INCREASING BLUE BAND MARKET LEADERSHIP THROUGH CORE MARKETING REVAMP AND COMMUNITY BUILDING STRATEGY

• Main Author: Putri Lesmana, Anizabella
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/49230
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Blue Band is a margarine brand that have long existed in Indonesia with almost 85 years. With a long trajectory of existence in the market, it has always been a challenge for the brand in margarine category to stay relevant with its consumer. As a top of mind brand, the challenge also lies in how to keep the top marketing leadership within the category. To date, Margarine business in Indonesia has experienced decline and resulted in fewer penetration and decreased in purchasing due to lifestyle changes and relevancy issue, which makes margarine seems to be no longer needed in the household consumption. According to Kantar Eating our trends in 2018, the decline in Margarine happened in all margarine brands and also in all regions and SES. This can be concluded that the main behavior of Indonesia’s household is changing and it’s challenging the growth and sustainability of margarine as a meal prepping category. This issue reflected in Blue Band’s latest performance, even though Blue Band is still occupying close to half of market the growth contribution is mainly came from the Bulk size margarine. However, being on top of this segment does not mean that it’s an achievement for Blue Band. It is something to be aware of because the margarine competitors growing in terms of value share. Other than that, to the fact that currently the overall market is declining due to competitor product and other substitute product to replace margarine, customers are switching to lower price margarine and Blue Band’s marketing strategy that is being copied by competitor brands. Therefore, within these issues the challenge lies on how to increase and remain on the top of market share and stay relevant to the consumer. This final project will focus on marketing and branding strategy on how to increase Blue Band market share and stay relevant to the consumer by justifying Blue Band’s premium margarine, the differentiation to competitors and address the needs and relevancy to the consumer and also by analyzing competitive landscape in terms of competing brands, understand customer behavior toward competing brands despite the growing competitor brands and the shift in lifestyle. The methodology used in this final project is analysis on internal analysis which also includes the opinion and view from Blue Band’s marketing experts, external, and business analysis using Pest Model, Porter 5 Forces, VRIO, SWOT, Revamping the core marketing principle of Blue Band through STPD and 6Ps, and along with competitor and market analysis. Using all the methodology mentioned above it is shown that Blue band have not reached the aspects in to Sustainable Competitive Advantage, it might be winning in terms of margarine quality, but it is not enough to win the market and stay relevant to the consumer. Other than that, there still room for improvements on Blue Band’s promotional activities and brand differentiation to competitor in order to make Blue Band stand out and gain market share. Thus, this research come up with solutions on the marketing strategy for Blue Band through the redefining the STPD and 6Ps, 5A consumer path, also Omni Channel Marketing Strategy and Community building that can directly applied to Blue Band brand with the hope of rising the relevancy to the consumer, increasing the market share and differentiate Blue Band from other competitor.