Research assignment help on: FOSTER’S MARKET RESEARCH

1. Introduction

Fosters a well known Australian brand which is internationally distributed and is mainly famous for its well-known beer across the globe.  Foster’s Group is part of on e of the leading and largest brewing groups in the world called SAB Miller plc. The primary focus of Foster’s Group is on brewing activities and the major chunk of its sales revenues comes from the Carlton United Brewers which is the Pacific and Australian beer business, while the remaining portion of sales revenue comes from the International Beer (Overview: Fosters Group Ltd., n.d.).

The employee strength of fasters is approximately 2000, mostly in Australia and the products are being sold all across the globe in more than 45 countries. Fosters Group Limited is a publically listed company in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) (Overview: Fosters Group Ltd., n.d.) . The company which mainly does brewing for Fosters Lager is based at Melbourne, Victoria.

In the recent past it has achieved desired success through selling beer cans maximum in number. This market Research Plan covers a market research which will be done on the Holmes Institute Students for the Foster’s Airline which will be launched to gain a competitive edge over its competitors in the Australian market. This marketing Research Report will bring in detail whether the marketing plan chosen by the group is feasible and would deliver the desired outcomes for the company or not.

 2. Objectives

The overall marketing objective of Foster’s is to enhance an upgrade its promotional strategies so that it can expand its target market base and reach the new customer base in effective manner.

Some of the sub-objectives have been listed in detail below:

• To find the target audience for the  promotional campaign
• To find the competitors, customers and the existing clients who have not purchased Foster’s drinks within one year
• To find the advertising budget for the promotional campaign.
•  The promotional tool or the promotional vehicle which will be used by Foster’s in order to attract maximum number of customers towards it in order to gain a competitive edge.
•  Amongst the selected promotional techniques that is Sampling, Coupons and  Contests which one would be the best for the promotional campaign
• Ways for measuring the success of the developed promotional campaign
•  To find whether the promotional strategies followed by Foster’s Group are in total compliance with the State and Federal Laws or not.

3. Desk Research

3.1Purpose

In order to refine the objectives the secondary resources will be searched which will also help in providing lines of enquiry for the next stages of research. The desk research will especially help in finding out whether the promotional strategies which are being followed by Foster’s are in full compliance with the State and the Federal Laws of Australia or not. Studying various sites or matter related to the State and Federal Laws of Australia will help us in knowing whether the chosen promotional campaign is complaint with them or not during the desk research and many secondary sources like journals a, magazines etc. can be used for doing so. General information about the promotional campaigns followed by Foster’s Group can also be collected from various secondary sources (Bradley, 2008).

3.2 Population and Sampling

For population and sampling the Holmes Institute has following groups which are present in the campus:

Group1: Students (Age group 20- 30)

Group 2: Management and the Staff at the Holmes Institute

These are the only two groups which are available for survey (Bradley, 2008).

3.3 Procedure

The procedure would include first introducing the product and since we will be having an opportunity to introduce we will describe the product in detail and then show the product along with other likely competitors like United Breweries (UB Group).

4. Analysis

4.1 Marketing Mix Analysis

History:  The Company Foster was being established by two brothers R.R. Foster and W.M. Foster in the year 1986. The parent company SAB Miller runs the Foster’s Group which is a premium multi-beverage  and a global  company which is famous for delivering  very diverse portfolio of sprits, wine ,  cider non-alcohol and beer beverages in Australian as well as international markets. It has been considered that Foster’s is consumer driven brand and therefore the promotional campaign should also be consumer oriented to attract as many customers as possible (Das, 2009).

4.2 Market Positioning of Fosters

The stable to which Foster’s belongs is a very large and is world’s second largest beer company which has huge market share in Australia. It has been found that  Foster’s Australia’s VB (  Victoria Bitter Beer) has been enjoying the privilege of having the naming rights  for Australia’s Annual  one-day cricket series since the year 2003 (Sinclair, 2006).

4.3 Target markets

The main target markets for Foster’s is the youth and the targeting strategy of Foster’s can be presented as:

The promotional strategy included Foster’s is promoted as a light beer which is meant for the young consumer who just drinks beer. This young segment drinks beer merely for experience and not for the purpose of drinking. For the regular users and the other consumers, SAB Miller has been promoting Hayward’s 5000 as a strong beer. The young crowd and the first time drinkers is the biggest potential market along with college or office going youth (Antiessays, 2011).

4.3.1Product

• Premium Large Beer
•  Tastes fresh
• 70% of the Fosters sale in present market is from the pint-sized market.
• Amongst the two sizes which are  330ml and 650ml , the pint-size (330ml) has been promoted very aggressively
• The product Foster’s beer is a light beer, highly carbonated and has low bitterness with no aftertaste. This beer has very low calories and lower content of alcohol.
• New brand image was given to Fosters in 1993 and now it boasts of being third largest selling international beer brand which sells across four continents and is brewed in nine countries (Das, 2009).

4.3.2 Price

Fosters’ pricing strategy follows a premium pricing strategy for its products.

4.3.3Place

The SAB Miller factories are spread all across Australia and the general distribution structure of Foster’s is shown here:

4.3.4Promotion

•  The essence of Foster’s brand image depicts   typical “Australianness” and is promoted in the same manner in every market across the globe. All the advertising of Foster’s Lager is consistent with the Australian positioning.
• The overseas advertising of Foster’s is mainly focussed upon the Australian connotations of the beer e.g. it is in reference with the stereotypical Australian imagery like the hats with corks on the strings, kangaroos and the exaggerated accents.
• Foster’s is very highly committed to promoting responsible consumption.
• Foster’s association with cricket was campaigned  which included  online, sponsorship,  Point of sale,  TVC’s and  various other kinds of promotion which were built around the “ Talking Boony”, which is a  talking figurine  almost of the same size of the beer can (Williams, 2005).
•  In Australia Foster’s has developed a strong association with cricket and the ‘Talking Boony’ as campaign even won many  awards and applauds for its creativity and being highly innovative (Alarcon, 2008). This enhanced the popularity amongst the consumers too because 200,000 figurines were sold and 1900 were sold on eBay itself (Patterson, 2006).
• They have also launched a supporting campaign for men’s health called ‘November’ which increases awareness about male prostate cancer, testicular cancer and male depression too (Munro, 2006).
•  Foster’s directly does not give any kind of medical advice nor it does anything to  advise  people or youth about the vital rather complex medical issues related to alcohol, but the company tries its level best that the individuals get access to the best available information related to  alcohol and their health at the same time (Sivyer, 1990) .
• Foster’s is also steeping into men’s fashion apparels collection in order to get better brand visibility.

4.5 Competitor Analysis

UB is the major and the biggest competitor for Fosters because of the following reasons:

•  It holds 40% market share of beer market.
•  The market is getting more skewed towards strong beer and the percentage of market getting skewed towards it is 60%.
•  The company is mostly focussed on just strong beer.

The other competitors which Fosters will have to tackle are Shaw Wallace.

4.6 SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis will help in finding out the strengths and the opportunities for the Fosters which can be used for the promotional campaign and the threats and the weaknesses which it should overcome to successfully launch its promotional campaign (Antiessays, 2011).

5. Quantitative Research

A short questionnaire can be developed for getting the views of the target market or target groups. The target groups can either be contacted telephonically or through face-to-face interview by placing a small canopy of Foster’s in the campus of Holmes Institute. This is the most effective way of contacting the required and relevant respondents. Postal study is not being suggested and personal interviews too for the research because it would unnecessary increase the cost and moreover telephonic interview give the chance of selecting the target people in swift and accurate manner. This way the desired number and types of respondents can be achieved through qualitative research (Bradley, 2008).

5.1Purpose

The purpose of this quantitative research is to quantify how many young people would like to enjoy beer and whether they would go for pint or for the bigger can of beer.

5.2Population and Sampling

The decision has been made to carry out interviews in various groups of youngsters and as well a faculty and the staff which have been categorised as per their age groups or the classes they are studying and the faculty.

6.Impact of Research Answer on Business Decision

The Research answer will definitely impact the business decision because we are trying to choose the best promotional campaign which is within the advertising budget and caters maximum number of customers for Fosters Beer.

So if the research answer results show that the promotional campaign is good for the age group between 40-50 years then we cannot apply it to the target group identified from our research because our target group is mainly the youth which falls in the age group of 20-30 years.

From promotional point of view it has been found that the youth gets exhausted by the winning feeling so the best promotional campaign which can be applied over here is contests because then the young generation would definitely enjoy having a tough competition to win the contest and then earn Foster’s gift hampers or coupons. It is the family members or bit mature people who are fond of getting something for free. Moreover the young generation also loves cricket both in Australian continent as well as in Asia so the brand image associated with cricket which Foster’s enjoys will definitely attract many people to join these contests without additional marketing costs for the contests launched.

During the cricketing season along with its regular advertising Foster’s can utilise the same advertisements to launch new and fresh contests for the young generation to participate and win them to enjoy Foster’s.

6.1 Reliability and Validity of Research Results

The reliability of the results can be ensured through maintaining proper quality control. The interviewers are properly trained and supervised. Even all the fieldworks should meet the required industry standards. The validity is also ensured because the interviewees are real-time existing people and not fake person or machines so we will be getting reliable and authentic results.

6.2 Possible Sources of error and their Reduction

However the quality , reliability and the authenticity of results is totally ensured but there are few chances of error like the respondents might not understand the questions and give vague answers and in such case the result might get affected. Or the young students might get influenced by their peer’s answers and this will also impact the authenticity of the results. Moreover one limitation is that the results cannot be applied in general to all the consumers of Fosters because this market research is done on specific group of consumers which belongs to age group of 20-30.

7. Conclusion

Thus this promotional campaign which follows extensive marketing campaign has helped us in identifying the potential target audience for the promotional campaign. Thus the target audience is mainly the youth or the young generation who know that Foster’s beer is non-alcoholic and is a brand which is associated with their favourite sport that is cricket. The n we got to know the main competitors of Foster’s are the UB group and Shaw Wallace. The consumers we already know is the male and female who fall within the age group of 20-30 years are the main target audience. Mostly the people who haven’t even consumed Foster’s in the past 12 months also know the brand because of its popularity.

The promotional campaign should have a nominal advertising budget and the main tool or tech unique which will be used by the company would be promotional advertising through a contest which would be launched along with the foster’ s advertising campaigns  already playing on the television. This will make the whole promotional campaign very pocket friendly too.

Amongst all the promotional techniques which have been selected that are Sampling , Coupons and Contests the best suited one is the contests because the young generation likes fighting and then winning , so that would best suit and attract the main target audience for our promotional campaign . The results of the promotional campaign can be measured through the increase in the sales of the Foster’s and this is the most reliable method of measurement of effectiveness of Foster’s promotional campaign. Moreover we can check the brand awareness amongst the youth through a survey after the launch of the promotional campaign and better results for measurement can also be obtained by asking the contestants to fill a participation form online before joining the contest.

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