However, their story did not happen because of opportunity, but based on research of their customers' needs and wants. Introduction: "Airpark" is one of many products of PAL, which succeeded to grow its sales in Singapore from A$200,OHO to A$113 million within few years. PAL is an Australian company that focuses on creating a profitable future for Australian pork industry, with support of federal government. Australian pork industry is unique by itself. Due to its geographical location, animal farming is much safer from animal and other diseases and viruses.
One of the most important competitive advantages of Australian livestock is their healthy herds and disease free cattle. World meat institution is increasing every year, where pork takes 43% of the whole meat consumption. Australian pork industry Before sass Australian pork industry had government protection against "uncooked" wet meat imports for protection purposes. After Australia entered WTFO in 1995, it had to release the import protocols due to its membership. Therefore, in mid sass's Australian domestic pork industry came to destruction and collapse of domestic pork prices.It led to the government intervention, where the government made an adjustment packages called Australian Pork Industry Restructure Strategy, which insisted of National Pork Industry Development Program (NIP), Pigment Processing Grand Program (PEG), Farmers Training Program (Porkier) and Pork Producer Exit Program (PEEP).
Australian Pork exports grew drastically due to Foot and Mouth Disease (FM) that happened in Taiwan and later in South Korea 1996 and 1997. One of the main importers of Taiwanese pork was Japan, where they had around 70% of all the imported pork.When the FM occurred in South Korea, Australia became the main importer of pork meat into Japanese market. It was a big jump for Australian pork industry, as Japan is the 4th country in pork consumption. In 1999, after the fall of domestic pork price and pork industry destruction, Confederation of Australian Pork Exporters was established on funds of NIP. Singapore pork market Singapore population is highly diverse; the majorities are Chinese with almost 75% of the total population.
Chinese people have very long history and tradition of consuming pork in their daily life and they are the world number one consumer of pork. Therefore, pork is big part of daily diet in Singapore. Due to land high price and difficulties of managing pig waste, Singapore government banned pig farming. Therefore, their pork consumption demand is satisfied only by imported pork.
Malaysia and Indonesia were the main exporters of pork to Singapore. Due to the domestic preference of fresh meat, pigs were imported alive.In 1998, virus called "Nippy" spread through Malay Peninsula and for protection, Singapore banned import of pork from Malaysia. Therefore, there was a big lack of pork supply in Singapore market. PAL and "Airpark" PAL is "not-for-profit" company that works for Australian pork industry future and its development.
It claims to work for the benefit of pig producers. Australian pork was preferred by customers of their main exporter at that time, Japan, for their quality, taste, pig high quality food, high standard of hygiene and safety.Australian pork had small share of the market in Singapore pork market. In 1997, chilled pork import from Australia was banned in Singapore, as the supply chain between Australia and Singapore was not meeting the required quality. Around 1999, "Susie-Pork" sticker was only identity of Australian pork in Singapore market. Due to the closure of imports of Malaysian pork into Singapore market, Australian pork industry had their iris big window to enter the market.
Airpark" is one of PAL products, which was specially produced and promoted only for Singapore customers. "Airpark" are air- freighted to Singapore daily. The name "Airpark' is translated as "Fresh Treasure" in local language and promoted as "healthy and nutritious". Its sales are done only through specific few retailers. Its sales increased radically within a year from A$ 200,000 to A$113 millions. Even though, the success is remarkable, there are different changes in the market that shall be considered for "Airports" future.
InternalStrength of "Airpark" * High standard of quality, hygiene in the origin of the production * Pig production in disease free geographical area * "Air-freighted" products that are fresh as newly slaughtered meat * Strong R;D support, deep study of Singapore market * Limited retailing stores, which enables close control of quality and standards * Hygienically and ready to use packed goods * Australian Pork Industry Quality Program, where pig meat going for export had to meet: biological, chemical, physical, welfare, quality and management standards Internal Weakness of "Airpark" Special cooling technology requirement, especially for shipment and storage * Inability to ship live pigs and slaughter them in the market, like how customers would prefer it External Environment: Opportunities * Consumers changing buying behavior - psychological factor of consumers' behavior started changing from "wet market" to supermarket packed meat purchase, especially in the young generation, which is the majority of the whole population. * Customers' ethnic culture of consuming pork in their daily diet. * Main competitor from Malaysia is out of the market, due to "Nippy" virus. Growing demand of pork uh to increasing consumption * Changing perception of Australian pork taste External environment: Threats * Potential growth of competitors from abroad, especially from US and Canada. Their quality is perceived as high in the local market * Threat of substitutes like beef, chicken, poultry. Beef and poultry current consumption percentage in the world is over 26% each.
* Wet market competition, where freshly butchered meet from Indonesia is still available for customers * Failure of providing appropriate cooling technology * Potential competition from Malaysia when the government releases the extraction Based on given information, Airpark has relatively high competitive advantage in the market.Why Australian exports to Singapore increased even before their advertising campaign was undertaken: Market orientation Helping to match client and organization interests and benefits, now and in future Identify the potential customers and clients for the exchange Identify new or further opportunities for exchange Find out what it is that needs to be supplied in order to provide satisfactory value to the potential customers and clients-both physically and psychologically Helping manage demand by understanding 'how markets work Defining customer targets and finding the best way to offer to satisfy their needs and wants both competitively Needs and Wants Needs are requirements that are need to be met, wants are things that would be nice to have. They are discretionary and also maybe traded off against another. Wants are often based upon emotions, for example not to be worried, to be happy, to gain status.
.. Consumers loyalty is the result of a brands ability to stand out on both functional and emotional attributes.Forrester have shown that brands that distinguish themselves on emotional attributes can capture 60% greater loyalty. The three types of markets - buyer decision making and choice process differ in each Repertoire - low price, frequently purchased products and services. People do have some loyalty to a brand but different people have different degrees to loyalty.
Brands grow by getting more customers, not getting customers to be more loyal. Subscription and durable markets Segmentation: principle and processes S T P - Segmentation, choice of Target one(s), Positioning within it (them). Different clients may seek different value, however , it is impossible to meet every ones individually.Therefore, segmentation is used: it helps the organization to focus the resources and efforts where it will have the best outcome for both customers and the organization.
By carefully analyzing the needs and wants of various segments in the market by matching the organizations Marketing Mix - the ups that management can have a large degree of control over Understanding (potential) customers and clients - through their eyes' remarked-based assets ( rumbas) - what they are, their influence on market response Brands / Brand equity (a manifestation of rumbas) Product - what can be embraced by this term The Product category life-cycle Managing through the stages of the PAL The ways of extending and/or growing the PAL Anions Matrix - a useful framework of thinking of ways to Extend the PAL ( I. E. O find new opportunities) The 'marketing of services' - conclusions about whether there really is any difference Recognition that products and services may be created by networks of collaborators Australian Pork exports increased radically from 60,keg to 28. 8 million keg in 2001. During this period, there was no advertising campaign held, which can be explained by following points: 1.
Desperate need" of new source of pork in Singapore pork market. Due to the cultural factor of pork being "big part of daily diet" of Gingersnaps, they faced the need to replace the source of prohibited flow of pork from Malaysia. It increased the chance of Australian pork to take over the market share, which grew dramatically by almost 2000 times by the end of 1999. 2.Consumers changing buying behavior - psychological factor of consumers' behavior started changing from "wet market" to supermarket packed meat purchase, especially in the young generation, which is the majority of the whole population. This shift was caused due to the way how deceases and viruses can be transferred to the pork.
Transporting live pork and slaughtering them in Singapore increased the risk of having the pork infected. Therefore, having health and quality requirement meeting pork from Australia was the best choice for the consumers. 3. "Free from all major animal deceases" of Australian chilled pork was another reason of their success. Due to the animal virus that happened in Malaysia, quality control of importing products rose.
This lead to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system, which incorporated 40 industry standards.The Australian pigs that were exported had to meet the standards and they did, due to their farming standards and the geographical isolated location of Australia, that kept the area far from the connection with other countries animal deceases. Reasons of why Airports' advertising campaign was a good marketing practice: Even though it seems that due to the above mentioned reasons, there was no promotion or advertisement necessary for Airports success, it is important to look further and build strong strategy, which shall bring Airpark future market growth and higher sales. Around 1997 Airpark was more production oriented, where more emphasis was put on production efficiency, meeting the needs of customers, rather than putting much attention on selling techniques. Only simple "Susie-pork" sticker was placed on their products. Final, 2003) However, the Confederation of Australian Pork Exporters saw the necessity of developing a strategy for Australian pork export future.
Advertising of PAL held from May 2001 was one of the most expensive ones in food industry at that time. Even though no marketing was necessary at that time for PAL, it was a good marketing practice as meeting only needs of the customers is not enough; they also need to add the wants of the customers. Needs and wants of customers are mutually exclusive, but complementary. Needs of the customers were met by increased supply of Australian pork.
But from the advertisement the customers could realize that their wants are also met.Gingersnaps' have very particular way of choosing the pork "down to the layers of fat in different parts of the pig". The blind taste test proved that the Gingersnaps preferred the Australian pork, which was previously mistaken as Australian pork having "tainted and milky/beefy taste". In addition, the customer's assumption of "anything that was flown to Singapore was not fresh" has shifted away from "wet market" to cold-chain system.
How and why could the industry increase the level of sales of pork to Singapore yet further? It was previously mentioned that pork takes the majority of the share in worlds' meat market. Australia has its very unique pork industry.Due to its geographical location and high hygiene control in the farming and slaughtering process, they are free of mouth and foot decease and have low to none possibility to have viruses spread to their pigs. As mentioned in the case study, health of Australian herds is one of the main competitive advantages in the pork industry. However, it is not enough for PAL to continue their growth in the Singapore pork market.
The PAL marketers shall successfully match the customers need and wants with their organizations'. (Carbondale, 2013) They had a successful launch of Airpark with special logo of flying pig on the blue sky background. It had delivered the message to the customers that Airpark is fresh, Just like as if they were slaughtered in Singapore wet-market.They are building their brand in relation to natural freshness, color ambition and image interpretation. This helps to build brand awareness (Graph A), where the sight of their logo is interpreted into perceived values in minds of customers. They have also successfully build high brand quality perception, where "Healthier Choice" award also puts extra points in.
They put big emphasis in their promotion on quality and freshness of their pork; their name is even translated to "fresh treasure" in local language. Airport's' marketers understood the value their customers are looking for in their products and their want of consumption of fresh product.Even though customers know that Airpark is not slaughtered in Singapore, marketers built a strong perception of "same as freshly slaughtered pork" with Airpark brand. Airpark also succeeded in shifting the new generation buying behavior into super market packed product consumption. They used a strategy of selling their products through only limited super markets, it caused the consumers to shift their buying behavior from wet-market to super markets.
It also increases the perceived value of the product, giving the consumers the feeling of limited products sales through limited channels. Therefore, it increases the value of Airpark meat by certain level in the eyes of consumers. However, this is not all foreseen in their future.There is a possibility for Airpark to grow further and penetrate the market even more.
One of the growth strategies they could use is Market Modification. The new generation of young people, couples, and parent's are changing their buying and living behavior. Their lifestyle changed into more "make life easier" style, where they prefer purchasing half ready products and make the cooking faster and easier. Here Airpark has a big new target market, where they will need to make product adjustments by increasing their product varieties, where half cooked, spiced or half cooked products would appeal the young generation more.
As stated in the graph P, the young population of Singapore takes the major part.With the same market modification and product modification strategies, (Carbondale, 2013) Airpark can increase their market share by targeting foreigners, born abroad Gingersnaps, high end product purchasers. It is mentioned in the case study that North American pork is preferred as higher quality product and they have limited availability through high end restaurants. Here, Airpark marketers can take advantage of their competitors' weakness of being rare and low supply in the market and offer the same high quality product using the same transportation channel and saving a lot of cost in delivering the new variety of their products in the market. Airpark had the golden opportunity when the Mouth and Foot decease spread through major Asian pork farming and also when "Nippy" virus spread in Malaysia.They have successfully implemented the strategy to enter and penetrate the Singapore market by building good brand perception and awareness.
However, hey still have a bright future in Singapore market, where consumers' behavior is changing. References: Final, U. 2003. "Airpark: From zero to hero. What next? " Instead.
Carbondale, D. , and Ottoman, R. 2013. "A market place orientation - The starting point" Creative and accountable marketing.
Study guide: University of South Australia. Carbondale, D. , and Ottoman, R. 2013.
"Doing things right - Offering things in the right way - Managing the product and service product" Creative and accountable marketing. Study guide: University of South Australia. Appendices: Graph A: Airpark brand awareness Graph P: Graph l: Major importer
