Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Thornton's - Tesco
Thornton’s Partnership with Tesco:
Shops such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s
have a partnership with Thornton’s. These shops are selling Thornton’s chocolate
at a reduced price. For example, over the Christmas period, Tesco were selling
a Thornton’s set at half the
price, meaning that Thornton’s will miss out on £7.99 every time someone buys
it. With this in mind, we believe that it’s actually destroying the company. On
BBC News, there is an article from Summer 2011, and Thornton’s stated, “…weak
trading comes as a number of retailers are struggling against a backdrop of
lower consumer spending.” We think this because people will rather go to Tesco
and other shops to buy the products for a cheaper price and convenience. To
solve this, we feel it would benefit Thornton’s, if they were to cut off this
partnership; making potential customers shop in Thornton’s if they want their
chocolate.
Star & Moon aim to re-brand
Thortons will a new image that suggests class and specialty. We want the
customers to feel special and exclusive when they shop in Thorntons. We aim to
do this by changing the logo, slogan, colour scheme, shop layout and adding new
chocolates to the range.
Thornton's - Audience & Issues
Target Audience
An
important area to discuss is the target audience. Thornton’s can appeal to
anyone but their main audience is females around and between the age ranges of
20-40. This is because many girls love to treat themselves to chocolate and also
buy chocolate for their children or family members. It can also appeal to the
male audience as well as they buy chocolates for their girlfriends or wives.
However, we would estimate the percentage of audience that buy from Thornton’s
are female; approximately 80%. The socio-economic class of the audience is
middle class and the occupations are usually students, part and full time
employment and mothers.
Heading for Administration
The
problems Thornton’s are facing is the fact that they, like many big brands
these days, are heading for administration. They are struggling to make and
maintain sales due to high store supermarkets such as Tesco’s selling their
products at a cheaper price – usually at least half of the RRP price.
Although
this partnership with supermarkets such as Tesco’s bring them some money in, we
feel that by dismissing this partnership, it would work out better for
Thornton’s as if people want to buy Thornton’s chocolates they go to Thornton’s
instead of their local supermarket.
The
fact that people buy their Thornton’s chocolates from supermarkets more than
Thornton’s shops indicate that they feel the Thornton’s prices are too
expensive as people would rather pay less if the chance were there. Therefore
we would propose that Thornton’s reconsider the price of their products and
reduce them accordingly. Another idea would be to do offers such as BOGOF or
half price etc.
Due
to lack of sales, 180 Thornton’s shops have been closed down across the UK
since summer 2011. Thornton’s have had no choice but to close down shops due to
not being able to supply the funds to keep them open and running. This action
from Thornton’s has left a smaller amount of shops dotted around the UK and
mostly of tiny sizes. Our ideas for shop improvements are below.
Colours & Shop Presentation
We
felt that although the colours Thornton’s currently use suits the theme of
chocolate, people find them rather bland. We feel that the traditional
Thornton’s colours – different shades of brown – should be kept but only for
backgrounds and logos. We believe that with the use of colours it would attract
people to them. For example, there is the idea of having certain sections
different colours.
By
this we mean, chocolate that is mint flavoured has a green coloured section,
chocolate that is orange flavoured has an orange coloured section, chocolate
that is strawberry flavoured has a red coloured section, and etc. As well as
the addition of bright colours, we felt that the shelves and display areas
should be improved by the use of materials. Products are just placed on wooden
shelves and so we would want to introduce using silk to add more luxury. All
shelves would have silk neatly laid out so it doesn’t look messy or over the
top. Each silk would correspond to the correct colour for the particular
chocolate displayed upon it.
Something
else we find problematic is the size of the Thornton’s shops. Many of them are
relatively small and with displays placed around the shop to promote products,
it becomes very compact and even more crowded when there are customers browsing
within the shop. To tackle this problem we feel that Thornton’s should expand
the sizes of their shops.
We
came up with an idea for a new Thornton’s shop in our city of Portsmouth. In
Commercial Road – the main shopping area – there is a large commercial property
available along the main high street. It used to house the extremely large
Woolworths store before it shut down back in 2008.
We
feel that the entire property would be too big for Thornton’s so the property
would be split in half and Thornton’s would acquire the inside section which
has doors to the Cascades Shopping Centre as well as an elevator to a café area
which overlooks the store. We strongly believe this is an excellent idea as the
shop floor would be a regular, yet large, Thornton’s with plenty of floor and
display space, and there could be a Thornton’s café above, which would sell
specialised deserts.
An
idea we have come up for to promote Thornton’s to the public is to have
appearances on television show, This Morning. This fits in with our idea of a
partnership with ITV. We would use our partnership with ITV to constantly
promote Thornton’s in the form of live appearances and TV adverts.
Our
target audience is females in the age ranges of 20-40, which is perfect as this
is the audience of This Morning and other ITV programmes such as Take Me Out,
Coronation Street and I’m A Celeb! which we would be sponsoring.
On
This Morning, we would have Gino D’acampo demonstrate chocolate making for the
upcoming events. As well as having a Thornton’s representative on the This
Morning sofa talking about Thornton’s and the upcoming events. We strongly like
the idea of having Gino D’acampo making chocolate as he is a regular on This
Morning and is well known. We would want him to become the face of Thornton’s,
similar to Jamie Oliver being the face of Sainsbury’s.
This
wouldn’t just be publicity for Thornton’s in general but would also promote
public awareness of the upcoming events that are taking place nationwide in
main cities of London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Portsmouth, Southampton, Cardiff and Newtown. We would use this time
on air to talk about Thornton’s and promote the company as much as possible.
Another
idea is that on This Morning, there is a Thornton’s text in competition. Examples
of the competition question are:
“What
is the colour of the Thornton’s logo?”
“What
is the traditional shape for Easter chocolate?”
“In
what city is the Thornton’s Chocolate Extravaganza event taking place?”
We
feel that this is a good idea as it gets people involved, makes it fun and
promotes Thornton’s. Most importantly, we would strongly highlight the fact
that we have a partnership with NSPCC and so all the money raised from
competition entries are split with the NSPCC. To enter, people would text their
answers from the list of three given answers (in the form of A, B or C). Texts
would cost £1.
Therefore
for each text, 50p would go towards NSPCC.
Thornton's - Advertisement
Advertisement:
Magazines:
Our
target audience is females, aged 20-40. With this in mind, we think it would
benefit Thornton’s to advertise in magazines such as Take A Break, Woman and
OK! etc. The advert will be the same as the bus stop, because it creates
secrecy along with providing information on what’s happening and when.
TV:
Instead
of paying for stand-alone adverts, we think it would be better to sponsor TV
programmes as then it’s guaranteed to be seen by at least someone. We think
Thornton’s should start a partnership with ITV and sponsor programmes such as
Take Me Out and Coronation Street. This will involve the Thornton’s logo being
shown at the beginning and end of the programme and before and after every
break; this will hopefully bring in many customers.
PR:
In
Cascades in Commercial Road, Portsmouth, there is a Thornton’s shop with a
space available outside to place out “DIY” booths – if it’s not already in use.
With having it in Cascades, we don’t have the worry of rain etc. This will be
advertised in magazines, and posters around Portsmouth. At the booths,
customers will pay a fee and will be able to make and decorate their own
chocolate shapes – such as hearts, bunnies, eggs, lollies etc. If they then
like it, they can then go and shop in the Thornton’s store opposite.
Thornton's - Action Plans
Action Plan (18th
January 2012):
Today, Emma and me came up with the main
ideas:
Hold events to make
chocolate yourself:
- The event will be free.
- The chocolate people make is free to take home.
- There are stalled classic Thornton’s chocolates and products.
- People pay for any extras (wrapping, packaging, deals and bundles)
- NSPCC are involved in this event – for every 15 sales we donate half
- Competitions and raffles to win prizes including hampers and short holidays
Seasonal events:
- Easter, Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, Weddings, Mother’s Day
- Main seasonal events are Easter and Valentine’s Day
- Easter – eggs, chicks, bunnies, baskets
- Valentine’s Day – red, hearts, bears, lips
- Packaging – choice of colours, ribbons, wicker baskets, boxes
New look (logo
& slogan):
- Have chocolate dripping from the Thornton’s logo
- For each season, put something suitable; for example, eggs and rabbit for Easter
- New slogan – new slogans for each season
Promoting:
- Create and design adverts to promote the event
- Adverts are to be published online, magazine, buses, TV
- Create a double side leaflet that would be put into bags in the shop
- Thornton’s Twitter
Adverts:
- Online – via animation (Photoshop)
- Side of buses – one or two lines, image, date, website, logo
- Bus stops – one or two main lines, big image, date, more information, logo
- Magazine – poster, image, logo,
date, website (Illustrator)
Software:
- Adobe Illustrator CS3
- Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft PowerPoint
Completed: We came up with ideas, and created some different logo designs
between us for different seasons. Also, Chloe made a one-off NSPCC Thorntons
logo to advertise their link with the event.
Action Plan (19th
January 2012):
Emma wasn’t here today, so I worked on
the logos and media plan:
Slogan Idea: “Don’t resist temptation.”
Completed: media plan, slogan idea, PowerPoint and shop leaflet “front”
design idea.
Action Plan (25th
January 2012):
Today, Emma and me will work on the
seasonal logos, and putting the pitch PowerPoint together.
Completed: Valentine’s Day logo, Easter logo ideas, Christmas logo
ideas, more of the PowerPoint.
Action Plan (8th
February 2012):
Today, Emma and me will present our
pitch to our client.
Completed: Our pitch.
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