"What is essential is invisible to the EYE"

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Mission Statement

Client: Kit Kat (nestle)

The mission domain here is to sell the product itself and to redesign their previous website. Hence, their USP has to be the core subject for the website. What the website has to offer are their varieties of products, their company profile/about us, their information and career, and contact us. From the aspects of the website provision, the vision will be to increase their sales products by at least 10%. Therefore the mission to achieve this is to increase the target consumer to actually access to the website to get more information. I believe that most consumer still remember their slogan of “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat”. Therefore, the slogan will still remain. The current website is really too complex and as for user experience they might lose interest based on the loading time and dodgy images. As a result, the user might find it difficult to delve deeper into the site. So, the mission to solve the problem is to have a simpler and clean design. To accomplish an increase in sales, we have to study the local consumer culture. Based on a small scale of survey, mostly Malaysian consumer tends to see what is inside the packages before they buy the product itself. Therefore, the image of the product itself sells. Other aspect of Malaysian consumer behavior is price conscience. However, this aspect has to segment it to different target audience. For example, middle income earner might prefer a fancier snack product and they did not mind spending a little bit more. In addition, most Malaysian consumer prefer imported product, hence the packaging that reach the global standardized do sell. Same as the website, when the image of the website can reach the global standard, the viewer will tend to be more interested. How this can be achieved is to make the website more interactive.

Kit Kat stands out more when we compared it as a snack chocolate confectionery product. So, their target audiences are witty and fun, especially the teenager range. Hence, based on the interactive session, video for the commercial product will be a good place to start. Video of the commercial has to tell their target audiences that, Kit Kat is a globalize product and the consumer will have such a privilege with a minimum cost.

Mission:

Increase the sales product

Increase the access of consumer to view the website

Remain the slogan to catch the consumer attention and to bring back nostalgic moment

Simplified and clean design

Uses images of the product itself to communicate with the consumer.

Localize based on consumer behavior to promote the product ~ Pay less gets more.

Video based commercial or animated commercial

Goal:

Achieve a global standard for the website and become an icon of the local nation.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Competitors Analysis

	Kit Kat (nestle)	Time Out (Cadbury)	Twix (Mars Inc)	Kinder Bueno (Ferrero)
Origin	Switzerland	UK	USA	Italy
Prices	RM1.99	RM2.49	RM2.79	RM3.
Packaging	Red, white and yellow	Blue, red and orange	Gold, red and white	White, dark orange, brown and light blue
Aisle in Hypermarket	Top shelf	Middle shelf	Top shelf	Bottom shelf
Manufacture	Malaysia	Australia	Australia	Australia
Type of chocolate	Milk chocolate	Milk chocolate	Milk chocolate	Hazelnut and Milk chocolate
Other ingredients	Wafer biscuits	Wafer biscuit and flakes	Caramel and wafer biscuit	Wafer biscuit
Popularity among Malaysian (high, medium, low) (based on self survey)	High	Medium	Low	Medium
Taste (based on personal point of view)	Sweet, chocolaty and not too milky	Very milky and the flakes tend to make the snack quite dry	The biscuit very soft and the caramel very sweet	Hazelnut chocolate make the whole snack bars very tasty but very sweet

The primary competitors for Kit Kat will be among the Cadbury “Time Out”, Mars Inc “Twix” and Ferrero “Kinder Bueno”. Among these three competitors, the most popular will be the “Time Out”. However, mostly Malaysian still prefers Kit Kat. Although Cadbury had been famous for its original milk chocolate, yet still when it comes to the snack bars, Kit Kat will be the first choice. Hence, we can see that the competitors trying to improvise the original wafer coated with milk chocolate with other ingredients, such as “Time Out” which inserted flakes, “Twix” combined with caramel flavor and “Kinder Bueno” using hazelnut chocolate. So their key differences from Kit Kat will be the ingredient. Consequently, from all the competitors, their promotion and marketing approach are using their key differences of unique selling point (their key ingredient) to differentiate themselves.

From the packaging point of view, Kit Kat definitely stands out more because of the striking red and convenient size. As general point of review, the design of a packaging is becoming increasingly important in all aspects of life. Consumers are definitely becoming more design conscious, demanding that goods are not only functional but are aesthetically pleasing. Lifestyles affect products and their packs, more people are eating on the move creating opportunities for chocolate bar-lines to compete in the snack market. Thus, comparison from all the competitors packaging, Kit Kat did a good job with their product picture snap shot in front of their packing which give a clearer meaning of what type of confectionery chocolate bar. Nevertheless, “Time Out” did a good job on their product name, because it straight forwardly telling the consumer that this is a snack bar. On the other hand, “Twix” packaging may be a bit dull and misleading, because their packing just have their product name and didn’t mention that what type of confectionery. On the same time, their gold packaging is not that appealing. As for “Kinder Bueno”, their packaging is interesting, in spite of this, the packaging is big and bulky compare with others.

From their marketing system, Cadbury tends to go towards the placement of their product. The key term will be “location, location, location”. Normally, their product will be placed on the middle shelf where it is the same eye level of most consumers (adults to teenagers). As for “Twix” they are not that concerned of their product placement, but their brand product of Mars Inc that carried all the way of recognition. Same as “Kinder Bueno”, they are not too concern on their product placement but their highly recognized brand of Ferraro that help to maintain their sales. While Kit Kat on the other hand, promote their product by inducing a lower price compare to the competitors. It might be from the reason of their manufactured ingredients which are mostly local that help them to lower down their price. This is their strength, because in the supply and demand mechanism, when the price is low, demand tends to go up (Who do not like cheaper price when it served the same purposes).