Danone by Sara Al Uraifi

College of Arts and Sciences Department of MASS COMMUNICATION

Final Creative Project MCM 454 Fall 2010

Camillia Jawaher Al Suwaidi Sara Al Uraifi Sharina Lootah

Table of Contents

History & Background

Focus and Mission

Brand Portfolio

Main Competitors

Brand Association

Organization for Global Campaigns

Media Strategy

Cultural Considerations

The Promotional Message

Slogan Translation

References

Advertisements

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History & Background DANONE Group is a French food products company with headquarters in Paris, France. DANONE is seen as a “strategic industry” by the Government of France and is protected by French law from takeover by foreign ownership. The Group employs almost 90,000 people in more than 120 countries. The Group has a global presence. DANONE is a world leader in dairy products and bottled water. This dominant position is based on major global brands and on the company’s solid presence in local markets.

Focus and Mission DANONE focuses on health and nutrition. The Group claims that it is “the only food group to focus totally on health.”

Brand Portfolio -

Fresh dairy products: Danone, Actimel, Activia, Danonino (Petit Gervais aux Fruits), Vitalinea (Taillefine, Vitasnella or Ser in certain countries), Danacol, Essensis

Waters: Evian, Volvic, Badoit, Aqua, Bonafont, Font Vella, Lanjarón, Ser

Baby nutrition: Blédina, Gallia, Nutricia, Cow & Gate, Milupa, Mellin, Dumexal

Medical nutrition: Nutricia, Nutrini, Nutrison, Fortimel, FortiCare, Fortisip, Neocate, Infatrini

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Main Competitors •

DANONE’s competitors are segmented into 3 categories: Leaders: Nestlé and Kraft Foods Followers: Unilever Challengers: Cadbury and Schweppes

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Organization for Global Campaigns Prospect is one of the levels of customer hierarchy and it is a potential buyer qualified on the basis of his or her buying financial capacity, and willingness to buy; one who has not previously been a purchaser of that product or service. DANONE’s priority is their customers; however, they still target potential buyers or prospects. For instance, in one of the TV commercials, it says “DANONE comes a lot cheaper than all that stuff you buy,” so this commercial introduces DANONE products that are cheaper than other products to whom has not previously been a purchaser of that product. Based on the VALS framework DANONE falls under survivors, since the target audience are cautious consumers and care about healthy products. These type of consumers focuses on meeting needs rather than fulfilling desires According

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Global

Marketing and Advertising, globalization is the process, or set of processes, by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the distribution of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Since campaign means the efforts of a company to increase awareness for a particular product or service, or to increase consumer awareness of a business or organization, which usually has a limited duration, DANONE was successful by globalizing its campaign. DANONE advertising is standardized for all the people around the world who are looking for less calorie and healthy products. For 6|Page

example, DANONE has many commercials that are targeting different markets including ones that are English, Finnish, Russian and Arabic. Also, each of these commercials has a man or woman that represents a specific culture. However, all of DANONE’s advertisements are consistent and imply one message, which is that DANONE products are healthy. As a result, these campaigns are not only for UAE but also for different parts of the world because they don’t classify only a certain type of culture, rather they are being modified to fit different cultures but still maintain the same idea.

When a brand uses a centralized developed strategy, its campaign marketing strategy is the same everywhere since is developed to be used globally. For our brand DANONE, we can say that the company uses a centralized developed strategy where there is a consistent marketing strategy that is used globally. With DANONE’s advertising campaigns, the strategy remains consistent. By that, we mean that the idea of DANONE’s campaigns is one but it is tailored to fit to different cultures appropriately. They use what is called local initiative, which means that the campaign is successful and used in one country but modified somehow to fit other countries. However, all of DANONE’s campaigns have one idea that is used all over the world, which is “choose healthier options.” Even if the advertisements look different in certain places, the idea of the advertisements are consistent everywhere. DANONE usually hire local agencies to adapt creative ideas in different countries but still manage to keep the health strategy consistent. Co-branding is a brand partnership, which is usually collaboration between two or more brands in order to enhance each other’s positioning vis-a-vis the target market. In the Middle East, Al Safi Dairy Company cobranded with DANONE to be able to adapt to the local cultures in a more convenient way. 7|Page

The Al Safi-DANONE center is available in the United Arab Emirates as well as other parts of the Gulf region.

Bottom-up creativity means that many agencies may submit ideas and the best one is selected and used globally. So basically, the company uses the strategy “Think globally, act locally” to minimize the cost while maximizing the satisfaction. DANONE create products by their knowledge of the specific needs of the country and culture they are targeting. Furthermore, DANONE used vertical coordination of decision on segmenting, targeting, and positioning. They maximize their ability to satisfy consumers; marketers segment the market for their products according to different consumer needs and preferences. There are many different ways or bases to segment a market and these include: •

Geographic Segmentation: Segmenting consumers according to their geographic location.

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Demographic Segmentation: Marketers frequently segment their market according to the demographic criteria such as age, gender, occupation, religion or even marital status.

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Psychographics Segmentation: Consumers are segmented according to the different lifestyles or according to their social class groupings or different personality types. In Ireland, for example, research shows young consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age could be segmented according to different lifestyle groups.

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Behavioral Segmentation: This involves segmenting consumers according to their knowledge of a product or the way in which they react towards a product. One way is by grouping consumers according to the benefits that they look for or the 8|Page

occasion on which they use a product. DANONE has, through its advertising, highlighted the benefits of a yogurt each morning, thus changing some traditional perceptions of yogurt as only for dessert.

DANONE’s main target ranges from children to teenagers to middle-aged men and women. DANONE has products such as flavored milk and yoghurt for children, “Crush” yoghurt for teenagers and Actimel and Activia for middleaged men and woman. Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, DANONE focuses on satisfying the UAE target market’s safety needs as DANONE’s products provide safety for the body since they are a healthy choice. When it comes to DANONE products, the UAE target market falls under the “Early Majority” level in Rodger’s Adoption Curve. The reason for that is because the UAE community, when linked to Hierarchy of Needs, cares more about other needs, such

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as Esteem, before Safety. That is why they are in the early majority rather than early adopters.

DANONE rebranded its operations to focus on a single priority: “bringing health through food to as many people as possible.” This positioning defines DANONE's innovation strategy. It was with this in mind that the company decided to sharpen its focus and reduce its business lines to three core sectors: fresh dairy products, beverages, and biscuits and cereal products.

Media Strategy The mass media DANONE uses in the United Arab Emirates include: 1. Print Media – magazines. 2. Broadcast Media – Radio (not in UAE) and Television. 3. Online Media – Internet (Website). Since DANONE is one of the world’s leading companies in fresh dairy products and bottled water; there are distributors of DANONE all over the world including the Middle East, Europe, the United States, Africa, Russia and Asia. DANONE can be advertised and therefore consumed more during different holidays and seasonal occasions. The seasons and holidays in the United Arab Emirates are different than other parts of the world. However, the UAE is a multicultural country where there is more than one culture with several religions. The religions in UAE are divided into Muslims and Non-Muslims.

o Muslims: 10 | P a g e

DANONE is connected to Muslims especially in Ramadan. The advertisements of DANONE increase in Ramadan and therefore the product consumption increases as well. This also happens during other occasions such as Eid and friends and family gatherings. o Non-Muslims: DANONE is linked to Non-Muslims in Thanksgiving as well as Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, and many others. During these occasions, non-Muslims usually host these gatherings during lunch or dinner time. In these holidays, the advertising and consumption of DANONE products increases.

Cultural Considerations DANONE advertisements and commercials are localized in each market yet maintain the same message. For example, commercials shown in the UAE are usually in Arabic and they use Arab men and women in the commercial. In order for DANONE to minimize the language barriers across borders, the company’s translator must be an effective copywriter; he or she must understand the product and be able to translate from learned language to native language. But for that to be accomplished, the advertisers of DANONE should provide easy-to-translate copy. DANONE needs to know certain characteristics of a country’s culture to ensure business success across borders. The best way to understand a culture, a company should analyze them using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension. The company needs to know whether the market they are targeting has a high or low power distance, collectivism or individualism, masculine or feminine, high or low uncertainty avoidance and long-term or short-term orientation. For example, DANONE should be aware that UAE has a high power

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distance, is a collectivism country, is masculine, has high uncertainty avoidance and also has a short-term orientation with products. Also, Hofstede’s Cultural Onion is made of three layers around the core. The core stands for values of certain cultures. The first layer is described as rituals, the second layer as heroes and the third layer is symbols. The UAE culture is mostly involved with the ritual such as prayers as well as late sleeping hours and Friday family gatherings. For DANONE, the most effective method for gathering useful, accurate and up-to-date information regarding cultural issues is laddering. Based on our text book Global Marketing and Advertising, laddering is a marketing research technique that has been developed to identify linkages between attributes, consequences and values. It is an in-depth one-to-one interviewing technique used to develop an understanding of how consumers translate product attributes into meaningful associations. For example, DANONE used the laddering technique for one of their products, Actimel, where the result was functional, emotional, self-expressive benefits as well as relative price. They found out that consumers associate DANONE products with ‘The Feel-Good’ factor, that it strengthens someone’s natural defenses and that consumers do good to their body by eating yoghurt rather than feel good.

The Promotional Message No matter how they advertise their products, DANONE has one main message, which is that their products are healthier options. The Executional Frameworks that they 12 | P a g e

use in their advertisements are demonstration, dramatization, fantasy, and slice-of-life. Some ads also used animation. Based on the research we conducted on DANONE and the analysis findings of the UAE market, we realized that the most suitable Executional Framework for any DANONE ad is a combination of “Slice of Life and fantasy.” The advertising appeals that are usually used are humor, music and emotions. The message strategy that is the most appropriate is Affective strategy because it is usually related to the target market’s lifestyle and the use of emotions.

DANONE uses the CAN elements in their ads: •

Connectedness – the ads create a connection with the audience in which the target audience is able to relate to the people used in the ads.

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Appropriateness – the message in the ads are a solution to an everyday problem that the target audience are facing.

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Novelty – the DANONE ads are unique, fresh and unexpected and they also appropriate and connected with the target audience.

Slogan Translation: Good health tastes great: ‫صحة جيدة مذاق رائع و‬

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References

French, S. (2008). Danone preliminary due diligence report. Ribound, F. (2003). Think global, act local. Mooij, M. (2010). Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes

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