Tic Tac : Integrated Marketing Communications - Personal Essay

Integrated Marketing Communications

Subject n°3: Identify a problem of a company you wish to study. Suggest one creative promotional method to solve the problem. You need to specify the target audience, objectives with creative and media commendations to achieve intended objective.

Tic Tac is the only Ferrero brand that is not made of chocolate and one of the first pocket sweets on the market.It is known for being a practical and a refreshing product but competitors are numerous. The problem is that, since 2007, the pocket sweets market has dropped by 5, 5% in value, by 4, 4% in volume and 60% of the sweets sold are sugar free. Tic Tac suffers from this decline and this hard competition and its market share dropped by 1, 1% between 2008-2009.

Moreover, people in the world are bigger gum consumers than sweet consumers and many competitors such as Cadburry Schweppes and Solinest offer sugar free, healthier, tastier or more innovative products.

How can Tic Tac keep its market share given the regression of pocket sweets consumption? What kind of creative promotional method should Tic Tac use to solve this problem?

Analysis of the Market

To stress and develop a new communication campaign, the first thing to do is to analyze the market in which Tic Tac makes is business. The market situation of Tic Tac is the pocket sweets market

Strengths Weaknesses

 HR/Financial

 Ferrero: constant growth of turnover (820M€ in 2009)

 TicTac is profiting from Ferrero’s great reputation and its immense financial ressources

 TicTac is a long existant brand (founded in 1971)

 TicTac is a market pioneer

 Technology

 New formats to satisfy consumer needs →multipacks are the best selling formats, good rankings in weekly sales (e.g:TicTac Duox4)

 Innovative tastes to meet newest trends

 Limited editions to boost sales

 Chemical aspect is not important to consumers when it comes to taste →refreshment is the most important criterium.

 Positioning

 High recognition rate (97, 1%)

 Great Brand image

 Well defined Brand positioning

 Consumers refer to TicTac in a very positive way

 HR/Financial

 Ferrero does not yet have any experience in that field of action

 Technology

 TicTac is the only company on the market that doesn’t offer different, more innovative formats like the at the moment very popular chewing gum boxes

 Positioning

 Frequent repositioning over a longer period can become confusing for the customers

 TicTac is not perceived as an useful, original or innovative brand

 Consumers do not declare TicTac as an important product

 Positioning of the individual products is vague → crucial promise is not clear

Opportunities Threats

 Market/Needs

 Pocket sweets account for 28% of the sweets market in terms of sales

 Penetration rate in a lot countries is rather low and thus there is a big potential

 Sales in hard discounters are increasing

 Competition

 97,1% of assisted recognition rate

 Most appreciated product in the pocket sweets market compared with new products  Market/Needs

 The pocket sweets market dropped by 5,5% in value and by 4,4% in volume last year

 60% of the sweets sold are sugar free

 People are bigger gum consumers than sweet consumers

 Competition

 Cadburry Schweppes and Solinest are leaders on the pocket sweets market

 Many competitors offer sugar free, healthier, tastier or more innovative products

The new positioning Of the Brand, Tic Tac should focus on:

First, it’s important to stress the target audience and the initial positioning of Tic Tac in the past which wasn’t really clear. Indeed, Tic Tac’s current target market is too big and heterogeneous. The positioning is not clear enough compared to Tic Tac’s main competitors, which are much more specialized. To be perfectly clear about the new marketing strategy, particularly the communication, Tic Tac should reposition the products.

Thus, I will divide the target audience in two main parts

• The 18 – 34 year olds who are mainly young workers, independent and dynamic. Moreover, they like fruity tastes of their childhood.

• The 35 – 49 who have been working for a long time. They are looking for refreshment and hygiene when they consume pocket

...