1.0 Situation and Analysis

1.1 Introduction

This paper presents a comprehensive international marketing plan for the introduction of “Go Girl” energy drink manufactured by the Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc. Roy Deary founded the business in 1937 named Hires Bottling Company. The company is headquartered at the Florida State capital city Sacramento. The business has remained to be a family business with top management officials bearing the Dreary surname (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2014).

Today, Nor-Cal Beverage Company is among the ten largest independent bottling companies in the State of California having a complex and highly diversified operations portfolio.  The portfolio includes co-bottling and packing, beverage equipment installation and servicing, contract pacing, beer distribution and sale. In this regard, Nor-Cal has collaborated with other beverage companies such as the giant Coca-Cola Company, Hansens, Anheuser-Busch, Vitamin Water, Arizona Tea and The Minute Maid Company (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2014).

The Go Girl energy drink is manufactured by Nor-Cal Beverage Company.  The brand was first launched in the year 2005 in the company headquarters in the city of Sacramento. The first Go Girl flavor was the Go Girl Sugar Free drink. The brand has grown with time to five flavors and a distribution network covering more than nine states in USA. This growth has been witnessed following the popularity for low calorie energy drinks in the wake of health complications resulting from high calorie intake.  Introducing the brand to the international market is a favorable market extension strategy (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2013).

The European Kingdom of Spain is the target market for introduction of the Go Girl energy drink brand. The drink’s target consumers are female Spaniards. Due to various differences in the current USA market and the target Spanish market, there is the need to analyze several factors and consider them in devising the entry strategy and marketing plan.

1.2 Company Analysis

Nor-Cal beverage company Inc, is a family owned and managed business. The company started in 1937 as bottling company has grown in its bottling capacity and business lines through its more than seventy-five years history. Now, it is managed by the third generation of the Dreary’s following the death of its founder and the retirement of the second generation Dreary CEO.  Five Dreary family members hold executive or board member positions at the company. As one of California’s largest independent bottlers, the company’s mission is to provide “the right product at the right cost at the right time” (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2014).

As mentioned hereinbefore, Nor-Cal Company boasts  complex business portfolio ranging from contract bottling and manufacturing, beer and soft drinks distribution, bottling equipment installation and solutions among other smaller lines of business. The company has more than 500 people in its employ working in its two bottling plants in west Sacramento and in its distribution network. According to the management, a majority of the employees have worked at the company for twenty years and above. This is a high retention rate compared to the USA national average of 4.4 years (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2014). As a result, Nor-Cal has a well-experienced employee base. In 2005, the company launched its very own drink under the brand name Go Girl energy drink. The next section briefly describes the Go Girl energy drink brand by Nor-Cal Company Inc.

1.3 Go Girl Energy Drink

The Go Girl energy drink is a brand name for currently five flavors of sugar free energy drinks from Nor-Cal Beverage Company Inc. The first Go Girl energy drink flavor “Go Girl Sugar Free” was the first to be launched back in the year 2005.  Several factors including the name, drink and packaging color point to the fact that the drink was made for women. The Go Girl brand name is a slightly commandeering name that dares women to indulge in the drink. The pink color is largely associated with women who are generally fond of bright colors (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2013).

Over the years, the brand portfolio has grown with the introduction of other go girl flavors. The brand currently comprises of five flavors packaged in cans designed the same as the Go Girl sugar free cans except for the variations in can colors. The drink is manufactured and bottled at Nor-Cal Company Inc’s two bottling plants in Sacramento City.  Though it was first marketed in Florida upon its launch, it is currently stocked by retailers in more than nine states in the USA including Oregon, Hawaii, Arizona, Washington, Alaska, Nevada and Northern Idaho (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2013). The table below outlines the flavors under the go girl brand name alongside brief description.

Flavor	Description
Go Girl Sugar Free	Pink colored drink. The original Go Girl drink
Go Girl Sweetie Grapefruit	Naturally sweetened and flavored, carbonated drink with a grapefruit flavor. Colored in the champagne pink
Go Girl Peach Tea	Tea flavored drink sweetened naturally with agave nectar. Targeting tea drinkers
Go Girl Pomberry Tea	Tea flavored drink sweetened with nectar and featuring blueberries and pomegranates juices
Go Girl Lemonade	Low calorie, sugar free lemonade flavored drink

 

From the descriptions in the table above, several observations can be made about the “Go Girl” energy drink brand. The drink is designed with the special target to women. As mentioned hereinbefore, the product name and color indicate that the sugar free Go Girl flavor is a women drink. The can packaging of the five flavors outlined above bear the pink ribbon that is a symbol of participation in the fight against breast cancer.  The product developers and marketers wanted to put the message across that the Go Girl energy drink is a women drink. The flavors reflect some common drinks taken by women such as tea and lemonade. In addition, the drink is sweetened using the natural sugar free components such as organic nectar.  The drink also provides a mild appetite suppressant. As a result, the drink is designed to provide a low calorie substitute to the various drink flavors popular among women such as tea and lemonade (Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc, 2013).

1.4 Market Analysis

1. Business Environment

            The European Kingdom of Spain is the target market for the introduction of Go Girl energy drink as part of the brand market expansion into the international world.  Spain is governed as a monarchy with a national constitution. Power is held  by hereditary kings who are the heads of government and commander in chief of the Spanish defense forces. The kingdom comprises of the mainland Spain and a few islands in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Oceans (Accenture, 2012).

The mainland Spain is 552,992km² in size and is ranked fifth largest country by area in Europe. The country’s terrain is mountainous with a chain of mountains and high plateaus. The country’s climate can be separated into three zones depending on orographic conditions and the geographical factors. These include Mediterranean, semiarid and oceanic climate. The Mediterranean and semi arid climates are characterized by dry and warm summer periods (Canovas, 2012).

The country is governed by a constitution installed by the current King Juan Carlos administration in the year 1978. The constitution transitioned the Kingdom into a democracy. The executive arm of the Spanish government is made up of a council of ministers headed by the Spanish prime minister. The prime minister assumes office following appointment by the king and confirmation by the legislature. The legislative arms of the government comprise of a 350 members parliament and a 259 members senate. Election to both of the houses is by popular vote to a four-year term. The government has made significant attempts to maintain gender balance in governance and economic perspectives. The country enjoys a stable political environment (Accenture, 2012).

Spain is ranked among the top twenty largest economies globally and five in the European Union.   The country’s official currency is the Euro used by the European Union member states. As a former Roman territory, Roman Catholicism is the most prevalent religion practiced by more than 69% of the Spanish population. The European Kingdom has a highly extensive and developed rail network second only to China globally (Canovas, 2012). The cultural terrain of the European Kingdom reflects the western culture with the Roman Catholic doctrines plying a crucial role in the lives of Spaniards.

1.5 The Spanish Energy Drinks Market

            The Spanish energy drinks market has been seeing a steady growth over the recent years.  The European Kingdom is among the fastest growing energy drinks markets in around the globe registering more than 13% growth over the last five years. This development has been contributed to by the steady increase in the number of people participating in regular physical exercises and sports across the country(Companies and Markets.com 2012).  This is due to an increasing awareness of the role of physical exercises in healthy lifestyles among the citizenry.

Another key driver of growth in the Spanish energy drinks market is emergence of new consumption trends. For the better part of the 2000 decade, energy drinks were largely associated with sporting activities. It is for this reason that the sports and energy drinks multinational Cia Servicios de Bebias Refrescantes managed to acquire 53% of the Spanish energy drinks market by 2013 due to its dominance in sports energy drinks (Companies and Markets.com, 2013). Today, day workers and students in Spain are increasingly taking to energy drinks.

In addition to day workers and students, there is a trend in the Spanish market with the increasing consumption of energy drinks with meals.  This is again a result of increasing popularity of the low calorie drinks as a healthier substitute to carbonates and juices. With the rapid growth in market size, competition is rampant with the increasing number of new entrants ranging from multinationals to private label brands.  Some of the notable occurrences in the market is the launch of new products by companies such as Red Bull and Kiwi (Food Drink Europe, 2011).

 

Essentially, the food and drink industry is Spain’s largest manufacturing industry. As of 2011, the industry accounted for 6.8% of Europe’s 1420 billion Euro foods and drinks industry.  The market has significantly high levels of competition with some formidable international brands bearing a strong presence.  According to there is increasing popularity for organic beverages in the Spanish market. However, Beverage Marketting Corporation (2014) points out that market growth for this category is concentrated around a few drinks categories. Now, organic tea is the most popular organic beverage.  As a soft drink, go girl energy drink is made from organic products. However, unlike the organic tea that is often sugared, the Go Girl energy drink is low calorie. As such, the go girl tea brands provide a suitable alternative to the organic hot tea beverage popular in Spain.

1.6 Go Girl Energy Drink SWOT Analysis

            A SWOT analysis is a suitable tool for evaluating a brands position relative to the market. The analysis is done based on four aspects namely strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In essence, strengths and weaknesses are internal factors while threats and opportunities are external considerations. The sections below outline the SWOT analysis summary for the Go Girl energy drink in relation to the Spanish market.

Strengths

The brands main strength is its orientation towards women.  In this regard, the drink brand is positioned as women drink by virtue of its taste color and name. Due to this, the brand not only serves the nutritional and energy requirements sought after by the target consumers, it also presents a means of enhancing the gender identity for women (Beverage Marketting Corporation, 2014). Essentially, this gives the brand a competitive edge over other beverage drink brand substitutes as the women oriented beverage market continues to expand in Spain.

Another notable strength for the brand is its flavor portfolio. Having two tea-flavored drinks places the brand in a suitable position to be marketed as a suitable substitute for the popular organic tea. Now, Spain obesity and weight related complications levels are higher than the average for OECD member states among the adults. This trend is increasingly making Spaniards conscious of what they take in a bid to avoid weight gain complications (OCDE, 2014). As a result, this has seen a general shift towards the healthier organic foods especially among the middle and affluent classes of the Spanish population (Food Drink Europe, 2011). As such, the tea flavored Go Girl energy drinks are better placed to obtain a market share since they provide the sought after low calorie tea.

Weaknesses

One of the main weaknesses to the Go Girl energy drinks brands is a young brand name. The brand was only launched in the year 2005 in the United States of America. Though the brand has grown to reach nine of the USA states, it does not have an international presence nor is it known widely outside the regions in which it is currently sold. Therefore, entry into the Spanish market requires a lot of advertisement work to enhance brand awareness and create the brand image.

The Go Girl brand has a small product base. With only five flavors, the brand presents a narrow variety with limited choices. However, the brand has made significant progress in that it has only been in production for the last nine years during which it has grown from one to five flavors. However, product differentiation may be a suitable strategy for the brand. This could be done with a special focus on the Spanish market. Development of another Go Girl flavor focusing on the Spanish market shall enable the brand to benefit from market-oriented marketing helping the brand to market even its existing flavors.

Opportunities

As mentioned above, product line expansion is a suitable strategy for Go Girl energy drink as it ventures into the Spanish market. This presents an opportunity to increase the Go Girl flavor variety. Another key opportunity is online marketing. An online marketing strategy involving the social media and other online platforms present a suitable channel to cover the large physical ground of the target market (Harris, 2011).

Threats

The most formidable threat faced by the Go Girl energy drink is competition. In addition to competing with other energy drinks brands, the drink also competes with other beverages such as hot drinks, sodas and sports drinks. Essentially, the five flavors under the Go Girl brand name are manufactured as substitutes to already existing drinks. This include the hot beverages specifically tea, lemonade and sports drinks. Notably, the hot beverage category may present a challenge in attempts to substitute them with the energy drinks due to the temperature considerations.

2.0 Objectives and Goals

            The following are the objectives of this paper:

• To conduct a SWOT analysis of the Go Girl energy drink brand relative t the Spanish market
• To devise an marketing strategy for the introduction of Go Girl energy drink in Spain
• To create a budget for the marketing campaign

3.0 Strategy and Tactics

            From the market, product and SWOT analysis presented above, it is clear that the Go Girl energy drinks brand has a sizeable potential market in Spain. In light of this, the following recommendations present suitable tactics and strategy to introduce the brand into the Spanish market.

1. Brand Awareness

As mentioned herein before, one the greatest challenges in the process of introducing the Go Girl brand in Spain is creating brand awareness. The brand is currently unknown to the target market. In this regard, the company should employ a multichannel advertising strategy. It is important for the brand to seek social popularity to build a strong brand name. This could be done through sponsoring events, having a strong social media presence and through rigorous product placement efforts (International Markets Burea, 2011).

1. Product line expansion

By expanding the Go Girl product, the company shall avail more choices to its expanding market. Preferably, the company should invest in the development of more products with a focus on its Spanish target consumers. The launch of such a new product in the new market shall present a suitable avenue to market the entire product line (Food Drink Europe, 2011).

• Product differentiation

Product differentiation involves placing a product as a unique product among its competitors (Harris, 2011). Go Girl energy drinks have been marketed successfully in the USA as a low calorie women energy drink. As mentioned above, several aspects of the brand enhance its image as a women drink.  Since the USA and Spanish markets share the western culture, applying the same strategy in marketing the drink in the new market is bound to capture a market share. As such, product promotion and advertising should focus on enhancing the women drink aspects in addition to highlighting the low calorie feature.

4.0 Selecting Mode of Entry

      The mode of entry into a new market is an important factor determining the future performance a brand. The entry mode is influenced by several factors ranging from the company resources to market entry requirements.  For the case of Go Girl energy drinks, the company could export drinks from its USA based manufacturing plants or setup a local bottling plant in Spain. However, the former option stands to be costly hence reducing profit margins or pushing product prices up while the later stands to be time consuming with delayed results. In this regard, the most suitable mode of entry would be contract bottling. Setting up a local bottling plant should be considered in future plans.

5.0 Budgets

            The marketing strategy outlined above has several notable areas that require a sizeable budgetary allocation. Brand awareness creation is predictably the most costly activity in the strategy. Combining traditional advertising with nontraditional advertising shall present multiple channels to reach a wider audience (Beverage Marketting Corporation, 2014).  Product line expansion is also cost intensive especially given that its benefits take a longer time and still require advertising to be realized.   The table below presents estimates of the proposed brand awareness creation efforts for one financial year. The budgeted costs were estimated in consideration of the market size and current trends in marketing costs in the Spanish market.

Budget Item	Budgeted cost (Million Euros)
Women Events Sponsoring	50
Online Advertising	20
Media Adverts	70
Others	30
Totals	170

 

 

6.0 Action Programs

The table below presents the action program based on the marketing strategy and tactics outlined above.

Action	Start date	End date
Brand awareness creation	Immediately upon brand introduction into the market	Continues through multichannel advertisement with reducing intensity as brand awareness increases
Brand promotion	Immediately upon brand introduction into the market	Continues throughout the brand presence period in the market
Product line expansion	Should start before brand introduction into market	Should launch a new during the introduction period
Local bottling plant development	Star efforts immediately upon brand introduction	Completed by the time the product breaks even

 

7.0 References

Accenture. (2012). The Spanish Investment market, Evolution and Change. RBC Dexia Investor Services.

Beverage Marketting Corporation. (2014). 2014 Beverage Marketting Reporst and Databases. New York: Beverage Marketting Corporation.

Canovas, A. (2012). The Changes on the Spanish Consumer Behaviorafter the financial crisis 2007. Halmstad University.

Companies and Markets.com. (2013). Food and Drink. Retrieved August 26Th, 2014, from Companies and Markets.com: http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/News/Food-and-Drink/Spanish-energy-drinks-market-driven-by-the-aim-to-lead-a-healthier-lifestyle/NI7264

Food Drink Europe. (2011). Date and Trends of the Eurpoean Food and Drinks Industry. Food Drink Europe.

Harris, J. (2011). Sugary Drinks Facts: Evaluating Sugary Drink Nutrition and Marketting to Youths. Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

International Markets Burea. (2011). Health and Wellnes Trends in Spain. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc. (2013). Go Girl Energy Drink. Retrieved August 20th, 2014, from Go Girl: http://www.gogirlenergy.com/

Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc. (2014). Nor-Cal Beverage Co. Inc. Retrieved August 20th, 2014, from http://www.ncbev.com/about/

OCDE. (2014). Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit not Fat – Spain Key Facts. Retrieved August 21st, 2014, from OCDE: http://www.oecd.org/fr/els/systemes-sante/obesityandtheeconomicsofpreventionfitnotfat-spainkeyfacts.htm

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