Bacardi Breezer and the Marketing Mix
Bacardi Breezer and the Marketing mix Following the success of Bacardi rum, created in 1829 (Smith, 2002) the company decided to diversify in 1994 launching Bacardi Breezers. These are “refreshing blend of Barcardi rum, fruit juices, exotic flavourings and sparkling mineral water” (http://www. thedrinkshop. com/products/nlpdetail. php? prodid=410) Bacardi were the first to launch ready-to-drink alchopops and are currently the market leader in the segment.
The Bacardi Breezers come in many different flavours such as , orange, line, pineapple, peach, grapefruit and cranberry. Bacardi also more recently brought out a half-sugar range with zesty lemon and raspberry flavours. Its fun colourful packaging with the distinctive bacardi logo is perfect for its target market of 18-24’s. I do feel that Breezers may possibly be aimed more towards females with how colourful the alco-pops are, however that does not mean to say that Breezers don’t appeal to males.
The packaging is the same for all bottles except the colour of the smaller labels determine the flavour of the alcopop being consumed. The bottles tend to only come in two different sizes, the smaller 275ml bottles which are most popular with the on-trade but are sold by both, and the 700ml bottle sold only by the off-trade. The 275ml bottles are also only available in 4 packs whereas competitors such as Smirnoff Ice sell 12 bottle packs.
The “core” benefit of Bacardi breezer as a product is that it gets the consumer intoxicated, however this is not the only reason for consumption. When planning a product the core benefit is turned into an actual product, which then become the tangible benefits “they need to develop product and service features, design, a quality level, a brand name and packaging. ” 1 (Armstrong, G. (2009) Marketing An Introduction. Essex, Pearson Education. ) So bacardi breezers product feature is its pre-mixed contents, its service features being helplines.
Its design being more colourful than Bacardi’s previous products makes it more attractive to the younger market its aimed at. Bacardi have set themselves a high quality level, “Breezer made the decision to maintain its premium pricing to reinforce its quality positioning and thus kept its price at the top of the range” (Case Study information. ) Having already established a brand name as Bacardi, Breezers packaging is very different to the core products as its fresh and modern rather than aiming for the more cosmopolitan market.
For Bacardi’s Augmented benefits however these are harder to distinguish as there is no need for installation or very much after sale service, although they do offer a warranty if you are not satisfied you can return the packaging and they will try to rectify the problem. Original Bacardi rum has a much simpler packaging which aims to interest its target market of women aged 25-39. In comparison to Breezers it is much more sophisticated and doesn’t have the playful edge that is associated with Breezers.
In my opinion Bacardi rum is more likely to be seen is cocktail bars and contemporary pubs, whereas Breezers are spotted in nightclubs and consumed by a younger group whilst getting ready for a night out. Bacardi have also diversified into other pre-mixed drinks and introduced Bacardi Siler targeted at 21-27 year old young professionals enjoy being in a bar situation but don’t necessarily like beer. (http://directmag. com/mag/marketing_million_push_rolls/) This also includes the mojito range which I feel makes it again more sophisticated than Breezers.
Price is the amount charged for a product or service, the following table shows prices of the off trade for Bacardi Breezers. This indicates a competitive as Bacardi have set premium prices compared to some competitors in order to maintain the quality level expected of them and also the image of a better product that competitors, however they tend to be around the same price as Smirnoff Ice and WKD in order to not be under-cut by these same quality competitors.
Therefore Bacardi take note of what their direct competitors are doing and to an extent follow suit afterwards. It is clear that as market leader there is enough demand for Breezers at a premium price to its lower quality competitors such as Caribbean Twist. It is hard however to determine the definite pricing strategy for Breezers as there isn’t enough widely spread information about Breezers marketing strategy this is because they are a private limited company and does not have to publish this information. The prices of on-trade prices vary widely from ? 2 to ? 3. 0 however most on-trade companies do not freely advertise their prices and therefore have more choice as to what to charge. It is clear however that in a social environment such as a nightclub prices will be higher than that of the off-trade as you are also paying for the experience. The on-trade tend to use value-added prices in order to make more of a profit. Through research I have found that there are few pubs which actually sell Breezers over the counter, but almost every nightclub sells them which further indicates that Breezers are targeted at the younger market.
The off-trade distribution channel for Bacardi Breezers is Producer -; Distribution centres -; Retailers -; Consumers. This is only a short channel of distribution, the reason for this is that Breezers do not need to go through many processes to be produced and therefore all production is in house. I feel that Bacardi could not use a distribution channel of only Producer -; Consumer as it is not that type of product and this way of distribution would not provide enough opportunity for marketing.
Supermarkets such as Tesco can also benefit from economies of scales due to the size of their organisations and can then pass some of these savings onto the consumers. The on-trade distribution channel is Producer -; Distribution centres -; Wholesalers -; Retailers -; Consumers. The on-trade have a longer distribution channel as they will have wholesalers, this is due to the lack or storage for nightclus and they will also then benefit from economies of scale.
The Breezer advertising campaign is very similar to that of WKD one of their competitors, Bacardi’s slogan is ‘Bacardi Breezer: there’s Latin spirit in everyone’ (Cozens, 1999) whereas WKD uses “Have you got a WKD side? ” (http://www. dooyoo. co. uk/drinks/wkd-blue/1305067/). It is clear that there is a huge focus on promotion for Breezers, this is known from the fact that they launched a ? 5. 6m advertising campaign in 1999.
This was their main promotion of Breezers since the launch and this was what established the widespread product knowledge of Breezers consumers. Bacardi also used advertising to keep themselves ahead of the competition, “they ensure that they spend more on advertising and promotion than any of their rivals” (Case Study information). This means that if consumers are seeing more promotion from Bacardi Breezers, they will stick in their mind more than competitors such as WKD and therefore means that they will be more inclined to buy Breezers rather than its competitors.
Bacardi Breezer – Segmentation and Targeting Bacardi Breezer, as said previously, targets 18-24’s specifically those who are party-goers. This target market I feel do not have very much brand loyalty, this is due to the fact that a vast amount of this market are students and tend to change their buying habits very often. This means that it may be difficult to keep the same customers, which is why Bacardi need to constantly innovate and also advertise as much as possible.
Their characteristics are the common interest in socialising and wanting a fun young alternative to beer and wine. Bacardi segments their market using their packaging for instance 18 year old will want the smaller 275ml bottle when they are out drinking in pubs and clubs whereas 24 year olds would want the larger 700ml bottles that are available to put in their fridges at home. This means that they have different advertising campaigns for each size as they are aimed at different market segments.
Bacardi uses the marketing mix by having different size bottles for their market segments and therefore having different prices as both ends of their target markets will have varying amounts of disposable income. Bacardi also use different types of promotion for the two alternatives in order to enable them to gain the interest of as many consumers as possible. Finally place is very important to how Bacardi targets their consumers as the younger end of their market buy more from the on-trade with the older ones purchasing increased amounts from the off-trade.
