MKT6015 - Ben & Jerry's: International Marketing Plan for India Entry

This report outlines an international marketing plan for Ben & Jerry's expansion into the Indian market. It includes a PESTLE analysis of the Indian business environment, a SWOT analysis of Ben & Jerry's, and identifies the target market as young, high-income individuals in metropolitan cities. The report suggests franchising as the market entry mode and details marketing strategies such as brand positioning, innovation, customer relationship building, and a focus on social missions. The marketing mix section covers product, pricing, promotion, and distribution strategies tailored to the Indian market, emphasizing product quality, adapting flavors to local preferences, and utilizing social media for promotion. The report concludes with recommendations for successful market entry and sustained growth.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL MARKETING PLAN 0
INTERNATIONAL MARKETING PLAN
(STUDENT NAME)
1-6-2019

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
PESTLE Analysis.......................................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis.........................................................................................................................4
Target market.............................................................................................................................5
Market entry mode.....................................................................................................................6
Marketing strategies...................................................................................................................6
Marketing mix............................................................................................................................8
Product strategy......................................................................................................................8
Pricing strategy.....................................................................................................................10
Promotional strategy............................................................................................................11
Place/ distribution strategy...................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Majority of the companies are going across domestic borders to gain opportunities in the
international market. While going international, there are certain aspects that a company
needs to understand and analyze. For instance, analyzing the current market situation, where
the company wishes to expand, the target market, for whom the products are to be offered,
and the mode of entry to the international market is another important aspect to decide before
going international. Moreover, various marketing decisions like marketing strategies need to
be planned before going international. An international marketing plan is a part of a business
plan, which the report will considered in detail (Craig & Douglas, 2005).
For this purpose, an organizational case will be discussed in the report further, the company
is Ben & Jerry’s, who is willing to expand their business in India. For which, the international
marketing plan is developed in a precise and specific form (Abdulraheem Sal, 2016).
Ben & Jerry is initiated by two individuals in 1978 in Vermont as an ice cream business, who
created this legendary brand, which is a very successful chain in various nations. The
company as a growth strategy decided to expand its business in various other nations after
expanding successfully into Australia, Brazil, and other nations. The focus of this project will
be on expanding the brand in India (benjerry, 2018).

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PESTLE Analysis
Initially, in order to enter into a nation for business, it is important to understand the external
environment of the business of India. For this purpose, a PESTLE analysis tool will be
considered.
1. Political factors – India is a developing nation, where democracy is considered. The
political stability of the company is strong, which is beneficial for the company to
invest. Moreover, the nation has well-developed taxation system, although this factor
is highly influenced by the politician’s interest, government policies, and political
parties ideologies. Therefore, it is recommended to the company to consider the
political factors and current policies of company before expanding (export.gov, 2018)
2. Economic factors – for this factor one of the major aspects is unemployment rate,
which is very high for the nation, therefore it can be taken as an opportunity for the
company and generate employment in the nation by expanding business in the
country. One of the issue with this industry is that in case of inflation or decrease in
consumption level, people would go for purchasing basic needs instead of the high-
end range of ice-creams.
3. Social factors – the country is full of cultural values, believes, and numerous religion
exists in the nation. The culture of collectivism according to Hofstede’s indicates that
the concern for family and togetherness is more, due to which the company can
introduce with family packs. Moreover, due to a multicultural nation, the taste of
different religions can be included by the company to offer (culturalatlas, 2018)
4. Technological – the nation is not as highly advanced in technology as a western
nation like the United Kingdom, but with change environment, the nation is adopting
technological change.

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5. Legal factors – the common law system is followed by the nation. One of the
problems regarding this factor is a high level of corruption level, which could be a
challenge for the company while expansion. However the legal system is strong and
entering into a nation is not restricted, although legal formalities are quite much
6. Environmental factors – the major concern for this factor is climate change, the nation
consists of four major climates, among which the major problem for Ben and Jerry
would be the winters season, where the sales for frozen food is decreased. Moreover,
the nation consider water scarcity issues in many areas, for which it is recommended
for the company to consider CSR regarding water conservation (howandwhat.net,
2018)
SWOT Analysis
Another aspect to consider before developing the marketing plan of the company is
identifying and understanding internal factors of the business environment that is strengths,
weakness, opportunity, and threats of Ben and Jerry’s, for which SWOT analysis tool will be
considered
Strength Weakness
 Ice cream quality
 Progressive thinking
 Creativity
 Excellent work culture
 Cultural consciousness
 Risk of ignorance to the individuality
due to the name of Unilever
 Higher price
 Restricted target customer segment
Opportunities Threats
 Sugar-free products  A competitive industry like Hagen

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 Organic flavors
 Expansion
 Product diversification
Dasz
 The decrease in demand in the winter
season
 Risk of a decrease in consumption
level (benjerry, 2018)
Target market
The initial stage while developing an international marketing plan understands the host
country’s scenario, its competitors and target market.
India is a very populated country, where the consumption level tends to increase.
Nevertheless, the ice cream industry of the nation is quite wide, and various global brands
already exist in the market, which could be a major competitor for Ben & Jerry. The three
major competitors analyzed in Indian ice cream market are Baskin - Robbins, Mother Dairy,
Amul, and Kwality wall’s (Aubry & Bonnet, 2015).
The suitable target market for Ben & Jerry would be the various metropolitan cities, such as
Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kolkata. Moreover, the customer segment would be
bifurcated according to the age and the income group.
 Age group – the customers of age between 15 to 35 years of age, which is targeting
the young age group people. The reason being, they are more likely to enjoy the fun
and experiment different things
 Income group – the brand will be target high-income group in India. This will make
Baskin – Robbins as its one major threat while entering into the market (Bao & Xia,
2015)

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Market entry mode
Another decision to be taken by the brand to enter into the Indian market is the mode of
entry. The mode of entry is the way a company is going to trade its goods in the international
market. This needs to be suitable according to the host country’s legal requirements (Cabral
& Mathiason, 2015).
For Ben & Jerry, the most suitable market entry mode will be franchising. Franchising is a
providing a specific right to an individual or a group to trade the parent organization products
in the host country. This is indirectly a business model or a business relationship with a party
in the host country, which will sell the parent company products on their behalf, as they are
authorized to use the name of the brand, business system, product, and process in exchange
for appropriate consideration. Some of the franchise chain in India is Subway, Domino’s and
many more. In this mode, the company allows a license is known as franchiser and the party
or individual to whom the authorization is provided is known as a franchisee (Cabral &
Mathiason, 2015).
Some of the characteristics that this mode of entry has are that the license is for a limited
period, the policies are created by the parent organization, the consideration exists as an
exchange for the authority, and the training is provided to the franchisee. For Ben & Jerry, it
is the most suitable way to enter into the Indian market, as the control will be more in hands
of the brand. Moreover, the quality can be maintained according to the parent organization as
the training will be provided to the franchisee (Choi & Park, 2016).
Marketing strategies
The marketing strategies for the company will be developed, which include the strategy:

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Brand positioning – positioning brand includes creating a perception in customer’s mind, that
would be beneficial for the company to enter into the market. This is a crucial stage, as this
could turn out to be negative while creating the perception. The Ben and Jerry would be
creating a perception of love, sharing, fun, and innovation in minds of customers. The focus
of the company is over product differentiation, high-quality product, and innovation through
a large number of flavors, which is not available in India, like some fruits flavors, which the
nation do not have easily. This will create a competitive advantage for the company over the
other major competitors (Craig & Douglas, 2005).
Innovation and adaptation – another strategy of the company is innovation, understanding the
customers, and the taste and adapt as per their requirement. It was analyzed that the level of
sweet preferred in India is generally, more than some of the western nations, therefore, the
company would like to add some additional sweet in flavors of ice cream that would be liked
by the target market of India. This can be understood with the example of Coca-cola case in
the nation, it was observed by Coca-Cola that their product is not preferred by the residents
due to the level of sweetness in their drinks. Therefore, the suitability for Ben & Jerry would
be to adapt the taste of the host nation. Moreover, to enhance the variety of the ice-cream in
future, the company can offer various local flavors of some cities, like “paan” flavor, or
flavor of dishes popular in different cities, where the company is planning to establish. There
are various MNC’s who have adapted this strategy, for example, MC Donald’s (Dickmann, et
al., 2008)
 Customer relationship – another strategy of the company that the company adopts in
other nations as well as building customer relationship for retaining existing
customers and attracting more and more customers in the future. This could be done
by indulging with customers through social media platforms, remind them about the

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ice cream and visit the ice cream shop. This will let the company create the customer
database, and create brand loyalty among the customers (Du, et al., 2018)
 Interaction and customer engagement – this is one of the oldest ways of Ben & Jerry,
while they will also follow in India, which is interacting more and more with the
customer to know what they are expecting from the brand, what new they would like
to see with the brand or its flavors. Moreover, they engage customers in choosing the
right flavor to be offered to them in the future or ask the customer suggestion
regarding the introducing new flavors to the existing list. This will create a stronger
bond with the customer, and satisfactory level among the customers are increased to a
large level, as they feel that their opinion is very important for the company. Other
than this, the company would be taking feedback from the customers through
telephone, social media, or face to face, which help them to improve, where they are
lacking as per the customer requirements (Gay, 2016).
 Focus over social mission – the focus of the company is over the social mission. The
company would be running various campaigns through social media to create brand
awareness, and attract new customers to try out the ice cream, and also helpful in
creating brand loyalty. This is done as it is observed that it is the trendy way to
approach to the target customers, especially the young age group, as they like to spend
most of the time on social media platforms (Geraldi & Soderlund, 2018).
Marketing mix
Product strategy
It is the product which is being offered to the customer, and this is the major reason for any
company’s success or failure. Since Ben & Jerry unique selling proposition is the quality of

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its product, it is important for the company to focus largely on this aspect to enter into the
new market that is India. The product line that the company offers are:
 Premium ice cream, which is a basic supermarket product range
 Ice Cream of Super premium, which is focusing over the issue of obesity and offering
a low-fat range of products for health conscious customer group with high quality and
more natural ingredients
 Frozen yogurt, the competition with this product would be low in India, therefore the
company can offer various different flavors of yogurt to the customers of India
 Sorbet, this is one of the deserts which is created out of fruit juices. This is also new
to the Indian market, for which the competition would not be very high as such.
Nevertheless, the company has to create a large amount of awareness for this product,
so as to make people try this frozen dessert.
 Concoctions, as the name, suggests it is the cone ice cream, which various other
companies are offering too, and it must be added to the menu for Indian customers.
This includes the ice cream with cones or waffle (Gupta, 2014).
The product range of the company would include more than fifty innovative flavors and with
the innovative name as well. Moreover, some of the product strategies include:
 Localization – as already discussed in the previous section, one of the marketing
strategies of the company is an adaptive strategy, which also includes adapting the
local taste of the place, where the company is going to be established. Localization
could be in the form of flavors, that is the preferred flavor of not only the nation but
the city as well. For example, in some locations, people have a specific flavor taste,
for example, paan. The company would add these local flavors to their product list.
Moreover, according to the taste, the sweetness is also adjusted. Therefore two ranges

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are available, one with a bit of high level of sweet in the ice creams and yogurt,
whereas another range of sugar-free or low-fat product range for obese people, or
people of the diabetic issue. This is done, as this health issue is high in India (Misra,
2017).
 Customization – another product strategy is a customization that is to offer what
people like, this could include creating sundaes, as per the customer requirement.
Moreover, tubs of ice-cream may include the various different varieties of ice creams
or yogurt. Moreover, combos can be created according to customer preference. This
could be one of the competitive advantages of the company, to customize the flavor,
and taste what customer wants to enhance the satisfactory level of the customers. For
example, the offer can include, create your own ice cream (Mora, 2015).
 Services – other than the product, the company also focus on the service like the on
shop service, which includes providing high-quality packaging that the customer must
impress and attract with. Moreover, the delivery to their places is another service
provided by the company to target customers who are not willing to visit the scoop
shop (Mühlbacher, et al., 2006).
 Environment-friendly packaging
Pricing strategy
In a developing country like India, the price of the product dies to matter a lot. However, the
company is provided a high-end range of products, the pricing strategy of Ben & Jerry is as
follows
 Price skimming – the products introduced by the company to enter into the Indian
market, is high in price, as the customer perception created is the high-quality luxury
product, which is for high-end customers. The strategy is to focus on the selected

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target market, which is the high-income group. This is the luxury item, which the
company is offering. Therefore, it is to make brand positioning with a luxury product,
for which the price needs to be high. There is a perception of the people that the high
amount of price is directly related to the quality of the product, that is why the
company planned to enter with the high price of the product. It was observed that the
people with the middle-income group are more in the nation, but the high-income
group also exist in a large extent. Moreover, the brand will be positioned as a status
symbol for a customer to purchase the frozen dessert from Ben & Jerry (Robson &
Zeriti, 2014)
Promotional strategy
 Brand ambassador – one of the way to create brand awareness and brand positioning,
the company will be using one of the reputed person or a Bollywood popular star like
Salman Khan as a brand ambassador for the brand. This will create a strong image of
the company in the nation, and attract more new customers. Moreover, people who
are not aware of the brand will be knowing the brand in a positive and as a perception
of status symbol (Rialp & Rialp, 2007)
 Advertisement on television – another promotional tool suitable for the company to
use is advertisement through an audio video that is through television. Television is a
way, which is the most popular and most approachable for the maximum audience at
the same time while using popular Bollywood stars to the ad. the brand. Moreover,
the advertisement will also reflect the luxury products that the company is offering in
the market (Skudiene, et al., 2015).
 Sales promotion – another promotional tool, which is very helpful in increasing the
sale in India, and create high brand awareness is a sales promotional tool. This is to
create a relationship with customers while providing coupons, personal discounts, or