Alpro and Muller Yogurt: A Marketing Mix Comparison Report

This report provides a comparative analysis of the marketing mix strategies employed by Alpro and Muller, two leading yogurt brands in the UK. The analysis examines the four key elements of the marketing mix: product, price, place, and promotion. The report highlights how Alpro, focusing on plant-based and sustainable products, targets a niche market with its marketing strategies, while Muller, with its diverse product range, adopts a broader target market approach. The study compares their product offerings, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional techniques, revealing that Alpro leverages digital media and awareness campaigns, while Muller utilizes traditional media like television advertising. The report concludes that while both companies compete in the same industry, their differing target markets and marketing mix strategies reflect their unique positioning in the market. The report also references relevant academic sources to support the analysis.

RUNNING HEAD: PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING
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Principle of Marketing

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Introduction
Marketing consist of all the activities that a business undertakes to promote the products and
services that include advertising, marketing research, and customer satisfaction. In this
concept marketing mix plays an important role as it refers to the tactics and actions that a
company uses in order to promote its brand in the market. The elements of the marketing mix
are price, place, product, and promotion (Kotler et.al,2018). In order to understand the
concept of marketing and tactics used by brands according to their target market a
comparative analysis of the marketing mix of two brands included in this essay that are Alpro
yogurt and Muller yogurt. Alpro is a company based in Belgium that offers non-organic and
organic foods and drinks in Europe. Muller is one of the finest dairy products producers in
the UK with a turnover of £6 billion. Both companies are leading brands selling yogurt in the
UK. The marketing mix strategies of both companies are discussed below.
Marketing Mix comparative analysis
Target market: Muller positioned itself as the brand that provides yogurt of low fat and low
volume with better taste and target children, premium and functional food market. The
strategy of the company is to boost its product demand in the market by broadening product
range. Further, with its different yogurt varieties the company target different segment such
as with Muller corner series the company target household, Muller low-fat target youth and
healthy people and Muller corner Lactose-free for athletes (Kardes, 2016).
On the other side, Alpro focuses on providing high quality and sustainable products and for
that Alpro targets people who follow a healthy lifestyle, strive for balanced nutrition and
prefer sugar-reduced high protein products. The company gives better alternatives to yogurt

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with its plant-based foods. The company capture or targets a niche market. Hence, Muller
uses differentiated target market strategy as the company has a different target audience for
its different yogurt products and Alpro uses niche target marketing strategy as the company
only targets healthy lifestyle people and people who want balanced nutrition (Dolnicar
et.al,2018).
Product: Muller offers wide varieties of flavored yogurt such as plain, vanilla, strawberry
yogurt. The company offers yogurt in a big pot for convenience of households, provides
different flavors such as white velvet, dark chocolate, strawberry, and cherry to attract
children. Further, in these different categories are available like lactose-free, reduced sugar
and fat-free yogurt (Larbi,2018). Alpro offers different categories than Muller as the
company focus on the balanced nutrition sector hence its product offerings are coconut
yogurt, cashew and soy variants, artisanal curds and non-lactose Greek yogurts (Alpro,2020).
Further, the company at present focuses on delivering plant-based vegan variants in order to
deliver its value of sustainable products and organic food to its customers (Costa Font and
Revoredo,2018). Hence, both companies offer products according to demand and desire of
its target customers and both use product differentiation strategy and target the same market
with its different product range.

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Price: Muller offers light fat-free Greek yogurt at the rate of £1.00 for 4 × 120 g, Oreo yogurt
with the same weight at the rate of £2.89 and corner chocolate, banana and strawberry at the
rate of £3.00 for 130g. Further, the company introduced new flavors that are peach, cherry,
and apricot for £2.89 for 110g four packs. Muller plans to focus on the total reduction of
sugar by 25% in its yogurt portfolio that leads to the use of more organic ingredients that
impact the prices of its products (Muller,2020).
Alpro offers soya mango, passion fruit yogurt of 150 g packs for £1.00 and plain yogurt of
400g for £1.60. On the other side 4 × 125 g Alpro peach and pear, pineapple, raspberry and
cranberry for £1.90. Both of the companies use promotion pricing strategies and penetration
pricing strategies as discounts are given by the companies on different platform such as
Tesco, Aldi and Sainsbury supermarkets in order to promote new flavors or products in the
market (Alpro,2020). Further, penetration strategy is followed as in food and drinks
processing higher prices are not set by the companies so in order to capture large market
share and to increase its turnover both the companies use penetration pricing strategy.
Place: Muller ensures that their yogurts are available to its customers in different flavors and
packaging when demanded. For that, the company expanded its business to Atlanta,
Cincinnati, Chicago and Tampa in the US and the company has presence all across the UK.
Muller yogurts are available at supermarkets, retail outlets and on the shelves of major
grocery retailers. The company has tie-ups with supermarkets, hypermarket, and other retail
stores and sell through its website (Hall,2020).
Alpro focuses on channels that promote plant-based choices and use wholesale and retail
stores for selling its products. The company uses a platform that highlights its plain yogurt
with flavored topping for that Alpro tie-ups with ice cream parlors and bakeries that use
yogurt in order to make sure that all its products are available to each and every person when

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demanded. Hence the place or distribution strategies used by Muller is e-commerce and retail
outlets that are through mediators like Tesco, Aldi and Asda, On the other side, the
distribution strategy of Alpro includes retailers and wholesalers as the company has tie-up
with small outlets and other businesses that use its products and promote it in the market and
resale it (Lorusso et.al,2018).
Promotion: Alpro promotion techniques include “Pan European marketing campaign named
Alpro Tops” that reached to 40 million UK consumers with the use of traditional and digital
promotion techniques that include the use of print media and television and social media
campaign. The campaign was promoted using digital video via YouTube, Facebook, and
Twitter and with blogger engagement, public relations activities and press advertisements.
Some hashtag used by the company was (#alprotops). The promotion techniques of Alpro are
innovative and trendy that conveys the message to consumers to switch to plant-based
choices for the benefit of the human body and for sustainability (Mohammed et.al,2017).
Muller's promotion strategy includes traditional media as more of its advertisement is done
on print media and television using cartoon characters to target children. Further, the
company invests a huge amount in advertisement and tries to communicate a message that
weight management is an important criterion rather than weight loss. Muller more focused on
traditional media and not on digital media platforms as with the help of traditional media like
television advertisements, hoardings and print media the company can reach a large number
of consumers (MullerUK,2019). Hence, it is analyzed that both the companies have different
promotional tactics as Alpro mainly use digital tools and awareness campaigns to attract its
target audience and Muller uses traditional media and television advertisement to promote its
brand in the market because of the larger target market the company used this technique.

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Conclusion
It is concluded from the above comparative analysis of marketing mix of Muller yogurt and
Alpro yogurt that both the companies have different market segments. The target market of
Muller is broader because of its range of products and varieties of yogurt. However, Alpro
target a niche market and all its marketing mix strategies are based on the characteristics and
demand of niche target market.
From the marketing mix strategies of both the companies, it is analyzed that both compete in
the same industry but their target market is different due to that product offered are quite
different as Alpro focus on plant-based and sustainable product offering and Muller focuses
on changing taste and providing different flavors to change the way people consider yogurt. It
is concluded that the place and pricing strategies of both companies are similar. The main
difference that can be seen is in their promotion strategy as Alpro target niche market so the
company uses digital media campaigns and print media to promote its products but Muller
uses television advertisements, PR advertising, and print media for targeting children and
households. In a nutshell, it can be said that marketing mix is an important element of
marketing and success and failure of any product depend on its marketing mix tactics and all
the marketing mix strategies are made keeping in mind the target audience so organizations
need to select a proper target market in order to get best out of their marketing mix.

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References
Alpro,2020. Plant based alternative to yogurt. Accessed From:
https://www.alpro.com/uk/products/plant-based-alternative-to-yogurt/
Costa Font, M. and Revoredo-Giha, C., 2018. Rate of success of new dairy products in the
UK: how important are health and sustainable claims?.
Dolnicar, S., Grün, B. and Leisch, F., 2018. Step 9: Customising the Marketing Mix.
In Market Segmentation Analysis (pp. 245-254). Springer, Singapore.
Hall, V., 2020. Yogurt: The best and worst yogurt for diet revealed. Accessed From:
https://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/wellbeing/yogurt-best-and-worst-for-diet-30927
Kardes, I., 2016. Reaching middle class consumers in emerging markets: Unlocking market
potential through urban-based analysis. International Business Review, 25(3), pp.703-710.
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L., Ang, S.H., Tan, C.T. and Leong, S.M., 2018. Marketing
management: an Asian perspective. Pearson.
Larbi,M.,2018. Slimming world scrap Muller Lights from list of Syn free foods and dieters
are outraged. Accessed From: https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/7277147/slimming-world-
muller-lights-syn-free-foods/
Lorusso, A., Coda, R., Montemurro, M. and Rizzello, C.G., 2018. Use of Selected Lactic
Acid Bacteria and Quinoa Flour for Manufacturing Novel Yogurt-Like
Beverages. Foods, 7(4), p.51.
Mohammed, R., Murova, O. and Chidmi, B., 2017. Demand for yogurt in the trend of
manufacturer brand and organic information (No. 1377-2016-109905).

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Muller,2020. Muller yogurt and desserts. Accessed From: https://www.muller.co.uk/nc/our-
brands/mueller-yogurt-desserts-brands/brands/all/filter/subbrand/11/
MullerUK,2019. Muller continues to disrupt luxury yogurt segment. Accessed From:
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/muller-wiseman/pressreleases/muller-continues-to-disrupt-
luxury-yogurt-segment-2931346