Case overview: Matt Monkiewicz as the director of marketing for Kayem Foods, Inc., is

faced with a challenged problem about a small but fast-growing product, Al Fresco chicken

sausage. Matt Monkiewicz had implemented “buzz” marketing campaign in 2004. In a very

short time, Al Fresco has become the brand leader in its market niche. However, it was

unclear whether this result because of the buzz marketing or other marketing activities. Due

to some retail executives are unwilling to purchase Al Fresco’s chicken sausage because of

the buzz campaign, therefore, Mr. Monkiewicz has to decide whether to continue the buzz

campaign or implement other marketing activities for Al Fresco’s 2006 fiscal year with

limited time and limited budget

Introduction: Kayem Foods, Inc., is a meat processor, manufactures and markets meat

products, and is a medium-sized, held privately and controlled by family. It provides hot

dogs, chicken sausages, franks, and roast beef, as well as delicatessen meats, such as hams,

corn beef, pastrami, and loaves. Kayem Foods, Inc. was founded in 1909 and is based in

Chelsea, Massachusetts. In addition, Kayem’s primarily trading area is New England and

parts of the Mid-Atlantic area. Kayem sells a large number of meat products such as bologna,

salami, sausage, hot dogs, and hams. Nevertheless, the top-selling production is hot dogs. On

the side, the company owns several different brands that include Kayem, Genoa, McKenzie,

Al Fresco, and so on. Kayem is the most famous brand among all of these.

Situation Analysis: According to the research, it is noted that competition is pretty high in the

industry; Kayem Foods Inc. was number three with 3 percent market share, Al Fresco alone

had a 5.3 percent share in New England. Because the chicken sausage category is small, it is

not easy to obtain many specifics about competition. Purchasing power is moderate to high,

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due to the fact of low switching cost and ease of access to the product. Consumers can be

loyal to a certain brand, which is a benefit to some companies in the industry. Furthermore,

Consumers on average spend $16.95 each year in the target market, which is not very much

comparing to the food industry. The sausage market is seasonal, with price promotions and

coupon discounts during these periods could be very high. This can directly lead to an

extension of shelf space, because if a consumer cannot find their desired product, they can

easily purchase a similar product for a similar price. Barrier to entry the market is low due to

the fact of establishing high quality product at a reasonable price with good shelf space and

advertising. Supplier power is also low due to the fact that the low priced products in the

industry are located in all major grocery stores.

Our position: Matt Monkiewicz should not continue the “buzz” marketing campaign.

According to the case, the maximum expenditure of buzz marketing campaign is $75,000

($60,000+$15,000coupons), and is obviously lower than the budget, the company can spend

the rest on other activities. However, there are several weaknesses and potential threats of

conducting buzz marketing campaign. The following are the drawbacks of the buzz

campaign.

Weaknesses: The first one is buzz campaign has limited circulation; it can only reach the

people whom told by the BzzAgents. In addition, the buzz marketing campaign needs the

BzzAgent to try the new product first and then volunteered to have conversations with friends

and acquaintances, this method totally relied on the agent’s own creativity and enthusiasm for

the product. Another weakness is that retail executives are not impressed with the buzz

campaign; they are concerned about the campaign’s ability to construct the brand demands.

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For this reason, Kayem’s sales executives are unable to push more of the product to the retail

stores. At last, the company needs to implement more extra advertising and sales promotions

to increase the customer level if the “buzz” marketing campaign implemented.

Threats: as stated above, those BzzAgents are non-paid, thus, they may not be loyal to the

company. The bad thing is they may destroy the reputation of the product if they did not

satisfy with their sales promotions. Additionally, the buzz campaign is faced with some

potential ethical pressure from the public according to the case. Substantially, the buzz

marketing is using BzzAgents’ social networking to distribute the Al Fresco chicken sausage

information to their friends and relatives. They introduce the product to the surrounding

people due to their own interests, thus, it may not be a good idea to doing so. At last, the

product is unacceptable in the market after conducting the “buzz” marketing; according to the

BzzAgents’ reports, 72% of them hardly find the product in the market while 23% of them

never able to find the product.

Alternatives: There are several possible alternatives for Matt Monkiewicz to solve this

dilemmatic problem. First of all, he can implement the trade advertising which costs at least

$80,000, and with the break-even point 66,667 units(see Appendix). The advantage of this

alternative is helping the retailers to believe their sausage is in high demand with a high profit

margin. As a result, Kayem can sell the chicken sausage with a high demand to the retailers.

The second alternative is conducting the consumer price-off coupons with $90,000 expenses.

The break-even point is 75,000 units of this method. The advantage of this alternative is that

consumers can get incentives on purchasing this product, it will probably increase the sales

volume; however, the drawback to do so is in conflicts with Kayem’s desire to keep highly

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margins to off-set their lower profit lines. The last alternative for Matt Monkiewicz is

involving the advertising in specialty food magazines which with a high circulation. The

magazine will cover the approximate demographic profile of the Al Fresco customer. In

addition, the cost of the half page, one-quarter page of all the three magazines and the

circulations are in the appendix.

Recommendation: Kayem foods should use the budgeted $185,000 to run trade

advertisement, two advertisements in both food and cooking light food specialty magazines.

The implementation of these three ads helps to resolve the problems that Al Fresco brand

faces now: a new, largely unknown brand to consumers and further stimulate the demand in

this growing market. Due to the budget restriction, the placement of two 1/4 four-color

advertisements in both food specialty magazines is the cheapest way to increase broad brand

awareness in the target market. In another word, this way is cheaper to reach as many

potential customers as possible rather than entering another buzz campaign. In order to

impress potential customers, the ads can highlight some unique feature or selling point of Al

Fresco, such as freshness, natural and healthy and so on of. On the other hand, company can

also put a slogan on the ads, for example, “# 1 selling, healthy and natural choice” to

emphasize the features of its product. Overall, placing these ads in food magazines give

Kayem Foods Inc. the chance to leave their product in customer’s minds, which will

significantly help the company to build up a stable demand for their Al Fresco chicken

sausage in this market.

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