Pillsbury Cookie Challenge

Description

The Canadian Pillsbury ready-baked goods cookie line is experiencing disappointing performance, and the marketing manager at General Mills Canada Corporation is under pressure to make strategic decisions that will help turn around the segment. The marketing manager has engaged the help of the consumer insight team to conduct market research studies that will shed light on consumers and their attitudes, behaviours, and preferences towards the product. The results from the market research studies have arrived, and the students, assuming the role of the marketing manager, must filter through them to determine how this information can be used to improve the performance of the cookie segment. More specifically, students will need to determine where the greatest opportunities lie, who the team should target, what brand messaging is the most relevant, and what type of communication plan would be most effective.

Learning Objective

This case seeks to: ·Familiarize students with different types of consumer research and how it can help marketers make better decisions. ·Develop students’ ability to recognize relevant customer insights and to show how these insights can help determine strategies. ·Highlight ways to segment the market, other than by demographics.Explore ways in which marketing managers can improve business performance.

Keywords

Brand positioning Cross-cultural Differences Customer Segmentation Market research Value proposition