Mini-Case

This exam found is meant to assess your ability to apply your new social media marketing knowledge to a real-life situation. The case is meant to simulate the “real world” conditions that would require you to interpret and translate meaning into an actionable consumer engagement marketing strategy. After reading the case below, please respond to the following prompts:

1. What challenge is CPK facing? Why are we marketing?
2. What do we want people to do? What behavior do we want people to adopt?
3. What is the brand’s conviction? Why does the brand exist? What does it believe?
4. Who are we targeting? What network(s) are we going after? What do you know about them? Do the research.
5. What are these people currently doing? What is the hurdle between this behavior (what they’re currently doing) and the desired behavior (what we want them to do)?
6. What creative hook, catalyst, or idea might you use? What’s the creative idea that will nudge people toward the behavior you want people to adopt?
7. What should we say & do? How do we ensure that we are talking the talk and walking the walk? What recommended behaviors should the brand take on to pay off the creative idea?
8. How would you measure success? What KPI’s will constitute whether or not “it” worked?

Your response should be presented in deck form (PowerPoint, Keynote, etc.) with 15 slides maximum (not including a title and ending slide). Your slides should be created as if you were presenting your strategic recommendation to the client. You can add any text that communicates what you say if you were presenting in-person, if you think that is necessary, in the presenter notes of the slide and/or in the appendix.

The examination is a take-home, open-book case analysis. It should be completed individually.

Best of luck!

MINI-CASE: California Pizza Kitchen Oven-Ready

THE SCENARIO:

California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) opened its first restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1985, offering high-quality and innovative recipes such as the Original BBQ Chicken Pizza. In 1998, CPK launched its oven-ready frozen pizza line, a licensing agreement with Kraft, bringing restaurant favorites to consumers’ kitchens. The Restaurant brand and the Oven-Ready brand were (and currently are) managed by two separate companies with two separate teams, but share the same communication approach and social channels.

CPK Oven-Ready uses the same innovation and care that’s used in the restaurant – including the thoughtful selection of ingredients and combination of unique flavors that have inspired what the brand puts in grocer’s freezer. CPK’s Oven-Ready pizzas bring restaurant-inspired recipes and flavorful combinations of delicious ingredients straight to the kitchen.

In 2010, the CPK’s licensing agreement with Kraft was transitioned to Nestle and in late 2013, both the Restaurant and the Oven-Ready brand underwent a makeover. The Restaurant revamped its stores and menu to improve business results. CPK Oven-Ready successfully reinvented itself with new packaging, quality improvements, and premium ingredients which softened its downward trend.

Currently, the CPK brand is down significantly in household penetration and has been trending south for the last few years. While CPK Oven-Ready is the largest of the brands in the specialty pizza category, there have been a variety of new, smaller brands and private label brands challenging CPK Oven-Ready’s position. These competitors are replicating CPK’s value proposition and attempting to steal share with a fresh approach to packaging, appetite appeal, and communications – all of which drive declines in CPK Oven-Ready buy rate.

Key brand health metrics indicate CPK broadly has major gaps in brand “visibility” (awareness) as well as generating trial and purchase consideration. At the same time, CPK Oven-Ready Pizza is struggling to maintain customer loyalty and needs to address this before it can successfully grow the brand.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE:

In today’s world, the competitive landscape is far larger than we previously assessed. Consumers have more choices today than ever before regarding options for their meal occasions. Aside from other frozen pizza options, our target over indexes in CarryOut/Delivery, Casual Fine Restaurants, and various other grocery (frozen & refrigerated) options. The frozen pizza market is crowded with very similar product and ingredient “stories” and only a few unique standouts, while full service and fast casual restaurants are much more differentiated with stronger, own-able, emotional benefit messaging. Frozen: Competitors’ messaging is centered around functional benefits within three categories; premium ingredients, pizzeria/restaurant quality pizza from family recipes, or healthy and all-natural products. The emotional benefits of most of these products are poorly communicated with the exception of Newman’s and Amy’s. Newman’s clearly and overtly states its benefit of supporting a charitable cause, while Amy’s vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free products have helped it tap into niche markets and build a solid community of health-conscious consumers. All players in the landscape use the same tools— recipes, coupons, and sampling tours—to add value and better connect with consumers. CPK Restaurant: As the only full-service restaurant in the audit, CPK has the most extensive and diverse product offering. Its messaging focuses on its unique non-traditional pizzas that unlike most “gourmet” products can be found in a casual dining environment, hinting at both emotional and functional benefits. Fast Casual (i.e. Pizza Rev, Live Basil, Panera, Chipotle): All of the competitors in this space tout their freshness, quality, and speed of service, but their emotional benefits hinge on the provided experience, but all in differing forms; premium customization, superior freshness/ingredients/sustainable ingredients you feel good about, and warm and inviting atmosphere to meet and socialize. Social Media: Competitors are primarily using their social channels to talk less about pizza or products and more about their ingredient stories, charities they support, their community involvement, and the ways in which their brands bring people together, tapping more into the emotional benefits of pizza.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

The Ingredient Focused Consumer: Making progress toward her aspirations is what drives her every day. She seeks to create her own path and knows the choices she makes define who she is. Each step she takes toward this realization is a win in her book so she is mindful of each and every choice she makes.

CORE INSIGHT:

I aspire to be my best and I’m always looking for ways to help get me there

BRAND OPPORTUNITY:

Drive trial of the CPK brand

COMMUNICATION TASK:

To position CPK as the “Ingredient Focused” consumer’s guide on her journey to better as the enabler of mindful choices

CORE ESSENCE:

Rise Above the Ordinary

FUNCTIONAL BENEFIT:

Unmatched flavor experiences that reflect your mindful choices

EMOTIONAL BENEFIT:

Proud to be the best version of me.

MEANINGFUL PRODUCT TRUTH:

Mindfully selected and regionally sourced ingredients re-imagined through the eyes of California. With ingredients that are fresher and taste a little brighter – these recipes redefine your food experience.

BRAND PERSONALITY:

Passionate Explorer: An adventurous spirit always seeking new ways to inspire others and reimagine the norm. Unexpected yet approachable, with a casual sophistication and California flair

OWANABLE BRAND POSITIONING:

Beyond the ordinary food experience that helps you on your journey to better.

KPI’s:

Drive trial by improving the perception of value through communications and improve equity through other relevant brand health metrics.