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Marketing Mix

 

This marketing mix is focused on Chobani Greek Yogurt. It includes the 4 P's: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Product

  • Fresh and all natural

  • Wide variety of flavors and styles

  • No rBST, preservatives, and unnatural additives

The Chobani product range is characterized as high quality as the company uses only natural ingredients made out of real fruits, natural sweeteners, and leaves out preservatives. Besides using authentic straining mechanisms, ingredients are locally sourced and responsibly manufactured in order to ensure sustainability for the environment and the community (Cleveland, 2013).

 

Chobani’s products do not include milk protein concentrate, rBST and thickeners. The products are available in low-fat, non-fat, and high-in protein versions combined with a broad range of flavors, e.g. banana, strawberry, and chocolate, among many others. Products are available in wide variety of sizes and packaging such as tubes, bites and six packs (Chobani, 2014). The design of the package is kept minimalistic, focusing on the brand’s logo, flavor depiction and including the dietary facts shown in the pictures (PR News, 2013).

Place

  • Mass distribution through Grocery Stores

  • Dairy aisle placement

  • Regional factory in Australia

  • Supplying new markets

Chobani Yogurt is reaching its customers in the United States “through mass distribution channels of grocery store chains” (SBA, 2012), making it accessible to almost everyone for reasonable prices. Many Greek Yogurt brands were only sold in specialty stores, or gourmet and natural food aisles, whereas Chobani was insistently sold in the dairy aisle to reach out to the largest possible customer range (Ulukaya, 2013).

 

 

As Chobani’s goal is to source locally and provide a high-quality fresh product, their strategy is to produce as closely to a customer market as possible. Therefore, they created a production site in Australia, which was opened in 2012 and delivers Chobani Greek Yogurt to the Australian, Singaporean, and Malaysian market (Langley, 2014). The production sites in the United States deliver yogurt to consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Panama (Cazentre, 2014).

 

Additionally, they have created their own ‘Business to Consumer’ channel by opening a pop-up store called the Chobani SoHo Café in New York City, where their products are available for sale in many varieties (Chobani Soho, 2014).

 

 

Chobani has started to expand their brand overseas, and it has been extremely popular in Australia so far. Australia is known for their high quality food, and Chobani has a reputation for their nutritious and delicious Greek yogurt that has a high protein and low fat content. Chobani Australia is expanding the brand into nearby Asian Markets as well. The Managing Director of Chobani Australia, Peter Meek, concluded that “every market is unique, but what is consistent so far is that all early indicators show strong demand for Chobani Greek Yogurt in Asia” and that “the opportunity in Malaysia, similar to Singapore, came out of an overwhelming number or proactive requests from distributors” (Langley, 2014).

 

Chobani’s strategy is to capture the Asian market by satisfying their new needs for “wholesome, high protein yogurt made of milk, not powder” and will use a distribution strategy that will put Chobani “next to other premium, western products in high end stores, as well as in hotels that cater to business people and expats” (Langley, 2014). In 2012, they significantly expanded their manufacturing plant in Australia so that they can continue their vision of local growth and continue to expand their export into Asia Pacific. Chobani Australia will continue to sift through and identify the “best distribution partners from the unsolicited proposals they have been receiving since launching in Australia just over two years ago” (Langley, 2014).

Price

  • Affordable price - midrange

  • $1.14-$4.00

  • Sustainable pricing

Chobani prides itself on providing good quality yogurt at an affordable price. Their prices are cheaper than some high quality yogurt brands like Stonyfield Greek Yogurt, but more expensive than the more popular brands like Yoplait and Dannon (Chobani, 2014). Therefore Chobani’s products can be considered as being part of the middle price range, whose value ranges from $1.14 - $4.00 (Target, 2014). The quality of the product should encompass the price range.

 

Referring to a statement of the founder Hamdi Ulukaya, it is hard to determine the right unit selling price in order to fund future growth. He needed a lot of time to figure out the costs for cups, ingredients and labor. Therefore he created a simple model, which enabled calculating the exact price for making profits. By selling 20,000 cases per week, the company would break even. This is not a very high break even point, and if the product was successful in appealing to customers, Chobani would quickly make a profit and be able to reinvest in growth. This allowed Chobani to charge less than $1.50 a cup, and even though it is more expensive than some American brands, it is still competitively priced. Chobani avoids raising prices by initially creating a long-term sustainable price (Ulukaya, 2013).

 

Promotion

  • Social media campaigns

    • "Sad Breakfast" and "Go Real"

  • Sponsorship of the Olympics

  • Chobani Foundation

Chobani markets over many different channels and focuses on Social Media like Twitter, Facebook and their own blog. They have started different campaigns like the “Sad Breakfast” campaign, where they marketed a hashtag called #stopsadbreakfast, and encouraged customers to share their “sad breakfast” photos on the company’s social media platform by rewarding them with free samples in return (Loughlin, 2014).

 

Another successful national campaign is the “Go Real” campaign and has been advertised on Television, Facebook, Twitter, and print. This campaign promotes the Chobani values of all natural ingredients and sustainability. Through this campaign they reached the majority of their current and future customers, as they gave people the possibility to try the product, and to also directly give feedback about the product. This enabled Chobani to identify influencing factors and engage customers (PRN, 2014). Recently, Chobani has started to host several events, particularly in the Chobani SoHo Café, where they regularly offer free samples. This creates a more intensive customer experience (Loughlin, 2014).

 

Chobani’s media presence is strengthened through their sponsorship of the United States Paralympics Committee and the United States Olympic Team (Chobani, 2014). This promotion goes in line with their high protein products and the marketing of a healthy brand.

 

Chobani also creates a goodwill and sense of innovation with their projects like the “Food Incubator”. They support entrepreneurship by investing into innovative, healthy, and sustainable food start-ups (PRN, 2014). This project and several others are funded by 10% of company profits which are funneled into the ‘Chobani Foundation’ (Gibb, 2013).

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