Comparison of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Brands

This report compares the target market, products, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional techniques of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's ice cream brands. It highlights the unique features and brand values of each brand and analyzes their success in applying the 4Ps of marketing.

Principles of marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Target market...............................................................................................................................4
Product.........................................................................................................................................4
Price.............................................................................................................................................5
Place.............................................................................................................................................6
Promotion....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The aim of the report is to compare the target market of Haagen-Dazs ice cream and Ban &
Jerry’s ice cream. The report also focuses on evaluation of their products and brand values,
evaluation of the pricing strategies used by both the companies. The technique by which these
organization distributes their brands and products and the way they communicate their brands
will also be discussed in the further report. It identified that both the brands have premium
pricing and their mix of products are unique. Both have different brand values and promotes their
brand by applying out of the box techniques. Both the brands have global reach.
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INTRODUCTION
The aim of the report is to developing target market profile, analyse the product mix, place
mix, price mix and also promotion mix of Haagen-Dazs and Ben and jerry’s ice cream brands.
Haagen-Dazs is an ice cream brands of America which was founded in 1960 and now has many
franchise around the world including UK, Australia., South Africa, India, New Zealand etc. The
market share in US of this brand is 8.4% and the market size in recent survey was 132.8 million
units. Ben & Jerry’s is an ice cream brand which was founded in 1978 and has its headquarters in
US. The market share of this brand is 8.7% and market size is 150.9 million units.
MAIN BODY
Target market
Target market are those potential consumers to which the company wants to sell their products
and services. It involves segmenting the market and planning strategies for each segment. It is
important to target the market as it gives direction to the brand and makes their strategy
development process easier (Singh, 2018). It also helps to put their efforts on the customers that
can give the company a better sales growth.
Haagen-Dazs target market consist of youngsters which are in the age group of 15 to 35 and
lives in urban areas. They segmented their customers who are adventurous people and have good
purchasing power. This segment considers quality as the priority when buying consumable items
and also they are trendy and likes to try new things. They targeted those customers who love
luxurious ice creams flavours. They portrays the image of classy ice cream brand with exotic
flavours like Belgium chocolate, Mayan chocolate.
Ben & Jerry’s target market consist of the people who are between the age brackets of 5 to 35.
They categorized this group as fun-seeking children and pleasure loving adults who are
innovative, trend following and brand conscious. They segmented the customers who are young,
smart and people who care for environment. They targeted those customers who live in cities and
are fond of cinema, movies, fashion, web etc. The names of their ice cream are funny like the
Vermonter, caramel chew chew !, New York super fudge chunk.
Product
A product is something that has some value to satisfy customers. It is simply a bundle of benefits
which the marketers offer and charge a price for it (Mayer, Melitz. and Ottaviano, 2016). Product
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planning, development, design, innovation, standardization and branding all comes under
managing the product.
Haagen-Dazs ice cream have decadent new twist which is when paired with thick cookie layer
and also coated with crisp chocolate in Dulce De Leche and vanilla ice cream. Sometimes Dulce
De Leche is also coated in crispy milk chocolate and drizzle dark chocolate. The packaging of
Haagen-Dazs have eye-catching and enlarged ingredient for proper visibility. The logo of the
brand on the product will also be enlarged to make their brand stand out. The new look of
packaging is sophisticated is subtle and has gold symphony ribbon design which indicates a
brand’s luxury heritage. The pack is the combination of chocolate brown and white colour. It has
the brand values like luxury products, super premium ice creams which has no additives or
colorants agents, dedicated to perfection and high standards (Roux, Tafani. and Vigneron, 2017).
Ben & Jerry’s
They have used human emotions in building their brand and created an emotional story about
long term relationship of two people who were childhood friends and struggles to build and
business. They also they also used the phrase “a brand package is designed to satisfy consumers;
functional and emotional needs” and in this ways they differentiated their brand. They also used
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paperboard containers and carry a corporate social
responsibility. Due to this they created an emotional connection with the consumers by using
environmental friendly ingredients. It has a very playful colour scheme and has certain brand
values such as – fair trade, cage-free eggs, sustainable and fair practices for milk production.
Price
Price is the value of products that the customers is willing to pay in exchange of the product and
service. When fixing the price of ice cream both the companies keep the following things in
mind which are demand for the product, customers’ ability and willingness to pay, the cost
incurred and also the prices charged by the competitors (Argade, 2020). Haagen-Dazs and Ben
& Jerry’s have some similar products but have different pricing scheme. The below table show
the difference in prices of the two.
Products Haagen-Dazs (Avg Price in
pound)
Ben & Jerry’s(Avg Price in
pound)
Ice cream 1.96 2.28
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As per the table it can be seen that Haagen-Dazs and Ben & jerry’s ice cream range are
somewhat similar, there is a very minute difference between the pieces of both the brands. They
both come under the premium price segment. But comparatively the range of Ben & Jerry’s is
higher than Haagen-Dazs.
Haagen-Dazs is little bit costly but also worth it according to the quality. They follow a value-
based strategy that heavily invest in product quality. Even after their premium pricing they have
able to capture large amount of customers and also able to receive support from them and
performing good in the global market. Most of the company offer low price to attract customers
but it is not the case with Haagen-Dazs they focus on including finest and purest ingredients.
Also they do not provide any discounts and offer for premium quality ice creams.
Ben & Jerry’s use geographical pricing and competitor oriented strategy for pricing their ice
cream. The prices of this company is as per the ingredients used in the ice cream. And since they
use all natural and free trade products therefore their pricing is higher.
Place
Place is the point of sale. The main aim of place strategy is to attract customer and making an
eye-catching impact on them. The company makes an effort to position and distribute the
product in a place which is accessible to potential buyers. It involves various parties like chain of
individuals and institutions such as distributors, wholesalers, retailers and others who are
involved in the network (Argade, 2020). These channels are like pipeline through which goods
are transferred from the manufacturer to consumers. In this the company decides whether to sell
the products directly or through these channels. When Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s decides
over channel management they consider the following such as geographical concentration of
customers, selecting suitable distribution channel, they also develop logistics management for
better distribution of products.
Haagen-Dazs have tried to keep their locations on prime streets, malls, cafes and those location
where there are many youngsters. They also take care about the comfort of the customers as their
shops or cafes provide comfortable sitting place for customers and also couples. They have a set
up with dim light bulb. Their stores are located globally in France, Spain etc.
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Ben & Jerry’s have many parlours at numerous locations. They are also offered in grocery
stores, Wal-Mart and shoppers Drug Mart. They globally have various scoop shops. They have
their presence all around the world like Austria, US, Japan, France, Ireland etc.
Promotion
It is the process of informing, influencing and persuading the customers to buy the products. The
main aim of promotion is to increase sales and maximization of profits. It is not only limited to
attracting customers but also act as a tool for establishing long-term relations with parties
(Kumar. and Patra, 2017).
Haagen-Dazs advertise their products and shows that their ice cream is extremely rich in quality
and is containing the purest ingredients in it. They select high traffic areas to advertise about
their products and where they can get attention of people. They also reach customers through
newspapers and also organize grand opening ceremony for the launch of new stores.
Ben & Jerry’s uses persuasive advertising to promote their ice cream. They use the following
elements for promotion mix such as online advertising, outdoor advertising, personal selling,
direct mail, trade fairs and exhibitions etc. they also have an annual event to promote their brand
which is also known as Free Cone Day and sometimes a cow costume is worn by their
representatives to attract customers. They also placed a melting ice cream display on a building
for creating an eye-catching advertisement. The company also did 6 sheet advertising in which
the ad featured a wrestling event and to give a realistic look they also messed up the ice cream on
board and floor and encouraging people to visit their stores. Guerrilla advertising was also used
by the company.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that both the ice cream brands Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s have
different target markets but both on them cater to attract youngsters. Both brands have different
shape, size and packaging of their containers and have different brand values. Haagen-Dazs
follows value based pricing and Ben & Jerry’s follows geographical and competitor based
pricing strategy. Both the brands have global distribution but the technique by which they
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communicate their brands are different. Each brand applied these 4p’s in an effective manner and
they applied these 4p’s to find out the right combination of product, price, promotion and
distribution so that they can get competitive advantage over rivals. Both the brands have been
successful in applying 4p’s but more successful was Ben & Jerry’s. They improve their use of
4p’s by properly segmenting, targeting and positioning their products and brands and choosing
the effective strategy for price determination and brand communication.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Singh, H., 2018. Reaching your target market: identifying and appealing to your ideal client
base. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 7(7), pp.396-397.
Mayer, T., Melitz, M.J. and Ottaviano, G.I., 2016. Product mix and firm productivity responses
to trade competition (No. w22433). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Argade, S.L., 2020. Product Mix and Price Mix.
Argade, S.L., 2020. Place Mix and Promotion Mix.
Kumar, S. and Patra, S., 2017. Does promotion mix really help to enhance brand equity: A
literature review. Asian Journal of Management, 8(4), pp.1387-1392.
Roux, E., Tafani, E. and Vigneron, F., 2017. Values associated with luxury brand consumption
and the role of gender. Journal of Business Research, 71, pp.102-113.
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