Memoire Marketing

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Today, one in five companies collapses and this for various reasons: it might be due to mismanagement of the company, a lack of employee’s competence, bad product quality or poor product communication . Speaking of communication, it is necessary to say that consumers aware of their surroundings are becoming more and more demanding; they do not want to be manipulated by advertising because they already know his aims and objectives. Advert influences more children who recommend to their parent. This is why the design becomes a challenge greater than communication. The design according to Steven Dupuis and John Silva (2008): is a way of creating products that enable consumers to identify the functional and aesthetic personality of a product and differentiate a brand on a shelf. It will be impossible to talk about design without mentioning the packaging, because the design is made on a packaging. In fact, packaging as defined by J.Ledrevie and D.Lind ( 1997) is : all the material elements that are not part of the product itself, come with him to allow and facilitate its protection,transport,storage ,presentation on the shelf, its identification and customer use ,which shows its plurality of meanings. When we take the Beninese (Benin is a West African French speaking country) market of baby food, a survey on supermarkets showed that, most meals purchased in supermarkets are mostly from France. This is the case of “Farimickelange" that has nothing to envy to his imported substitutes, but record very low sales compared to its competitors. This difficult situation has been confirmed by a research made by the agency AT council in (2009) showing that despite the fact that Farimickelange perfectly matches the specific needs of Beninese children, it has a low competiveness, to the extent that sales are not meeting expectations. It should then be crucial to examine the possible reasons for this state of affairs. The analysis of its distribution revealed that "Farimickelange" is sold in pharmacies and supermarkets. But, as in supermarkets, the sales system is self-service; the product must be able to sell itself. We then think that the product must meet a number of conditions of shape, colour and others in order to get noticed or to be bought easily.

The question that arises is whether Farimickelange meets the attractiveness that can allow it to draw the attention of buyers in the supermarket, hence the following question: how does the design and packaging of the product influence consumer buying behaviour?

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.1.1 PRESENTATION OF BENIN

BENIN is a small West Africa country, which covers an area of 112.622km ² .Benin has 8.4 million inhabitants in 2008. It shares borders with Togo by the west, Nigeria by the east, Niger and Burkina Faso by the north. Benin has attained full independence from French colonisators on 1 August 1960. The official capital is Porto-Novo; Cotonou is the economic capital.

Benin is a country with poor subsoil, which lives primarily from its port and its agriculture..Benin is also a producer of cotton, which accounts for 40% of GDP and roughly 80% of official export receipts. The Benin also produces cassava, sorghum, yam, palm oil, and others.. 95% of Benin's economy is informal but generates a tax shortfall important for this country.

The baby food market sector is run by local and international actors. International actors are involved in this market to cover the deficit in dairy products in Benin by massive imports of dairy products and infant formula and derivatives. Among these companies that operate in this baby food market s we can cite Agrotechnic, BLEDINE , CERESO , NESTLE

1.1.2 PRESENTATION OF THE COMPANY

The company AGROTECHNIC is a very small company that was founded in 1995 in republic of Benin (West Africa) by Cyril Adandedjan. This company is located in Akassato Missesinto more precisely. The company's main objective is to promote local materials in order to meet market needs. The company would also like to match specific offers in a consumer society increasingly irrational. This company manufactured three products which are: ground coffee, roasted coffee and the infant formula "Farimickelange." We will focus our study on "FARIMICKELANGE" which is an infant formula.

1.1.3 PRESENTATION OF FARIMICKELANGE

Farimickelange is an infant formula produced by the company Agrotechnique.this infant formula is consumed by children from 0 to 2 years.farmickelange can also be used as a medical supplement for children with special nutrition needs. Farimickelange is packed in a parallelepiped cardboard. (See appendix 1) On one side of the carton there are two children of different colours one is white and the other one is black that expresses the coup that the product can be consumed by children regardless of their race, because , after all the body is the same for all children around the world. The background is purple, and we can read :

- "Farimickelange" in 4 different colours (red yellow green blue)

- "Coconut” written in black

- "Age 2" in red

- "DANA" black

- "Recommende par l’oms" in red

- "Farine instantanee" on a yellow background

- "Vitamine et fer" in blue.

- We also see a broken coconut

On another side we have all the information relating to the preparation formula baking and dosing flour.

1.1.4 COMPETITIVE MARKET:

Different threats are exposed to the Agro technique s brand Farimickelange however; another great brand in Benin market of baby food is Bledine followed by Cerelac and nestle. Bledine having to his credit some known brand is the first greatest threat to Farimickelange.

With a global market share above 65%, the leader Bledine pushes its competitors to adopt penetration strategy to enter this sector. Major competitors such as Cerelac, Farimickelange tend to expand their product lines to cover the entire food market. However, the high number of references of these products groups cannot make them to have the ability to react as fast as Bledine's market evolution.In the baby food market, Bledine is the leader with a market share of 65%, Farimickelange is his follower with 25% of

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