tight plastic containers. This type of packaging would enable people to buy easily and carry around whenever they are out on picnics or escapades. We have chosen plastic containers as they are less risky when storing foods because they don't rust. Secondly, they are reusable, unlike metallic cans that are prone to rust and can result in an accident or cause external skin injuries when breaking them (Plunkett J.W & Plunkett Research Ltd, 2002).

Pricing:

As compared to pure tomato sources that are so common but lack onions and other important green fresh vegetables making them less nutritious, Tomanion would be made cheaply affordable as the primary components tomatoes and onions are richly planted and harvest from our green farms economically all year round hence readily available. To purchase a ¼ kg container, it can cost up to$1.75 each. The price becomes more affordable for the larger cans of 250g tomato paste; that costs $1.9 making out product more competitive. Pricing cheaply for the larger containers would make customers prefer buying in bulk, which cans make the product move faster (Ferrell O.C & Hartline M.D, 2014).

Propose Branding Strategy for the New Product

To easily get it into the market, we have plans with food joints, supermarkets, and food product dealers to help distribute them at an offer price. Food joints will be selling them at an offer price to their customers who buy and eat their foods, in supermarkets; they will be attached to some ready to serve dishes, a commercial advertisement will be run in radio and TV stations to familiarize it to the large audience of viewers and listeners. We have plans in place with marketing firms to have little draws with customers who are going to be awarded gift hampers and shopping vouchers for actively participating in small challenges the companies will roll out.

Channel of distribution:

The most preferred channels of distributing Tomanion is through having suppliers who are in agreement with supermarkets, hotels, food cafes and restaurants, shops and through public displays and promotions during open days and family fun days through our marketing department which is already being set up(Ferrell O.C & Hartline M.D, 2014). Partnering with a name brand like Frito-Lay, to package like their potato chips is a big boost to our product's consumption.

What assures us that this product is going to shake the market is because of how our customers respond to the suggestion. Most of them want a specialty blend of food brands that is a name that has more to offer rather than a single ingredient. So our product won't only give their chips a tomato taste but also onions. Also not only will it be taken alongside potato chips but also other foods like meat and other vegetable products.

Recommend Strategies for Managing the Product/Service

Managing the new product throughout its lifecycle will require some different approaches and strategies to ensure continual relevance, consumer acceptance, and repeat purchasing. Feedback from customers is essential to understanding how to manage Skinny Chips to ensure they continue to be top of mind when consumers want to eat a healthy snack. Feedback can be obtained through a variety of channels, but most appropriate for Skinny Chips would involve retailer-centric methods of data collection and analysis. As an example, most retailers have loyalty programs where they monitor frequency, product selection, quantity and associated sales of adjacent projects their customers buy. They can also rank their clients from high to the low value, based on their patterns of buying history and frequency of visitation. Learning about how consumers respond to different messages about Skinny Chips, and the general response to the product itself would be best fleshed out through this kind of purchasing detail. (Consumer Reports, 2015)

With this retailer data, we would be able to identify if our actual customer is the targeted consumer we initially set out to reach in the beginning. Afterward, we would be able to track that customer as we make changes to flavors, and messaging to see if that consumer changes over time, increases or decreases, or responds positively or negatively. Along with data regarding our product, we could finance additional research on the category to stay ahead of trends in their infancy that may develop at retail; which will ensure Skinny Chips stay relevant as tastes and consumer tendencies change. These same loyalty programs also would allow us to promote Skinny Chips to targeted consumers who have a high likelihood of taking the offer and buying the chips.

The lifecycle method of managing the product would be very consumer-centric, with decisions made based on data and analysis available to actual consumers in the marketplace, and specifically, customers of Skinny Chips. Any changes in the product itself would be measured using additional data from these sources to ensure efficacy and accuracy. Further, any marketing and messaging would be delivered via these same loyalty channels. Through this method, Skinny Chips can provide accurate measurement of target consumers, changes in consumer tastes and adoption as well as target customers with a high affinity for the product; this would include any sun-setting of the product itself, after exhausting any additional iterations to enliven the brand. If product response continues to be negative, or if further iterations of the product do not deliver the desired results, it may be time to retire Skinny Chips and develop a new product.

Create New Positioning Statement

The positioning statement: For the healthy eater, Skinny Chip is the all-natural low-fat snack for you, bet you can't eat just one. The positioning statement and the current target market is attracting the consumer wanting a healthier lifestyle and meals. People are now eating healthier, changing their lifestyles to eat healthier foods, and practicing ways of having that healthy life. The company believes should be useful and fun. We understand the customer's needs. Therefore, we are taking the time and listening to the needs of our clients. The company is finding a need to produce low-fat, organic, and an all-natural chip that looks like the traditional fried snack food.

Our branding and strategy are to use the website as the opportunity to reinforce the identity of our brand and build an emotional connection with our loyal customers. Using communications with powerful images and bold flavor with endorsements will exist when advertising on billboards, television, the internet, magazines and other printed materials.

Provide Justification for the New Positioning Strategy

Dieting and healthier snacking are more than a fad. People are now wanting and preferring healthier, organic, and locally sourced ingredients in their snacks. For instance, more families are beginning to include chips, as side dishes to their meals. As more people are choosing chips over fries, more consumers are looking for chips that are healthier, satisfying, and inexpensive. These chips will target valued customers, health, and environment-conscious consumers, as well as meet the ever-changing customer’s needs.

There is a market for a low-fat potato chip to the health conscience audience for every lifestyles or experience, such as religious groups, gender, age, nationalities, or ethnic groups. Depending on how one defines obesity, many Americans adults may fit that definition. The rates of obesity in children are increasing, the Skinny Chip may help with the steps to help shed this problem. Food is a necessary tool for living and it is an essential part of everyone's health and well-being. The efforts for marketing the Skinny Chip may be proven to be beneficial.

Conclusion

Frito-Lay has developed a product offering that aligns with their high level of customer satisfaction, and branding plan that will keep the product at the forefront on the market. This program will make the Skinny Chip stand out in ways that will reflect value for their target market. Reputable brands such as Frito-Lays, use strategies to deliver products and services that will have a meaningful impact. Excellent communication and coordination of marketing elements is the key to creating a world-class brand.

References

Ferrell, O. C., & Hartline, M. D. (2014). Marketing strategy. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Plunkett, J. W., & Plunkett Research, Ltd. (2006). Plunkett's chemicals, coatings & plastics industry almanac 2007: The only comprehensive guide to the chemicals industry. Houston, Tex: Plunkett Research, Ltd.

Lay's Do Us a Flavor Choose Your Chip.  Retrieved from http://fritolaycom/index?_escape_frgment_=/