Strengthening
the position of
Gold Blend
On the 7th December 1992, 30 million viewers watched episode 12 of the
NescafŽ Gold Blend saga in which the hero Tony told Sharon - ÒI love you!Ó This was one of the high points of perhaps the most successful advertising campaign in this country in recent years. The success of the campaign rested on the fact that advertising had become drama and that the audience had become hooked on the storyline. More importantly, the audience was able to identify the advertising with the product and increases in sales could be clearly related to the campaign - for example, within a year of the romance going on air in November 1987, sales had risen by 12% and over the next few years, NescafŽ Gold Blend was able to grow its sales volume by 60%, creating a £100 million brand by 1996.
Positioning is a key aspect of marketing. The position of a product is the way it is perceived by consumers in terms of the key features they want to get out of the product i.e. those aspects which they see as giving value for money. This case study charts the success of the Gold Blend television saga in achieving the marketing aim of making the product accessible to the majority of coffee buyers. The case study then goes on to show how the packaging of Gold Blend and the product itself have both been improved to add to its enviable market success of today.
For example, in purchasing instant coffee, consumers may weigh up value for money in terms of price, the quality and taste of the coffee. We could represent these dimensions on a grid as follows: There are two parts to the television success story:
High quality and taste of coffee
The first part started in November 1987 and involved the development of an extraordinarily successful campaign.
The second part started in November 1993 and shows how the success was broadened to attract a younger target audience.
It shows how NestlŽ understood