The Saxonville Sausage case is related to a positioning problem this company is facing regarding one of their products. Before we develop this topic, we need to understand what is the current situation of this firm. Saxonville is a company specialized in the production of sausages. They have branded products (which account for 95% of their revenues) and store-branded products. Within the branded products category, they have three types of products: bratwurst, breakfast sausage and Vivio sausage. In recent years, Saxonville has seen two of their three main products face growth problems (people were starting to eat sausages on more special occasions, which damaged the breakfast sausage growth, and were also eating more often inside the house, which damaged the brats growth). However, Vivio was growing quite fast and Saxonville saw an opportunity to make their company more profitable. Still, there were a couple of problems regarding this product: it was only available in 16% of the nation’s large supermarkets and it had no positioning strategy. This lack of positioning was mainly due to the fact that the brand emerged from looking at what the competitors were doing, while also trying to spend the least amount of money possible. Moreover, senior management did not feel the need to conduct market research since the brand was growing quite well, without much effort from the company. As I mentioned earlier, Vivio was growing and senior management felt it was time that this brand was given an opportunity. For that, they relied on Ann Banks to create a positioning for this product. It was her objective to create a positioning that would not lead to the cannibalization of Saxonville’s products, that enabled the brand to be a national one and, most important, a brand that met customer’s needs. She was going to develop a customer based positioning, which tried to link the product benefits with the customer goals. In order to do that, she followed a 4-step process. The first step was to target customers to understand their behaviours and needs. Several characteristics were evaluated such as demographics (type of work, number of children, education), behaviours (what type of brand they purchased; if they bought Saxonville’s products), geographic (where were they from) and so on. Ann reached the conclusion that women were the main purchasers of this type of product and also the ones that cook it, so they should be considered when defining the positioning. The second step was a group session where they would test different positioning ideas. With this approach, they found out that all women wanted was to cook a meal that would please both their children and their husbands, and more importantly that made them feel like they were doing a good job. They also found out that there was no cannibalism problem between all their 3 main brands. Vivio was seen has a “healthier” sausage that could be used more often. Moreover, this Italian sausage was the one that made meals less difficult and time consuming to make (which solved a problem most women had), while it also pleased everyone in the family. In the third step the idea was to come up with actual positioning concepts and have consumers rank them. The four concepts they came up were: Family Connection, Love, Balance and Creative Cooking. These four concepts all had the same core value, which was to make the women feel they were doing a good job, while pleasing their entire family, but had different emotional benefits. The Family Connection emotional benefit was to feel like it was that meal that was bringing their family together. The emotional benefit of the Love concept was to make the time the women spent in the kitchen feel like a dedication of that time to their families instead of the contrary. The Balance concept had the emotional benefit of offering a product that allowed women to make meals that covered all important food groups in one. Finally, the emotional benefit of Creative Cooking was to show women they could come up with good meals, seven days a week with this product. After defining these four positioning concepts, Ann Banks asked the customers to rank them. The two select concepts were “Family Connection” and “Clever Cooking”. The rationale for choosing “Family Connection” was that most women expressed that one of the things they looked for was to create a meal that both their husbands and children love, which automatically will create a family connection since all the family is happy. The “Clever Cooking” was also chosen because women also like to be acknowledged by the work they did and by the effort they made when cooking these meals. We can see the positioning ladder for both concepts in the following table: Family Connection Clever Cooking
Value Woman is doing a good job Woman is doing a good job
Emotional Benefit Family is together Woman feels creative
Functional Benefit Appeals to all ages A simple meal becomes a special meal
Attributes Irresistible taste and aroma; Blend between fresh herbs and natural spices Real meal in few minutes; Recipes The fourth and final step is to choose a positioning for the company. In my opinion, “Clever Cooking” is a more feasible concept, especially in the long run. Although this concept did not score as well as the “Family Connection” (exhibit 9 and 11), this approach would be harder to duplicate because the companies would be perceived as copycats. Since the market strategy is so unique, it is unlikely that any other company is able to copy it. However, in the “Family Connection” case, this could easily happen. The idea of a big Italian family all gather round the table is an easy concept to duplicate. Moreover, this concept can leave out some families that feel this product is only being targeted at those big families.