Wonder Bread Is One of the Bread Names for Bakery Products Owned by Hostess Brand
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Woods 1 Wonder Bread Introduction According to Hostess Brand Website, “Wonder Bread is one of the bread names for bakery products owned by Hostess Brand. Hostess Brands is among the nation’s largest and best-known providers of fresh-baked bread and sweet goods in the US with annual sales of $2.5 billion (est.). Our 20,000 employees operate 36 Bakeries nationwide; and approximately 6,000 delivery routes, 600 Distribution Centers, and 600+ Bakery Retail Outlets.” Hostess says that their products contribute to a balanced American lifestyle. They claim that they “embrace manufacturing practices that contribute to a safe environment and are firmly committed to creating a more sustainable future by shrinking [their] carbon footprint, eliminating waste, and preserving resources. [They] want to develop products that are fresh, great tasting and high quality is our goal.” The profitability of the Wonder depends on efficient operations, effective marketing, and a strong sales force. Today the market requires companies to be green oriented and be socially responsible. According to Hostess Brands, starting from 1996, it has been improving its formal commitment to sustainability It is characterized by five guiding principles: reduce, remove, reuse, recycle, and report (Hostess Brand Website). To help their consumers to make informed and healthy choices, the nutritional labeling on the products are clearly stated (Wonder Bread website). The Marketing Mix The marketing mix refers to the four P’s, product, price, place, and promotion. These four elements are the crucial activities that a marketing firm can control to influence their customers and respond to potential opportunities. The goal of firm’s is to create a product that offers some type of benefit or value to the consumer. The brand name Wonder bread offers three general types of products, Wonder White, Wonder Wheat, and Wonder Buns. Within these three categories, there are various types of white, wheat and buns available for the consumer. The value provided to the customer is quality, nutritional bread that consumers can trust in. In August 2009, Wonder reformulated its Classic bread varieties to include more nutritional value to change their image. Years ago, the packaging was simple white with the colorful Wonder logo. Now, the packaging is always clear, so that consumers can see the bread inside the packaging, and it has a colorful Wonder logo; each different type of bread has a specific title color, for example Classic White appears in red. The next element is price, or, everything the buyer gives up in exchange for the product. The price must be decided by marketers carefully to meet potential buyer’s beliefs and is all about capturing value for the customer. In regards to pricing strategy, Wonder bread is affordable bread available for all consumers and in comparison to other breads such as Pepperidge Farms and Nature’s Own, is fairly less expensive. Because the manufacturer does not suggest a retail price, retailers are able to price the product which allows for price flexibility. Place represents all the activities necessary to get the Wonder bread to the right customer when that consumer wants it. Place is about delivering the value to customers. Hostess, owner of Woods 2 Wonder bread, produces products that are distributed through a direct store delivery system of 6,000 routes serving 50,000 customers throughout the United States (Hostess Brand Website). The majority of the bread is sold through mass merchandisers and supermarkets such as Publix, Winn Dixie, Walmart, Target, HEB, Kroger’s and many more. Part of the success of Wonder brand bread is promotion; the purpose of promotion is to communicate the value of the product to the consumer. Wonder’s strategy for promoting is “at level”. This means that Wonder likes to make their bread available to every type of consumer. Based on their advertisements, it seems that it is targeted more towards families and children because it claims to “build strong bodies in 12 ways” (Hostess Brand Website). Wonder bread also recently launched its first national campaign titled “Always Wonder” to remind moms that that the new Smartwhite bread offers great nutritional value for their children (Wolff). It should be noted that even the best products will go unsold if marketers cannot communicate or promote their value to customer (Wolff). Consumer Behavior Process The consumer decision process is an important process which determines what product the consumer will purchase. This process ultimately answers the question as to why people buy products or services. There are five steps in this process. The decision process begins when the consumer recognizes that we or she has an unsatisfied need, in this case, a need for bread, and decides they would like to satisfy this need- this is called need recognition. Bread serves as both a functional and psychological need because the act of eating bread is to solve the problem of hunger, therefore functional, but that hunger could also be satisfied by eating something else, so it is also psychological. A consumer will then search for info about the options that he or she has to satisfy that need. Because buying bread has a relatively low risk and is inexpensive, most consumers will not spend that much time researching what type of bread to buy. Bread generally has no financial, psychological, or social risks so little or no research may be conducted besides simply looking at the different brands offered on the shelves and comparing promotions on different brands of bread. This step is called the search for information. After recognizing problem and exploring their options, a consumer will review the choices and evaluate the attractiveness of buying one type of bread over another, in other words, the evaluation of alternates. Consumers will look at the evaluative criteria, such as price, ingredients, reputation, taste, and nutrition facts, to help make their decision. To do this, consumers can look at Wonder bread packaging in the store, check the nutrition facts and compare ingredients to other alternatives such as Nature’s Own, Publix brand, and Sara Lee. Purchase and consumption is the next step consumers will take in this process. They will proceed to purchase the loaf of Wonder bread and later consume the product when they get home. Postpurchase is the behavior of the consumer after purchasing and consuming their good or service, in this case, Wonder bread. Marketers will hope that the consumers are satisfied with the bread because it has met their expectations. They hope that consumers surpass postpurchase cognitive dissonance to establish customer loyalty and solidify a relationship with their customer. Woods 3 Factors Influencing the Consumer Decision Process There are many factors that can influence purchase decisions, including psychological, situational, and social factors, and are also influenced by the marketing mix. Psychological factors that can affect a consumer’s purchase of Wonder bread would be physiological motives such as hunger, attitudes towards the advertisement of the brand, perception based on Wonder bread’s packaging, color, and taste, and lifestyle. For example, the consumers who are more health conscious will purchase a brand of bread that has a reputation for being healthy. In most recent years, Wonder bread has recognized a shift away from plain white bread to bread that has more nutritious value, in response, they have begun to sell white bread called Smartwhite which has the same nutritional value as wheat bread. Additionally, they have changed Wonder Classic White to contain the same amount of calcium as would provide an 8oz glass of milk and a significant source of vitamin D (Hostess Brand Website). Social factors such as family’s purchase decisions, reference groups, and culture will also affect a consumer’s purchase of Wonder bread. For example, an individual who lives in Miami, Florida and was raised in a Hispanic family might be more prone to buying Bimbo bread instead of Wonder bread compared with an individual who was raised in an all-American family living in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. Purchase situations such as shopping at Whole Foods instead of Publix, and shopping situations such as store atmosphere, salespeople, crowding, promotions, packaging, and the temporal state of the consumer are all purchase situations which will consequently affect purchase decisions. If a specific grocer is particularly crowded one day, the consumer may decide to leave and shop at another grocer which does not carry Wonder bread. If there is a promotion going on for Nature’s Own wheat bread, the customer may decide to purchase Nature’s Own Wheat Bread that day instead of Wonder bread Wheat Bread. Needs / Wants Bread is generally considered to satisfy a physiological need: hungry. Sliced bread helps people, especially working mothers, to save time for preparing their children’s meals. And Wonder Bread is the first bakery company that provided sliced bread. However, the company has been focusing to make people “want” Wonder Bread. In other words, by providing a vast gamma of different types of bread and by emphasizing their superior qualities Wonder Bread has been trying to elevate the need for white bread to a want. For instance, one does not need, but he or she wants the Texas toast because of its extreme softness that competitors do not offer. A new national trend is the preference for healthier food, so even the basic aliments like bread are interesting by this change in consumers’ preference, as our survey revealed too. Thus, one of the new marketers ‘objective is to make clear to the public that their brand name fulfills these requirements. In particular, given that a large part of the target market for Wonder Bread is constituted by children the matter is even more significant.