Artificial Sweeteners: Marketing and Packaging Strategies Analysis

This literature review examines the marketing and packaging strategies employed by artificial sweetener companies to counter public health concerns regarding the nutritional content of their products. The review focuses on key marketing tactics such as customer value, customer retention, and defense frameworks. It analyzes strategies used by Splenda, NutraSweet, and Equal, highlighting how they address customer demands, compete with rivals, and adapt to changing market trends. The paper discusses the role of health claims, packaging innovations, and regulatory approvals in shaping consumer perceptions and driving sales within the artificial sweetener market. The analysis also considers the challenges posed by emerging competitors like Stevia and the impact of evolving consumer preferences for healthier and more natural products. The study concludes that artificial sweeteners are here to stay and that compliance with consumer trends, aligning products to customer demands, enhancing customer choice and visual appeal are some of the major marketing trends which have continued to sustain artificial sweeteners.

Running head: MARKETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
MARKETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
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1MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
Summary
Artificial sugar sweeteners have gained popularity with rising public health awareness on
the health consequences of sugar. However, the nutritional content of artificial sweeteners are far
from their claims of ‘zero calories’ (Fernandes, 2018). The following literature review will focus
on the marketing and packaging strategies which artificial sweetener companies revert to, for
countering this discrepancy.
Introduction
Excessive intake of added sugars has been evidenced to yield adverse health
consequences such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and metabolic conditions like diabetes. It
is hence for this reason, artificial sweeteners have gained popularity due to their claims of
providing zero calories. However, the artificial sweeteners like Equal, Raw and Splenda, despite
being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as zero calories actually provide 4
calories and a host of additional health complications (Eenfeldt, 2019).
Literature Review
One of the key marketing strategies employed by the Splenda is its health claim that it is
a product which is associated with zero calories along with little effect on an individual’s
waistline (Dip, 2017). The key marketing strategy which can be recognized here is Customer
Value, which is based upon four core components, namely attribute and benefits (Aghazadeh,
2015). Present customer perceptions for health include purchasing and consumption of products
which are less in calories, and are devoid of the impacts of obesity. Splenda effectively addresses
these needs through its advertisement and zero calorie packaging (De la Peña, 2010). Further,

2MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
one of the key marketing strategies utilized by Splenda is Customer Retention. For effective
customer retention, ‘E-marketting’ is an effective strategy (Sheng, Mykytyn Jr & Litecky, 2005).
Indeed, Splenda fulfills this criteria by not only maintaining appropriate social media pages as
well as maintaining its own website which is constantly updated with the help of blog posts as
well as recipes using its low calorie sweetener (Mercola, 2006).
Lastly, the key marketing strategy which proves to in favor of the high popularity of
artificial sweeteners like Splenda, is usage a an appropriate ‘Defense Framework’. A framework
for defense necessitates that an organization not only collects information on strengths and
weaknesses of its rivals, but also enlightens themselves on the information which consumers and
rivals are predicted to enquire about (Hunt, 2015). With the wide variety of information
available, customers are now well aware of the possible consequences of consuming certain food
products. Hence, despite incorrect marketing labeling of its nutritional information, Splenda also
ensures availability of updated nutritional information in its blog (Vicari, 2016). The availability
of a wide range of information on Splenda’s official website can also be associated with a
customer perception and value based marketing strategy since it caters to the needs of a large
section of academically sound population with commendable levels of health literacy (Purohit &
Mishra, 2018). Further, an approval of an internationally acclaimed organization like the FDA
further strengthens the usage of its defense frameworks. In addition to the FDA, Splenda’s
defense framework is backed up by accreditation and regulation from almost 80 internal bodies
of food regulation, prevalent across the United States as well as the European Union (Chaudhary,
2016).
Despite Splenda’s position as a global stronghold, possessing more than $212 million in
the worldwide artificial sweetener market, it is faced with considerable competition from its

3MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
rivals. NutraSweet, for example, employed a ‘customer convenience’ based marketing strategy,
by launching innovative packaging of its products in the form of table top sweeteners – the minor
packages of sweeteners which customers can conveniently mix with their desired cup of
beverage without having to indulge in the burden of measuring and counting calories amidst their
highly challenging schedules (Bornkessel, Smetana & Heinz, 2019). Further, NutraSweet
recently reverted to a launching color coded varieties of its product, each associated with a
different sweetening component (pink containing sacchari, blue containing aspartame and a
green packet claimed to be ‘natural’) – hence, gathering customer demand through availability of
variety and choices (Dalgic & Leeuw, 2015). Further, its unique selling proposition has been
associated with its name – ‘NutraSweet’ – being a combination of both ‘sweet’ yet ‘nutritious’
and hence, a major appeal to existing customer trends of obtaining the best of both worlds of
maintaining health without compromises on taste (Newmeyer, Venkatesh, Ruth & Chatterjee,
2018).
Despite the packaging, recent evidence on the health impacts associated with sweetening
components like saccharin and aspartame, leave little room for innovation for NutraSweet.
Secondly, Splenda continues to face challenge from Equal, the second largest champion in the
global artificial sweetener market with more than $62 million shares, and a long history of legal
rivalry with the former (Plevan, 2016). However, Splenda’s strategy of marketing continues to
be unique, due to its ‘customer demand based marketing strategy’. During its inception, Splenda
gathered consumer support due to its then promotional strategy of formulation of a sweetener to
ease the lives of a growing diabetic population. Further, with the growing consumer popularity of
diets which are low in carbohydrates, Splenda rapidly blended into customer demands by
convincing Atkins Nutritionals to use the sweetener in its snack bars (Young, Weiss & Stewart,

4MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
2006). Thirdly, Splenda took major advantage of the rising criticism against aspartame based
sweeteners (Equal, NutraSweet), by attracting customers with its ‘better for you’ slogan and
collaborating with Schweppes to produce ‘healthier’ sugar-free drinks further enhancing its
product variety, increasing choice for customers and generating profits against aspartame-based
counterparts of Pepsi and Coke (Lynch, Roberts & Lee Grotz, 2018). Hence, despite the
deceptive marketing strategy, Splenda’s popularity lies largely in its ability to capture dynamic
customer trends and implementing the same in its advertisement and packaging. At present,
Splenda cleverly remains compliant with three major consumer trends (awarneenss against sugar,
optimum health and premium taste) with its innovative slogan, “It starts with sugar. It tastes like
sugar. but it's not sugar.” (Couper & Couper, 2018)
With rising customer trends of obesity coupled with customer preferences towards
‘organic’, ‘natural’ and ‘environmentally sustainable’ – consumers are reverting towards
products which they can comprehend rather than medical jargon – a key characteristic of the
chemical based compounds prevalent in artificial sweeteners (Kienle, 2016). With this respect,
‘Stevia’ is currently holds the potential to compete against these global sweetener giants, with its
plant based origins and a bulk of evidence based academic research. However, Stevia’s future as
a strong competitor may still be a farfetched reality, since it still yet to obtain approval from the
key regulatory authority, the FDA (Guleria, Vaidya & Kireeti, 2015).

5MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
Conclusion
Despite rising criticism and range of adverse health outcomes cited against them,
artificial sweeteners are here to stay. This paper demonstrates that complying with customer
trends, aligning products to customer demands, enhancing customer choice and visual appeal are
some of the major marketing trends which have continued to sustain artificial sweeteners.

6MARKTETTING STRATEGIES: ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS
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