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Case Study Of The Snapple Beverage Company

Decent Essays

Introduction The success the Snapple Beverage Company had achieved by the early 1990s drew the attention of the Quaker Oats Company which bought it in 1994 for $1.7 billion, and planned on maximizing the professedly unequivocal synergies between the “funky” iced tea brand and their established Gatorade brand. Despite Quaker’s efforts and ambition, which some might classify as hubris, the company’s decision to acquire Snapple is often regarded as a clamorous example of a merger and acquisition disaster. This paper analyzes Quaker’s failures using the 4 P’s framework, and proposes an action plan for Triarc’s turn-around of the Snapple brand, tailoring it to a modern market setting.

Snapple’s Marketing Mix in the Pre Quaker Era Snapple operated …show more content…

They hoped that by employing this distribution rationale they could fuel synergy within Quaker’s Beverage Division. Despite Quaker’s efforts distributors resisted this hybrid, and the strategy resulted in being far from successful. Other key marketing mix failures that affected Snapple in the Quaker era fall under the promotion and product umbrellas. Quaker did not follow regular advertising schedules, ceased Snapple’s partnership with Wendy Kaufman, and beside reducing the numbers of flavors available, was also unable to introduce new ones quickly enough. The started selling the product in larger sizes (32 and 64 ounces bottle), but this initiative was another flop: bottles of that size were suitable for Gatorade, not for a leisure beverage like Snapple, customers simply would not buy it. These choices elicited negative response in consumers who stopped perceiving Snapple as a funky and fashionable brand; the beverage’s healthy reputation was damaged too. It is rather clear that Quaker’s executives did not fully understand the Snapple brand and erroneously modified its marketing mix. This failure resulted in the rise of a deleterious discrepancy between the experiential value and benefits customers were used to and expected form Snapple, and the brand’s altered nature. In synthesis, Quaker tried to transplant a marketing mix and execution strategy to a recipient who was not suitable for it, and Snapple, its distributors, and its customers ultimately suffered from

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