Saxonville Sausage Company

1. SAXONVILLE SAUSAGE
COMPANY
SHIVAM VERMA
IIT DELHI
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL BRIEF CASE

2. SAXONVILLE SAUSAGE COMPANY
 Saxonville was a 70-year-old, privately held family
business headquartered in Saxonville, Ohio
 2005 revenues of approximately $1.5 billion
 Variety of pork fresh sausage as opposed to smoked or
semi-dried
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3. BRANDS
 Bratwurst (70% of Saxonville’s revenues)
 Breakfast sausage, both links and patties (20% of revenues)
 Italian sausage named Vivio (5% of revenues)
 Store brand products accounted for the additional 5% of
revenues
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4. PEOPLE
 Ann Banks new Product Marketing Director
 Laura Bishop Director of Market Research
 Steve Sears Vice President of Marketing
 Liz Keller a top brand Consultant
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5. SITUATION
 Products sold through U.S. via national and regional brokers and
distributors
 Little distribution in north-eastern markets
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6. SITUATION (VIVIO THE BRAND)
First entered the Italian sausage market in
2002 in the Northeast
Priced comparably to other regional Italian
sausages
First six months, shoppers tried it at a discount
A brand was born
Established relationships to introduce
bratwurst to the eastern U.S.
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7. SITUATION
Bratwurst sales had been flat
Breakfast sausage had underperformed the market
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Double-digit revenue decline
in December 2005
Italian Sausage 9% in 2004 & 15% in 2005
Vivio had matched level of category growth
Available in just 16% of nation’s large supermarkets

8. THE CHALLENGE
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Breakfast Category—
Not enough spending to compete
with the big players
Fewer people are serving
Eaten more at special occasions
and on weekends
Bratwurst Category
Fired their ad agency mid-year
Too late for campaign developed
and fielded
Mainly prepared at outdoor
barbeques

9. THE CHALLENGE (VIVIO)
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What is the ideal name for Saxonville’s
line of Italian Sausage?
Should a national entrant continue with
the vivio brand name or have a
different Italianate name ?
Utilize the Saxonville name to leverage
the company’s heritage and brand
equity ?

10. POSITIONING OF VIVIO
A Styrofoam tray covered
in plastic wrap, with a label
depicting coiled links of
sausage next to a head of
garlic and an old-fashioned
sausage grinder
The label covers most of
the package, leaving
enough space so you can
see the ‘look’ of the
sausage inside
It says ‘Vivio fresh Italian
sausage’ and has an Italian
flag in one corner
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11. REGIONAL COMPETITIVE POSITIONING
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Mama Mia
• ‘Authentic Italian Heritage’
Hertfordshire
• ‘Freshly and locally made’
Paglia Brothers
• Italian name
• ‘locally grown’

12. ‘PROJECT SCORE’
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10 Colleagues from R&D, packaging and graphics, marketing and
sales department.

13. ‘PROJECT SCORE’
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 Summary of business Saxonville Sausage Brand and Market Facts
 brand’s available line items by form and flavour Vivio 2005 Sales Performance

14. WHY HAS NO ONE REALIZED THE OPPORTUNITY TO
DEVELOP A NATIONAL ITALIAN SAUSAGE BRAND?
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 Local brands have played up their ‘home grown’ heritage—the whole farm-to-
market idea
 Reluctance to think creatively about how to distribute outside your core
geography
 What about one of the national giants like Billy Bob or Country Home?
 Reconfiguring their whole distribution network to play in this category

15. RESEARCHING AND EVALUATING THE ITALIAN
OPPORTUNITY
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 Four step positioning process
 Qualitative research with target consumers to understand their behaviors and needs
 Sequential round of consumer sessions, where we’ll use the language we’ve heard to
develop and then gain reactions to different positioning ideas
 Refine all the new learning into actual concepts and have consumers prioritize and
improve them
 The concepts are put through monadic3 testing, we look at the purchase intent scores
the testing generates

16. STEP ONE
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Phase I
•4 highly interactive groups of 4-6 men &
women aged 25-50
•Confirm basic information presented in
Attitude and Usage Data
Phase II
•A&U data for recruiting participants
•Understand current behaviors, triggers
to purchase, and unmet needs
•Get a clear understanding of product
benefits
•Attributes and ideals
•To develop a solid feel for core values
and the role the product plays
•103/437 females in focus groups
primary purchasers and preparers of
Italian sausage

17. STEP TWO 17
 Focus Group Synopsis
analysed by every member
 Women felt they had to
trade off the time and skill to
prepare an evening meal
against the family members
it would please

18. STEP TWO 18
 Focus Group Synopsis
analysed by every member
 Women felt they had to
trade off the time and skill to
prepare an evening meal
against the family members
it would please

19. STEP TWO 19
Family Connection
Clever
Cooking
Confidence Appreciation
Quick and
Easy
Tradition
6 Potential bases for Positioning

20. STEP THREE 20
• Discerning good taste
Value
• Makes me feel like a gourmet cook
Emotional Benefit
• Flavour enhancement that makes even the best recipes taste unbelievably better
Functional Benefit
• Smooth and light texture
Attributes
Brand Laddering example gourmet cooking oil

21. STEP THREE 21
Italian Sausage-using Consumer Positioning Concept Voting

22. STEP FOUR 22
 Based on qualitative research
 Family connection closest to target customers core
 Would be easier to provide tactical support for the Clever Cooking
positioning
 Quantitative testing settled the differences

23. STEP FOUR 23
Italian Sausage Concept Assessment

24. STEP FOUR 24
 ‘Family connection’ scored better than ‘clever thinking’ maybe
because
 Familiarity with existing brands
 Authentic Italian heritage
 Positioning inherently more motivating
 But was the “Clever Cooking” idea more distinctive and durable?

25. STEP FOUR 25
 The group discussed how advertising look and feel, packaging,
product attribute, name, considering sub-branding
 Picked the winner from the two final concepts.

26. SWOT ANALYSIS
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•29 local competitors
•Risk of cannibalization with
bratwurst
•Change of distribution network
•Growing markets
•No national competiton
•Exploit saxonville’s brand
•German company, Italian
brand
•Advertising campaign
•Unclear positioning
•National Distribution Network
•Strong Brand Recognition
Strength Weakness
ThreatsOpportunities

27. 3 C’S 27
Company
CustomerCompetitor
Sausage company
German company located in U.S.
Family, restaurants and
fast food joints
Barbeques, grilling
National products
National and local
competitors, declining
sales of 2 products
Opportunity in one
product

28. 4 P’S
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Product
Place
Promotion
Price
• Homogeneous and consumer
class product
• Vivio already known by people
• Fresh ingredients are highly
visible
• Distribution channel
already in place due
to other national
products
• National market
availability
• Sell at a premium
(indicates quality)
• Not to over price-
local competition and
their positioning
• Advertising (websites,
newspaper, magazines etc.)
• Publicity on festivals, public
events, special occasions
• Careful target audience
• Complements, coupons,
discounts
• Strong Italian image to
promote heritage

29. MATCHING TARGET WITH VALUES 29
Segmentation
• Geographic
• Demographic
• Psychographic
• Behavioural
Target
• Families
• Middle aged
females
• Outing people
Value
• Creativity
• Easy availability
and quick
processibility
• Valuable time
with family
• Good nutrition
value

30. CONCLUSION ? 30

31. CONCLUSION 31
 Family Connection is most strong position and is suitably addresses the whole family
because the females manages the kitchen and binds the family during family meals
 Brand vivio is already well known by people locally and can help it to popular
nationally
 Changing names may create confusion for loyal customers
 ‘It welcomes you in’ can also bring it to use in parties and other get together once it
is known for bringing people together.

32. CREDITS 32
All Photos are taken from google images

33. 33
THANK YOU

34. DISCLAIMER
Created by Shivam Verma, IIT Delhi, during an internship with Prof.
Sameer Mathur,
IIM Lucknow,www.IIMInternship.com ”
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