General Mills:

Yoplait Custard-Style Yogurt

Submitted By:
Bhupesh Verma 1011164
Kishoreraj T 1011322
Savita Elumalai 1011131
Selvakumar R 1011058
Vidhya D 1011218
Situational Analysis – Case A
The Yogurt Market
Comprised of three product segments
Not ver y popular – 45% American had not tried yogurt
Fragmented and Highly regional
Highly competitive
Fight for shelf space and inventory management
shift in the usage occasion of Yogurt from being a meal
to an evening snack.
Yoplait is a multiproduct company - considered
developing a Custard style yogurt
Custard-Style(Marketing issues )
Positioning ?
Premium product ?
Occasion positioning
Meal or dessert ?
Low on fruit and naturalnesss
Price ?
Packaging ?
Product development
Options for Name
Yoclair / Yofleur – To Position it differently from original
Yoplait yogurt
Yogourt classique / Crème de Yogourt – To bring out the
Frenchness aspect
Yoplait custard-style yogurt – Leverage the brand value
and position it as dessert snack

 Final decision – Yoplait custard-style yogurt because it

built on the brand name
Product development
Options for Size
4 oz. – The custard style yogurt was filling and hence
seemed adequate, appropriate for dessert positioning,
keeps the unit price down, suitable for children and
eliminates waste
6 0z. – To position it more as a snack than a meal
substitute.

 Final decision – 6 oz. because it scored highest in terms

of delivered profit margins
Product development
Options for Positioning
Meal substitute
Snack
Dessert
 Final decision – Snack as Custard-Style seemed more likely to
attract light users and nonusers

Options for Packaging

Unique conical plastic cup
Vercon cup
 Final decision – Vercon cup because of its higher score during the
random supermarket shoppers’ screening
Concept test Results
USP : Texture
Snack positioning – 6 oz vercon cup
Expand beyond yogurt target group
Estimated to add 36% incremental volume
Full fat product as consumers saw this product as a
snack and hence did not worry about nutrition.
No Fruit chunks in Yogurt
Product test market
Test market simulation (BASES)
BASES claimed advantages over other simulated test market
Less expensive
Did not require a finished commercial
 Decision – Since Yoplait’s plants were not ready for
production and impact of price sensitivity was to be studied,
BASES is a good method for the product’s test market
 But to get a true Marketplace evaluation, a Mini- Market test

could also be performed

Situational Analysis – Case B
Product chosen: Yoplait Custard Style yogurt in a 6 oz.
Vercon cup.
Saturated target segment: Aim is majorly to convert
other Yogurt users, not the non-users
Promotion: Frenchness, thickness, dessert image and
everyday use of Yoplait Custard-style
Price: Test done with prices 49c and 53c.
Mini Market Test
Advertising done on Radio and Newspaper – targeted
at women over 18
Product Sampling – Consumer promotion tactic using
in-store consumer sampling
Various trade deals
Consumer dynamics study – Three waves of
supermarket intercept study. Yogurt buyers were asked
questions about trial, repeat, future purchase interest,
product likes, dislikes and usage
Pros and Cons
Pros
Easily manageable due to the small size of the market and its proximity to
headquarters
True market experience
Costs significantly less than Full scale test market
Effective control over marketing variables
Cons
Highly regional – not a true national representation
Already a yoplaint market.
Limited test – Distribution was forced or controlled by the marketing
research firm
Doesn’t include the effect of different level of media and promotional
spending and also the effect of different prices on consumer buying
patterns
BASES test
Conducted in 12 geographically dispersed cities
200 respondents interviewed in each city.
Only a color print advertisement was shown
Questions asked on purchase intent, likes/dislikes of
the concept, price/value evalution, past category usage
before and after using Custurd style yogurt
Provided various exogenous variables for calculation
of Incremental value
Three national spending plans were simulated
Pros and Cons
 Pros
 Bigger impact of advertisements
 High PULL strategy

 Better national representative

 Estimates available for each region
 Effect of Price found out through interviews
 Estimation of potential steal, hence its effect on other Yoplait products can be found
out
 Based on extensive Empirical validation
 Effect of various levels of Media and promotion spending shown in the results
 Sensitivity to spending revealed
 Studies the price sensitivity ( priced at 53 cent compared to 49 in mini market test)
 Cons
 No study of distribution impact
 No real Market experience
Results
Mini market test
After adjusting for Radio media weight and stocking
level, Custard style volume would be 73-92% of
Original-style national potential, and total Yoplait
volume would be 168-207%
Percentage of Custard-style triers who repeated
consistently increased throughout the study.
Major reasons for buying : Flavor, natural fruit flavor and
texture
Results
BASES test
Incremental value of 57% under Plan A, 43% under Plan
B and 41% under Plan C
Cannibalization - 22% of Custard-Style volume would be
at the expense of Original style
Concept liked because of Flavor, Texture and nutrition
After use liking majorly because of Flavor and Texture
Copy testing
No significant differences in the pulling power of the
four executions
90% brand recall for Sanford commercial

The Sanford commercial can be chosen because it has a

very high brand recall. It also has a very high percentage
indicating the thick texture and Fruit in yogurt concept
which is important to position this as something more
dessert like and hence more premium than Original
style Yogurt.
Decisions
Region of Initial launch
The product must be first launched in East region,
because:
 Validates the steal % of custard style from Dannon’s
dominance
 Position for taste and texture against healthy Dannon’s
 Highest Purchase intent after use
 Highest Price/Value score on 5-point scale
 Highest After use liking rating
 Highest percentage of consumers found the product better

than expected
Decisions
Price
The price should definitely be more than Original style
yogurt because of its positioning as a dessert
Price was the second most stated reason for disliking the
product before trial but after use its share of mentions
were much lower
From BASES test we see that the Price/Value score
reduced after use in all regions
 Thus the price can be set around 55c-60c but its promotion
should be done as a premium product
Decisions
Media / Promotion spending
In the East, they can go for Plan A Media/Plan B
promotion. East is currently dominated by Dannon
which makes it necessary to spend on Media to gain
Market share. Also Year 2 consumer volume is very high
if they go for this plan.
In the west where Yoplait is already well known, more
can be spent on Promotion to steal away Dannon Yogurt
users. Hence here they can use Plan B Media/Plan A
promotion
Thank you