ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR

Organization buying is the decision- making process by which formal organizations establish the need for purchased products and services and identify, evaluate, and choose among alternative brand and suppliers. Those who supply goods and services to consumer markets are themselves in need of goods and services. These organizations (producers, re-sellers and government) make up vast marketing organizations that buy a large variety of products and services. Some organizations sell exclusively to other organizations and never come into contact with consumer buyers.

Every organization has a buying center which consists of member who typically play one of the following 7 roles:

·         Initiator: They are the one who request that something needs to be purchased.

·         Users: They are the ones who will eventually use the product that is being bought. In many cases the users and initiators might be the same person.

·         Influencers: They are the ones who influence the buying decision by defining specifications and providing information for evaluating alternatives.

·         Deciders: People who decide on product requirements or on suppliers

·         Approvers: People who authorize the proposed actions of deciders or buyers.

·         Buyers: They are the people who have formal authority to select the supplier and arrange the purchase terms.

·         Gatekeepers: People who moderate the information that reach the buying center

Like any other manufacturing company Parle Agro will also have certain requirements for making Frooti. Parle Agro buys fine quality of mango pulp for making of Frooti. It is bought from areas of Bangalore and Mumbai. Some of the typical requirements of the company would be -

1. Mango Pulp
2. Sugar
3. Flavour
4. Water
5.Plastic Bottles
6.Cartons  

The water is managed in house. Parle Agro has a mineral water unit as well - Bailley Packaged Drinking Water.
Same goes for the PET Bottles in which Frooti is packed. Parle Agro has a manufacturing plant for that as well.

 Frooti was the first drink that was available in Tetra Packs in India. Tetra packs are bought from the Tetrapack Company.

SALES MANAGEMENT

Sales management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of sales techniques and the management of a firm's sales operations. It is an important business function as net sales through the sale of products and services and resulting profit drive most commercial businesses.

In the case of Frooti salesmen are not required. Frooti is a low involvement purchase product wherein customers just enter a store buy it and leave. Being very economically priced prior research and study isn’t required.  Information regarding the product like its ingredients is printed on the package itself. People are also very aware of the product because of the numerous commercials and campaigns. Hence there isn’t need for assistance and no sales force is required.

However Frooti has a back end sales team which help devise the selling strategy for the product. They might decide on which markets to enter and how to enter them.  They are also in charge of keeping a track of the sales records which is useful for accounting and forecasting purposes.

DISTRIBUTION

A distribution channel includes the chain of businesses or intermediaries through which a good or service passes until it reaches the end consumer. A distribution channel can include wholesalers, retailers, distributors and even the internet. Channels are broken into direct and indirect forms, with a "direct" channel allowing the consumer to buy the good from the manufacturer and an "indirect" channel allowing the consumer to buy the good from a wholesaler. Direct channels are considered "shorter" than "indirect" ones.

There are generally 4 levels to a distribution channel:

Zero Level: Manufacturer ----- Consumer

One Level : Manufacturer ---- Retailer ---- Consumer

Two Level : Manufacturer ----- Wholesaler ---- Retailer --- Consumer

Three Level: Manufacturer ---- Wholesaler ---- Jobber ---- Retailer -- Consumer

Find below the illustration showing the channels used by Frooti.

Frooti’s Distribution:

Frooti adopts first level and second level distribution channels.  The depot of the company sells its products directly to the retailers and them it reaches to the consumers. This happens only in places where depot of the company is located. In small towns wholesalers are established by the company. Wholesalers get product from depot of the company and they sell it to retailers through whom it ultimately reaches the consumers. There are around 3,50,000 retailers that help to serve Frooti in its distribution.

SEGMENTATION, TARGETING & POSITIONING

Segmentation

Market segmentation divides the market into well defined slices. A market segment consists of a group of customers who have similar needs and wants. Segmentation is generally done on 4 parameters – Demographic, Geographic, Behavioural and Psychographic.

Frooti has segmented its market as follows.

Targeting:

Targeting is a process of prioritizing segments based on the brand’s core competencies or capabilities, and other researched factors including segmented market size, growth potential of the segmented market, competitive dynamics, etc. A target market is a group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise towards.

Frooti has mainly targeted the youth which can be associated to the following heads –Recreational, Health, Lifestyle and Sports.

Positioning:

Positioning involves directing marketing activities in such a way that you can place the brand in the minds of your target audience exactly the way you want them to perceive it.

Frooti is India’s legendary and iconic mango drink. When it came in 1985 it came across as a youthful mango drink. It was the first brand to introduce fruit drinks in tetra packs to Indian consumers. It was very cool and trendy. Even the Frooti commercials were way ahead of anything else the Indian society had seen.
As Frooti entered the second decade of its existence they had to change the perception that Frooti was meant only for kids. There was a need for repositioning.  The YO Frooti, Digen Verma and Bindass campaigns were steps in that direction. Today the ads are no longer required to create the buzz; they are created in keeping in mind a long term brand vision. Frooti’s most recent campaign ‘ Why Grow Up ‘ does exactly that.

BRANDING

According to AMA “A brand is a customer experience a represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme, brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relation to its use and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary.”

Frooti as a brand can be critically analysed as follows:

PROMOTION - ATL, BTL & IMC

The simplest definition of promotion could be the advancement of a product, service, idea or point of view through sales promotion and advertising.

Promotion plays a vital role in the success of a product or service. Not only do promotional activities attract sales for the company they also spread awareness and communicate with a large audience at the same time.  The various promotion activities can be broadly classified into two categories – Above the line (ATL) and Below the line (BTL).

ATL Promotion: ATL advertising uses media such as television, cinema, radio, print, and Out-of-home to promote brands or convey a specific offer. This type of communication is conventional in nature and is considered impersonal to customers. It differs from BTL advertising, which uses unconventional brand-building and promotional strategies.  Some of Frooti’s famous campaigns are:

1.  Shahrukh Khan Ad Campaign: One of the most successful TV commercials of is their latest one in which they resort to celebrity endorsement for the first time. Shahrukh Khan has been used to promote the product. The film, shot after a game practice, intercuts between Shahrukh gulping Frooti and a bunch of little soccer players yearning for the mango drink. When Shahrukh is done with his Frooti and looks around, he is taken aback to see the players (who were actually adults!) staring at him in child-like innocence. He says: ‘What?’ and breaks them out of the spell. The embarrassed players smile sheepishly and get back to what they were doing. What makes the ad even more enchanting is the soulful track that holds the film together. 

Find below images of the campaign.

S

        2. The Digen Verma Campaign: The Company wanted to reposition its product and create hype around it. Hence they introduced a mysterious character called Digen Verma. Frooti had always been positioned as a drink for kids. Now, they wanted to position it as a drink for the youth, especially, the college-going teenagers. They therefore went in for a real life, down-to-earth person, who, like any college student likes to bunk classes, is a good sportsman and is a popular figure in the college, with whom the teenagers can actually associate themselves. The enigma called 'Digen Verma' was everywhere, in buses, film halls, colleges, cyber cafes and shopping malls. 'JUST who is Digen Verma?' That's what the nation seemed to be have been wanting to know. In the 15 days that the campaign lasted in (February 2001), Digen Verma seemed to have become the most talked about faceless name in the country.

Screenshots of other Commercials and ATL promotion over the years

      BTL (Below The Line) Promotion:  BTL sales promotion is an immediate or delayed incentive to purchase, expressed in cash or in kind, and having short duration. It is efficient and cost-effective for targeting a limited and specific group. It uses less conventional methods than the usual ATL channels of advertising, typically focusing on direct means of communication, most commonly direct mail and e-mail, often using highly targeted lists of names to maximize response rates.

      Frooti rarely indulges in such form of promotion.

      Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

      Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is an approach to brand communications where the different modeswork together to create a seamless experience for the customer and are presented with a similar tone and style that reinforces the brand’s core message. Its goal is to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations direct marketing, online communications and social media work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation, which maximizes their cost effectiveness.
An example of this in relation to Frooti would be:

      Juicy Mango Surprise Project:  The campaign captures people’s reaction to giant sized props in the form of mangoes which suddenly appear on the streets, rolling down from above a slope. In most cases, the mangoes seem to be chasing the people on the streets and the video captures their reaction to the charging mango.

      Billed as an integrated campaign which involved a live outdoor stunt, on-ground activities, a direct marketing campaign, word of mouth buzz and television spots, besides viral videos, the campaign titled ‘Juicy Mango  Surprise Project’ was repeated across 12 metros and mini metros across the country in malls, schools, colleges and popular youth hang-outs. In the videos, the people who have been played a prank on are greeted by a Frooti undercover agent who will explain the idea behind the stunt and hand them a complementary bottle of Frooti.  

      Images of the campaign:

a

PRODUCT MIX – PARLE AGRO

To understand what a product mix is I shall first define a few terms that constitute the definition of a product mix.

Product family: All the product classes that can satisfy a core need with reasonable effect.

Product class: A group of products within the product family recognized as having a certain functional coherence. This is also known as product category.

Product Line: A group of products within a product class that are closely related because they perform a similar function, are sold to the same customer groups and are marketed through the same outlets or channels and fall within a given price range. A product line may consist of different brands.

Product Mix: “The full set of products offered for sale by an organization. The product mix includes all product lines and categories. It may be defined more narrowly in specific cases to mean only that set of products in a particular product line or a particular market”

                                                                                             ---AMA

A product mix has a certain width, length, depth and consistency.

Width: The width of a company's product mix pertains to the number of product lines that a company sells. For example, if a company has two product lines, its product mix width is two.

Length: Product mix length pertains to the number of total products or items in a company's product mix. For example, ABC company may have two product lines, and five brands within each product line. Thus, ABC's product mix length would be 10.

Depth: Depth of a product mix pertains to the total number of variations for each product. Variations can include size, flavour and any other distinguishing characteristic.

Consistency: Product mix consistency pertains to how closely related product lines are to one another--in terms of use, production and distribution. It is possible that a company's product mix may be consistent in distribution but vastly different in use.

Since Frooti is a brand which belongs to the company Parle Agro we can estimate the product mix for Parle Agro and not Frooti. A product mix always pertains to a company not a brand.

Based on the chart above we can ascertain the product mix for Parle Agro

Product mix width: 3

Product mix length: 12

We can however ascertain the product hierarchy for Frooti.