Pillsbury Cookie Challenge
Pillsbury cookie challenge case study states the difficulties facing Pillsbury Canadian division. The refrigerated baked goods category manager’s Ivan Guillen is having trouble to identify the reasons why cookies SKUs were not doing very well in Canada. Indeed, while being the most profitable product within the RBG category, its volume growth was remaining stagnant at around 1%. In order to develop the right marketing strategy, Guillen had to tackle the problem .
Pillsbury Canada’s RBG dominated the market with 85% share, but its cookie volume growth was stagnating at 1% while market penetration was only around 24%. This is why Guillen has asked for a market research to be conducted on the Canadian market.
The quantative analysis was very helpul as it revealed that there were effectively major differences with the U.S. market. Indeed, the study revealed that scratch users segment was far more bigger in Canada with 56% against 22% for its counterpart.
The research also revealed that the biggest purchase drivers were convenience and the entertaining nature of baking with kids. Besides, the main gaps with the US were significant within fun experience and product quality categories.
The qualitative research which followed undoubtedly gave an insight on Pillsbury’s brand users and lapsed users behaviours towards cookies baking experience. Indeed, most of the positive critics expressed by the surveyees tend to confirm the earliest results. The most significant trends were that mothers liked the product for its price, its convenience and the happiness it succeeded to deliver through its fun experience when baked at home with kids. The major finding were that lapsed users were less secure about using convenience products instead of baking from scratch. Nutritional value of the Pillsbury cookies was eventually perceived as an unsignificant factor.
In my opinion, the research seems to be incomplete. It is certainly useful to help develop a marketing strategy
Pillsbury Canada’s RBG dominated the market with 85% share, but its cookie volume growth was stagnating at 1% while market penetration was only around 24%. This is why Guillen has asked for a market research to be conducted on the Canadian market.
The quantative analysis was very helpul as it revealed that there were effectively major differences with the U.S. market. Indeed, the study revealed that scratch users segment was far more bigger in Canada with 56% against 22% for its counterpart.
The research also revealed that the biggest purchase drivers were convenience and the entertaining nature of baking with kids. Besides, the main gaps with the US were significant within fun experience and product quality categories.
The qualitative research which followed undoubtedly gave an insight on Pillsbury’s brand users and lapsed users behaviours towards cookies baking experience. Indeed, most of the positive critics expressed by the surveyees tend to confirm the earliest results. The most significant trends were that mothers liked the product for its price, its convenience and the happiness it succeeded to deliver through its fun experience when baked at home with kids. The major finding were that lapsed users were less secure about using convenience products instead of baking from scratch. Nutritional value of the Pillsbury cookies was eventually perceived as an unsignificant factor.
In my opinion, the research seems to be incomplete. It is certainly useful to help develop a marketing strategy