Keurig: Strategic Marketing Case Study Analysis & Recommendations

This case study analyzes Keurig's strategic marketing challenges. The analysis begins with a situation analysis, identifying the target consumers as coffee lovers, particularly office employees and households, and their main competitors like Starbucks. It examines external factors like competition and ineffective distribution. The case study determines that the company is in the maturity stage of the product life cycle, struggling with limited awareness of its home version. The analysis outlines symptoms, problems, and opportunities, focusing on the lack of awareness and poor distributor performance, which hinders direct sales. The objectives are to reach a broader US market through direct marketing. The study then proposes several alternatives, including marketing materials, special discounts, online advertising, and sales professionals for door-to-door demos. The final recommendation is a combination of online and offline marketing techniques, with an emphasis on direct customer engagement through a dedicated team. The case study suggests that investing in these strategies will lead to increased sales and online brand reputation.

Case Analysis
Situation Analysis
The consumers of the product are coffee lovers and especially office employees who could benefit
from the freshness and convenience offered by the product. The company later targeted households
and machines for home use as well. The competitors of the company are Starbucks and other coffee
manufacturing companies. However, away from home, the company had two major competitors i.e.
Filterfresh and Flavia. The external climate that affects the business are the presence of fierce
competition, the inability of the distributors to market the make at home version and the weak
marketing strategy to make the product more visible.
The stage of PLC of the company is maturity since there are still a large number of people who have
very little idea about the home version that the company has created. Hence, the company is still in
the maturity mode. It is essentially surviving on the demonstrated versions in offices and is yet to tap
the market where it can do sales in the best way. The distribution structure of the company includes
the demonstration of the brewer in offices through companies like KAD. Even a referral program
was started through which the company was advertising KAD on some of its materials.
There are several other distributors but the availability of the products is made available only through
its available in retail shops. The company must now work towards a direct selling technique. The
strengths of the company are a unique product that is tried and tested in the market. The responses
received from the research and development team are also very positive in nature. The weaknesses of
the company is the inability to market the product properly and get direct sales. The cost structure is
very competitive in nature. Customers are ready to pay $0.55 for the same standard of coffee that
they would otherwise go out of their way to purchase from the leading vendors of high-quality coffee
like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts etc.

Defining Symptoms, Problems and Opportunities
The symptoms are the lack of awareness among the people that the company is also selling home
versions. The company’s distributors are not doing a fierce job of promoting the product which is
leading to the lack in direct selling of the brewer. Even the distributors are unable to sell them at the
speed that they should be. This opens an opportunity for Keurig’s as it can exploit other marketing
techniques to sell the product.
Objectives
The main objective of the company should be to reach out to the masses in the US and try to sell the
brewer through direct marketing channels. It must not completely rely on the distributors to do their
bidding and allow new marketing professionals to devise strategies through promotions that can be
done in a fierce manner. The company must take pointers on promotions from other competitors in
foreign markets and adopt some ways through which they can do the same in their own target
market.
Alternatives
The product is already popular among office professionals and thus marketing it should not be very
difficult. The four alternatives for achieve the objective include
 The use of marketing billboards and other materials to promote awareness among people.
This will promote the product. There are no drawbacks to the direct marketing strategy
 Special discounts can be given for women who purchase the brewer for home. Even if this
would reduce the profits that the company would make on the sales at first, it would help in
the promotion of the product as a whole and get the much-needed sales.
 Online marketing channels along with ads can be posted on social media and other
ecommerce channels to promote the use of the brewer. An investment in a strategist and

development of core team would be needed. Added cost of paid advertisements might cause
extra expense would help the company in getting the direct coverage that it duly needs.
 Sales professionals can be hired to give demos and sell products door to door.
Recommendations
Based on the alternatives presented above, the foremost recommendation would be the combination
of the online and offline marketing techniques. A team can be developed who can look into the
designing of advertisements on billboards, newspapers and social media channels. The company
must invest in reaching out to the customers themselves since the distributor model is not working
well. With the use of these strategies, the company can start collecting sales. Ecommerce websites
will give the revenue and the much-needed online reputation for the product to start selling on its
own.