Question
Assessment Task
In the current international economic environment, entrepreneurs and managers are frequently required to undertake business planning, project and consultancy work in addition to their core responsibilities. Frequently, these projects are focused upon investigating new business opportunities or potential strategic changes in order to create, retain and extend competitive position.
The assessment task is to produce a 7500 words (±10%) research project report based on an independent research, which investigates a business/organisational or management problem, issue or challenge, applies appropriate research techniques and analysis, and consequently informs the development of a business plan and/ or results in recommendations for change. Where the submission exceeds the stipulated word limit by more than 10%, the submission will only be marked up to and including the additional 10%.
Anything over this will not be included in the final grade for the assessment item. Abstracts, bibliographies, reference lists, appendices and footnotes are excluded from any word limit requirements.
Where a submission is notably under the word limit, the full submission will be marked on the extent to which the requirements of the assessment brief have been met.
Solution
Selected Title: To Evaluate the best strategy in harnessing brand awareness using experiential marketing in UK Food Industry. A case study of Arla Foods Company
Acknowledgement
It is with immense gratitude that I sincerely thank Prof. XXXXX who has been my supervisor I this business research project and module leader for constantly guiding me in the course of this project. I would also wish to appreciate all the respondents who have taken an active part in this survey where without their involvement, this project would not have been successfully finished.
A special thanks also to my college mates XXXXX, XXXXX, XXXX and XXXX for their consistent guidance, support and encouragement in the entire learning program. I would also like to thank my family for their understanding and support during the entire learning process.
Dedication
I dedicate this project to XXXX who has always been supporting me in the entire source and encouraged me at all times to work beyond the scope of my capabilities.
Abstract
In the current highly competitive business environments, brand awareness has ensured that an entity is in a position of controlling their market positioning and leverage on competitive advantage. In particular, the food industry is largely impacted by brand awareness and experience. Accordingly, the current study focused on critically evaluating the best practice in brand awareness by application of experiential marketing in United Kingdom (UK) food industry. For this study research aim, it similarly focused on evaluating the best practice for the food industry to ensure they harness their ability of success in marketing their products and leveraging on competitive advantage by achieving brand awareness. The data applied for meeting the identified objectives was sourced and analysed quantitatively. This study findings indicate that brand awareness has a significant influence on customers purchasing decision. The scope of influence is nevertheless of immense fonts owing to potential customer preference on brand as opposed to their opting on other existing options. The findings have evidenced existence of a direct correlation between brand awareness and success of an organisation experiential marketing and market operations. Through a successful brand awareness, the availability of the products to meet usability needs and readiness of customer purchasing intention. Finally, for improving the brand awareness in an organisation, this study has provided a set of recommendation to Arla organisation to improve their leverage on customer awareness, focusing on particular specialism areas, branding and capacity development of their experts and gradually transitioning from traditional brand awareness for avoiding industry disruptions.
Table of Contents
1.2 Research Problem Statement 5
1.5 Significance of the Study. 6
2.0 Chapter 2: Literature Review.. 8
2.2 Experiential Marketing and Brand Awareness Definitions 8
2.2.1 Experiential Marketing. 8
2.3 Experiential Marketing and Brand Awareness 10
3.6 Data Collection and Sampling. 13
3.7 Data Analysis Approach. 13
3.9 Reliability and Validity. 14
4.0 Chapter 4: Results and Discussion. 16
4.2 Reliability and Validity Testing. 16
4.4 Demographic and General Information Analysis 18
Indicators of the maturity of the UK Food Industry. 19
4.5 Impact of Experiential marketing on brand awareness in Arla Organisation. 19
4.6 Strategies for Improving Experiential Marketing for Promoting Customer Experience. 21
4.7 Challenges of Experiential Marketing in Arla Organisation. 22
5.0 Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations. 26
5.3 Future Research Suggestions 28
Appendix 1: Research Questionnaire. 35
Appendix 2: Research Ethics. 38
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Research Background
The food industry globally is classified as having immense influence on the economy in both advanced and developing countries. This influence is double-fold. For instance, research by Dube et al. (2021) note that the food industry represent a major source of employment and also access to food products at an affordable costs. Further, this influence on a country economic development and growth strategies in the country of focus. In UK context, Statistica (2021) note that in year 2020, food market in UK obtained an overall revenue of approximately 146 billion U.S. dollars. This was an increase of approximately 20 billion which had been incurred in 2019. This has also increased in 2021 as Statistica (2021a) note that they are worth US$160,452m with expectation for more growth in future. Within this context, evaluating the impact of employer branding and experience on customer purchasing decisions and the impact of experiential marketing in promoting the employer brand in the food industry.
In the past years, academicians and practitioners have focused on evaluating the case of brand awareness and role of experiential marketing and how this impact on customers purchasing decisions (García et al., 2018; Österle et al., 2018; Al Noor, 2019). In an industry context, this is characterised with a significant expenditure of the entire procurement and consumption process as they represent a significant area of procurement and essential goods sourcing. Despite of the intense demand of these products and services, there are multiple brands for consumers to select the best brand loyalty. Nonetheless, this is distinct from Fatoki and Fatoki (2020 study which note that majority of the consumers tend to have immense brands for similar food products to select from. Despite of the extant literature evidencing costs and multiple factors impacting on the movement of the food products, experiential marketing skills and agility of the providers ensure they are successful in the highly competitive food industry (Świtała et al., 2018).
In UK food industry which is the core area of focus for this study, there are important changes in the food sector which have been evident. Before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, UK food industry has attracted a significant growth as earlier noted. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its prevalence has contributed to issues with the food industry brands increasing. There nevertheless lack detailed literature which has evaluated the extent in which experiential marketing can impact on the brand awareness of different products.
1.2 Research Problem Statement
As a result of the prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic, this has contributed to immense changes in the food industry in UK. This is evidenced by Power et al. (2020) report which evidenced that the employer brand has a direct implication on the consumer purchasing behaviours and decision making. In the food industry, the unprecedented price variations and changes have elicited a direct implication on the organisation operations. In this regard, there is an urgent and prompt need for ensuring a success in achieving an appropriate employer brand. One of the consideration can entail adoption of experiential marketing. Also, Respati et al. (2018) note that the existing changes inform that organisations preference is on prices of their products as opposed to the brand image. Taking into account of the COVID-19 pandemic prevalence, it can be evidenced that organisations need to set sustainable systems which would positively contribute to appropriate brand awareness.
Undoubtedly, the existence of the identified measures evidenced the concerted efforts and input for making sure the food industry in UK is successful in its branding and improving customers choice and preferences. However, there prevail less research which has been pursued to investigate branding and branding experience measures and approaches positively impacting improvement of successful customer management. This is a major gap which the current study intended to fill through an evaluation of the scope in which brand awareness can be adopted in adjusting the clients purchasing preferences by branding and experience. This can also entail evaluating how experiential marketing strategies.
1.3 Aims and Objectives
This study aim is evaluating the impact of experiential marketing on creating brand awareness in UK food industry and particularly the Arla food company. To achieve this research aim, the objectives of this study include;
- To establish the level of adoption of experiential marketing in the UK food industry
- To investigate the role of experiential marketing in promoting customer experience in the UK food industry
- To investigate the challenges encountered by food sector companies in transitioning from the traditional marketing strategies to the modern experiential marketing
- To recommend the best strategy in implementing experiential marketing to promote brand awareness in the UK food industry
1.4 Research Questions
- What is the impact of experiential marketing in promoting the customer experience in the UK food industry?
- Which are the challenges faced in implementation of the experiential marketing for ensuring achievement of employee branding
1.5 Significance of the Study
This report has practical and theoretical significance. For practical significance, the findings assists in generating relevant insights pertaining to the role of experiential marketing for ensuring success of employer brand in the UK food industry. This is a significant marketing research which evidence experiential marketing as ensuring an integration of technology in the process (Urdea & Constantin, 2021). Hence, the current study will assist in noting on the uptake of experiential marketing by the UK food industry since this contribute to an increased efficacy of clients satisfaction, attraction and retention. Further, the current study would note on the challenges of guaranteeing success of the experiential marketing and best practice of the experiential marketing and its future development. As an area of the current study recommendations, a set of approaches could be used for ensuring the experiential marketing success and also the brand awareness in the food industry where Arla organisation operate. This note on the maturity of the UK food sector.
Theoretically, the significance of this research will be to develop and expand on the available literature of the various dimensions of experiential marketing and its influence on establishing successful brand awareness. To start with, it increase existing empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the experiential marketing for the brand awareness success. Secondly, a comparative information is generated on the approaches used by the food industry organisations for establishing successful brand awareness strategy. The past research works in this section has been constrained to developed nations and markets internationally.
1.6 Report Structure
Chapter 2 which follows provide an evaluation of extant literature on brand awareness and the impact of experiential marketing. The rationale of this is to establish a theoretical framework to substantiate sourced research findings. In chapter 3, research methodology factors applied as a guidance in data collection and analysis has been generated. It evidence that survey questionnaire is the preference. In chapter 4, the findings of the primary data has been provided with appropriate presentation generated. Lastly, chapter 5 include the conclusions and recommendations informed by the findings obtained of the current research.
2.0 Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Chapter Overview
This section provides an in-depth literature review pertaining to the relationship between brand awareness and application of experiential marketing. This section is structured into three main areas. The first area include reviewing of the past studies on the brand awareness and experiential marketing. In the second section, the existing literature on the impact of experiential marketing in improving the brand awareness has been evaluated. Also, the challenges and best practice in their mitigation has been evaluated in the third section. This literature would be later used in the subsequent phases of the research to analyse and discuss on the best practice in experiential marketing and improvement of brand awareness specifically in the food industry.
2.2 Experiential Marketing and Brand Awareness Definitions
2.2.1 Experiential Marketing
Experiential marketing is identified as a marketing concept broadly adopted marketing concept in distinct industries in the past. According to Yeh et al. (2019), Chouyluam et al. (2021) identify the experiential marketing as being popular in consumption as an alternative to information-processing context. In this regard, Singh and Söderlund (2020) identify the concepts of fantasies, feelings and fun (3Fs) as the core goals and criteria for success in consuming the experiential view. Basically, the experiential marketing focuses on a customer information-processing model to be converted to the pleasure-directed people interested with being amused, enjoying and sensory-emotive simulation process. Conversely, Atwal and Williams (2017) noted that the experiential marketing is primarily influenced by a total of 6 senses which are smell, vision, taste, hearing, touch and balance. However, the authors in unison agree to the fact that traditional marketing has failed in focusing on the experiences of the targeted audience. This has similarly been the case in Arla Foods Company which has not effectively implemented their experiential marketing.
Additionally, Datta (2017) note on different principles for conversion of the ordinary to extra-ordinary products. In this study, one of the principle identified included the provision of unique experience to the customers. Part of this included explaining rather than selling a product with their features with a preference of wrapping experiences in their practice. This is also supported by Liu and Gui (2017) noting on the Starbucks adopting the experiential marketing for obtaining unique customer experiences leading to the brand success. Nevertheless, Datta (2017) note that the experiential marketing is not always successful as they are characterised by immense time and also finances for their successful implementation. This has not been the case in Arla organisation which for example has ended up saving immense resources by the virtual of investing in experiential marketing strategy.
Despite of these negative implications, Nyberg and Soini (2017) note that the experiential marketing concept is significantly broad and is used in assisting in achieving clients satisfaction and loyalty. As such, the available studies have recommended on integration of experiential marketing and increasing long-term sales and profitability. Despite of the existence of detailed research, few sources have linked the experiential marketing in food sector which is the main area of the current study. Also, there exist a significant research gap on the best practice of organisations operations in their competitive business practices. For example, it is not clear from the research how Arla organisation operating in UK Food industry can ensure they achieve competitiveness and market dominance significantly.
Further, the available research indicate that a successful integration of experiential marketing strategies establish a holistic link informed by personalised needs which each clients have through emotional impetus. The implication of this is identified in Wiedmann et al. (2018) as transforming the actions of consumption into a memorable experience. Nevertheless, Gómez-Suárez et al. (2020) note that the experiential marketing core purpose is creating a holistic customer loyalty amongst the targeted market through emotions stimulations, design of positive experience around a particular product. Additionally, Lutfie and Marcelino (2020) identify the best practice in experiential marketing as creating communicating touchpoints around various products and services based on experiences with the concept identified as a critical tool for encouraging positive word-of-mouth. However, for the organisations which does not integrate experiential marketing, Yeh et al. (2019) noted the trend of organisations implementing the experiential marketing strategy as prioritising more and more by marketers for building brand intimacy which evidence the existence of a feeling of closeness leading from positive customer brand connection. This means that the experiential marketing represent a core factor of marketing approaches which have been applied significantly in various industries in the past few years.
2.2.2 Brand Awareness
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