Fat Tax Case

The great sugar battle: are more fat taxes on the way?
1. The beverage industry is under attack from activists, government bodies, legislators, scientists, and other. What do these stakeholders associate with soft drinks? List as many descriptors, images, feeling, judgments, and people until you have exhausted your list. you may have ideas, images, attributes, associated with some of the associates (Example; obese teens-high healthcare cost).
1) Activists: Supporters will say the fat tax is good for people’s health, and support government to do the fat tax. However, opponent will say it is not fair to customers and beverage companies. Because, it means customers need to pay more for the soft drink, and beverage companies also need to pay
more for the tax.
2) Government: With the obese teens-high healthcare cost increase, more and more health problem need to be pay attention. Adult also have more serious problem on it, which bring much pressure to government. Therefore, the fat tax can reduce the rate of fat issue, and the tax also brings much more revenue for government.
3) Legislators: Legislators can make more legislation for reduce the amount of American fat people. Although there are more complaints from customers and related companies, it still can directly to help people away from the unhealthy food.
Scientists can create more new beverage for people to instead of the soft drink.
4) Beverage industry: The food and beverage industries are complex and broad in scope. Nowadays, the current diet trends like "low carb”. So the companies must to follow it and develop new beverage for customers. This is why there is “diet coca” occurred, but I think it is not good one compare to classical coca. According to some survey, most people still would like to buy classical soft drink, but if there is more fat tax need to pay, it is also a good opportunity for companies to create new beverage to attract customers. Actually, I think the fat tax may doesn’t work, because if some people really like soft drink, it cannot stop them from buying. In addition, the tax should not only focus on the soft drinks but also the fat food industry. The most important thing is help people keep away from unhealthy food by education.
Government---tax income increase; scientists---sugar substitute;
Fast food industry---sales decrease; beverage industry employees---high layoff rate

2.
Should the local government (cities, states) get involved or should companies who make these brands work together to solve the industry "brand" problem? Provide the rationale and potential consequences for your choice. How might any given company use this situation as an opportunity to create a new sub-category of beverages that could make soft drinks less relevant to a particular target segment?
(1) Rational: Government should give the companies some help to build the brand to solve the fat tax problem. If government wants to focus on fat tax, it must to support beverage companies. Because the fat tax affect the income of companies, and these companies must complaint the fat tax. In order to avoid some debates, government must to perform its responsibility and obligation. In addition, companies also need to work together to help each other to reduce the losses, and develop new style beverage to save company’s brand and customers. Potential: Brand is a long-term thing need to be operation, and every company needs its brand to stand longer to get income. Therefore, it is a kind of future goal or a long project to develop and create products for beverage companies when they are facing the effect of tax fat. This is not only an opportunity but also a challenge, so how to get help from government or how to work together with others are very
important.
(2) Marketing: Companies should do analysis for the beverage market, which can help them to decide what kind of products should to be launched. Delivering customer value: The central idea behind marketing is the idea that a firm or other entity will create something of value to one or more customers who, in turn, are willing to pay enough to make the venture worthwhile considering opportunity costs.
It should be noted that value must be examined from the point of view of the customer. Some forms of customer value: The marketing process involves ways that value can be created for the customer. Form utility involves the idea that the product is made available to the consumer in some form that is more useful than any commodities that are used to create it. The marketing vs. the selling concept: Two approaches to marketing exist. The traditional selling concept emphasizes selling existing products. The philosophy here is that if a product is not selling, more aggressive measures must be taken to sell it—e.g., cutting price, advertising more, or hiring more aggressive sales-people. When the soft drink’s tax is increase, it means less people would like to buy it. Therefore, more and more new sub-categories need to be launched and face to market. Then, it is a great opportunity for some beverage companies to produce new products.
Fighting the fat
battle
1. Through the experiments of low fats in vegetarian diets and high unrefined carbohydrates with moderate exercise, Nathan Pritikin found that way which stood opposite of the common medical advice could reverse heart disease, later he opened a longevity center and spa and published a book based on his diet, The Pritikin Program of Diet and Exercise. Dean Ornish wrote series of books to advocate his theory that no more than 10 percent of the diet should come from fat and that the nuts and fish should be avoided by dieters. Ancel Keys, based on his cross country study of sampling twelve thousand men that focus on the relevance of diet and heart diseases, published results showed that fat from olive oil was helpful in reversing the heart diseases. In addition, fish, poultry and wine should be moderated put in the diet. The gurus and scientists were not completely correct in their research findings and it was not a big issue for the impact on influencing the diet program. The final success established upon the past studies and researches, even based on the mistakes it made.
2. Through passing or repealing an act or a law, the government could help to create opportunities for new categories/sub-categories. For example, the nonfat innovation started as the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was repealing in 1973. The laws could also affects brands. P&G’s Crisco was a trans fat product date from a hundred years ago, which was considered harmful after 2002 and was banned in some states after 2005. The disadvantage of government regulation is sometimes it could not be changed eventually with the researches and theories changed. There might be complicated relationships between the diets and diseases. For example, the saturated fats might not the only reason to cause the increase of the heart diseases in America, the fewer fruits and vegetables intake could be relevant.
3. SnackWell’s fat free categories got success in the early 1990s low-fat diets which led by gurus such as Pritikin, Ornish, and others, who advocate a low fat diet to reverse the heart diseases. Three reasons to explain the collapse of SnackWell’s sales from the late 1990s. The key target market was not interested in low-fat products taste, the the low-fat cookies could not offer enough energy, and the scientific study showed that low-fat food was not a way to lose weight. In the early years, Oreo put more efforts on creating low-fat categories with saturated fat, after that Oreo tried to balance the calories and tastes with trans fat, finally, a acceptable taste and texture products without trans fat led the sales increased as the trans fat was considered not safe for the body. In 2007, Nabisco pioneered 100-calories packs of snacks to meet the needs of weight control by consumers.