‘Lindt for life’ is a trust set up by Lindt, designed to complement the already up-and-running ‘Ghana Traceable’ project (Lindt 2009). Its aim is to actively improve the lives of the workers and their families in the Cocoa farming regions of Ghana, from which we source our cocoa (Lindt 2009). This will be done specifically by providing insecticide treated mosquito nets for the children and wives of the cocoa farm workers.
We see this as an essential part of Lindt’s CSR due to the fact that Malaria is a particular health concern in rural Ghana and Insecticide treated nets are a hugely effective, but yet not widely available, means of preventing a disease which is particularly dangerous to young children and pregnant women (Chuks et al. 2007)
As a means of funding the trust, we at Lindt have made a promise to donate 10% of the profits from every bar of ‘Lindt Excellence’ sold during the year 2010 and a further 50% of profits from sales of our ‘limited edition Lindt Excellence’ offer, running in the first quarter.
Coordinated promotional mix
Public Relations
PR campaigns have been used in the past to ‘win over the hearts and minds of consumers and its status in the marketing mix has grown accordingly’ (Tench and Yeomans 2006 p.415). It is for this reason that we have decided to embark upon a Cause Related Marketing campaign, defined as a form of marketing ‘where a company associates a marketing promotion with a charitable cause’ (Tench and Yeomans 2006 p. 361 cited in Hart 1995 p. 219). Through this campaign we then hope to improve the image of Lindt as a more socially responsible brand and therefore increase sales by appealing to potential customers desire to buy products, the suppliers of which are doing good and ethical work in the community, as suggested by Fill (2005).
Two benefits of choosing PR as a marketing communications tool is its relative low cost compared to other marketing tools at our disposal, and the added credibility it can carry, particularly when the message is relayed through a well respected medium (Fill 2005). Our choice of these mediums includes two of the options recommended by Fill (2005):
Press Conference
The first of which will be a press conference, during which we will announce the opening of the ‘Lindt for life’ trust (referred to earlier in the paper). Here we will outline the reasons, plan and aims of the campaign (as outlined in the ‘Lindt for life’ section) and of course invite journalists to ask any questions they may have. It is hoped that this story will then be relayed to the public (and therefore potential consumers) through mass media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
Press releases
Our second medium will be through press releases targeting mass print media outlets such as newspapers and magazines. These press releases will be used to highlight the work being done by the ‘Lindt for Life’ trust by emphasising specific targets that have been met with regards money raised, work done and targets which we hope to meet in the near future. These press releases will begin after the initial press conference and run quarterly, throughout the calendar year. We are very aware of the danger that comes with the low control we have over what exactly our media mediums decide to write (Fill 2005) and the possibility that these media outlets may choose to misconstrue or twist our message as ‘yet another company trying to reap rewards by overemphasising their community work’.
We however feel that due to the substantial and calculable benefits the Cocoa farming community of Ghana will reap from the ‘Lindt for Life’ campaign, it seems unlikely this would happen and with appropriate media management we feel confident that the messages relayed by the media will work positively for us. It is due to this slight risk of our message being misconstrued by the media that we are very wary of being seen to bombard the media with too regular a supply of information regarding the trusts work and therefore why we chose to keep our press releases to one every 3 months.
The advantages of using mass media mediums such as newspapers and magazines in this way is that through the newspapers we are able to communicate with a vast amount of widely dispersed people (Cutlip et al. 1994), while through magazines we are able to communicate with more specialised groups of people due to the vast array of specialised interest magazines (Cutlip et al. 1994). We shall therefore choose magazines which we perceive as more likely to reach our target audience of consumers.
Advertising
Objective of the Message
The objective of the message is to associate the Lindt- Excellence brand to the range of premium and dark chocolates in the market. At the same time, the message should emphasise the main differential of the product: its high content of cocoa and the benefits that this characteristic brings.
Reinforcing the message of the general campaign, the high content of coca is the reason for both the high quality taste which appeals to our target audience and for the CSR work which we are undertaking in Ghana. Therefore, our message is that by buying this product the consumer will enjoy the premium taste of the chocolate while actively contributing to the quality of life in Ghana.
Concept of the Message
The high content of cocoa in the Excellence range of chocolates is directly linked with more opportunities and levels of happiness for the farmers of coca beans in Ghana and their families. The high amount of cocoa is also linked with the intense taste and quality of the product. These aspects are emphasised in the following phrases:
- high amount of happiness
- high amount of opportunity
- high amount of quality
- high amount of taste
- high amount of cocoa
The phrase ‘high amount of…’ and the picture of a cocoa bean will be used consistently to link all the aspects together and create an impact towards the target audience.
Sales Promotion
Chris Brown gave the definition of sales promotion as “The practice of offering temporary additional value to a brand in order to reach specific marketing objective” (Brown 1993 p.14). Here, in the case of Lindt Excellence one such marketing objective is to communicate our corporate social responsibility campaign ‘Lindt for life’. Burnett (1993) also said that two of the sales promotion objectives are to create a positive experience which one will associate with the product therefore enhancing the products value and brand equity. Moreover, sales promotion may be used to reach communication objectives such as awareness and attitude change. Therefore, as a marketing communications tool, the sales promotion campaign ‘Big amount of happiness’ will be used.
Conclusion
Lindt is a relatively well known brand In the UK, however we identified certain issues in terms of its positioning that we felt that it could benefit from enhancing. Therefore, we propose an integrated communications campaign which utilizes the three tools, advertising, public relations and sales promotions, all chosen for their characteristic suitability to the campaign. We foresee that through this Lindt Excellence marketing campaign and by highlighting the CSR work which the company has undertaken, we will portray Lindt as a more ethically sound brand. We believe this to be important due customers growing level of awareness of Corporation’s social responsibility, and therefore their desire to buy products from more ethically sound companies. A thorough method of evaluation would have to be implemented in order to decipher the success of this campaign and therefore whether it should be implemented beyond 2010.
