MARKETING PROPOSAL
Company Background
The company that is selected for formulating the marketing proposal is Nestle. Nestle is a multinational corporation with its headquarters based in Switzerland. Nestle is the largest food company as per its revenue in the world.
The origins of the company date back to the year 1860 when two Swiss companies merged to form Nestle. In the next decade, Nestle started to expand all over the United States and Europe (Mowbray, 2018). The company marked its expansion mainly during World War I and World War II by expanding is product categories from infant formulas and condensed milk to various other products.
The products of the company include bottled water, breakfast products such as cereals, tea, medical food products and baby food, frozen products, animal food and dairy products. For the marketing proposal, the product category of baby food would be discussed. Nestlé’s mission statement is “Good Food, Good Life” which is a promissory statement that ensures the people for enhancing their lives through food beverages and food products. Nestle has 447 factories all around the world operational in 189 nations (Mowbray, 2018).
Problem Statement
The problem statement is, “Boycott of Nestle infant formula and other baby products around the world as the company involved itself in exaggerated marketing and failed to communicate the use of breast milk substitute product which led to the deaths of many infants.”
Background: The company has been a target of various controversies, however, there is a rising question mark on the breast milk substitute formula of infant milk. The company has been accused by different customers for violating the ethical practices as they manipulated its customer regarding the baby milk formulas (Krasny, 2012). There are critics about the company's alternatives to breastfeeding and many countries boycotted from the product. Many leading organizations all around the globe boycotted from the products of Nestle because of its false marketing in developing countries. There are certain codes of practices that are described by the World Health Organization to be followed for marketing practices which were not followed by Nestle. It can be seen that the company was a victim of many controversies thus this marketing proposal will research further on the controversies to evaluate the problem in more depth. Up until the late 1970s, Nestlé started to draw worldwide controversy because of its advertising practices for baby milk, particularly those in developing nations. Public outcry culminated with the 1977 Nestle boycott that is still in place today. Following were the issues that resulted in the problem to be a controversy:
· Labelled in developing nations with "Baby Killer ' in 1970.
· Nestlé marketed yet still promotes the product as a risk-free supplement to breastmilk.
· In poor nations Milk has been polluted, contributing to illness in vulnerable children.
· UNICEF reports that even an infant who is not breastfed living in an unhygienic state is 6 to 25 fold has a higher likelihood to suffer from malnutrition and four-fold more likely to end up of pneumonia compared to an infant who is breastfed.
Nestle in Controversy
The debate to market the baby milk products as a substitute for breastfeeding milk entered the markets of developing nations somewhere around 1973. This debate started because of the two nutritionists that raised question over the aggressive marketing of the product. However, the debate did not reach the heights until another publication was issued with its title as "The Baby Killer". This publication was translated into different languages across the world and distributed widely. In the same year, a German man published another article which was also translated in German with its version that was named as Nestlé kills babies. But Nestle ended up suing the organization for inappropriately labelling the company. Nestle won the case but at the same time, the publication gained publicity across the whole of United States.
Consequently, Nestlé decided to review its policies of marketing, especially in developing countries. It worked on making revisions in the content and words of advertising and the way educational information was passed on through the marketing techniques. Nestle focused on spreading awareness that it is important to breastfeed children rather than substituting the milk of infants with artificial mil products. By 1978, Nestle managed to withdraw the mass marketing of the infant formula mainly in developing nations.
Research Questions
Following are the research questions for this proposal:
· What are the factors that contributed to the negative controversies of Nestle?
· What is the actual impact of Nestlé's aggressive marketing and claiming its formulas to be a substitute for breasted milk?
· How can Nestle rise above the controversies and improve its mistakes?
· What are the implications for future use of the Nestle baby products?
Target Audience
The target audience for the proposal would be the following:
1. World Health Organization: The World Health Organization is an organization that is focused on providing health benefits to the users of various products. It ensures that the companies operate with integrity so that the customers aren’t deceived by false advertising of products. However, the controversy of Nestle was against the marketing guidelines of the world health organization. Thus, this research will aim to target the WHO so that valuable information can be reached out to the organization. Nestle is blamed to have broken the rules of marketing and advertising its product as a substitute for breastfeeding milk which led to deaths of many infants in poor countries. Like that of the biggest producer of manufactured baby milk, Nestlé has indeed been described as a major cause of rising infant mortality rates internationally. The World Health Organization reports about 1,5 million babies to die every year from inadequate eating, provided which children who seem to be susceptible to infection are provided synthetic milk replacements
2. Developing nations: the developing nations have fewer means of transferring information across the population. This is because the population lacks resources to afford such technologies or most of the population is uneducated to develop more knowledge about the products. In such countries, the brand name is enough to make its sales across various consumers. Therefore, this research will target the population of developing nations by publishing in it places where its accessible by the people of rural areas as well.
3. Breastfeeding mothers: the mothers of developing nations specifically must be educated about the use of baby-related products especially those that are to be consumed by infants. It was because of the lack of knowledge that the mothers ended up using the infant milk formula in the wrong manner which led to deaths of millions of infants in developing countries. Therefore, this research will focus on targeting the mothers that are unaware of such harmful products so that a careful step can be taken to save children and their future.
4. 4. Media: the media plays an important role in educating the population or spreading awareness. The most common source of awareness in developing nations on television or news. Therefore, this research paper will target the media publications so that they can get the research outcomes across the developing nations for their awareness.
5. Government: The government of the developing nations especially is an important stakeholder. The government must obtain all relevant information regarding infant products that are found to be contaminated and killing children all around the world. This research paper will provide valuable information to the governments of different nations ensuring that government can take necessary measures to prevent such products entering the markets of the country.
6. Investors: The important stakeholders that would be interested to know about the standings of Nestle on the issues of infant products are the investors. The investors would be concerned about the image of the company because that would affect the share price of the company thus affecting the returns of the firm. Therefore, the research paper must target investors of Nestle as well that have currently invested or are potential investors so that they can make the right decision with their money. Furthermore, as Nestle controversy blames Nestle with unethical practices of false marketing it may concern many investors as they would not want to fund a company that of involved in unethical activities.
7. Suppliers: Suppliers include vendors who provide raw materials to the company. The suppliers are the key stakeholders for any organization as it is important to maintain a proper relationship with the suppliers so that the cost can be minimized. However, if the supplier gets to know that they are providing raw materials to a company that is involved in unethical practices it may cause them to stop supplying resources to Nestle. This research, therefore, aims to target suppliers of Nestle as well so that they can know the true picture about the company and decide accordingly whether they would want to continue supplying to Nestle.
Methodology
The research approach for this research would be qualitative. This is because the research needs to focus on non-numerical data and identify the elements that contribute to the controversies of Nestle. Qualitative research will be followed because the research questions do not require any empirical or numerical research.
Moreover, the data would be mainly secondary data that would be collected by already researched papers and journal articles that are from a scholarly source. However, primary data will also be collected by using various qualitative instruments such as interviews of various people who have been a victim of the infant milk formula or random parents to find out how many people are aware or unaware of this formula. Furthermore, focus groups will also be used which will include 4-5 parents that will be asked a serious of questions. The questions will be both closed-ended and open-ended.
Statement of Deliverables
Following are the outcomes that are expected to be achieved from the research:
· The factors that contributed to the aggravated controversy against Nestle baby products.
· The steps that the stakeholders should take to be aware and careful of the harmful products that are being used by the parents for their infants.
· The different ways in which Nestle can introduce solutions to its poor reputation regarding baby products.
· How the future use of baby products will be impacted due to the controversies surrounding the company.
Conclusion
It is evident from situation provided that a firm's image is determined by following morals and ethics in its manufacturing, promotion and selling not just in respect of its revenue or benefit growth but because of the values it gains. The problem of combined nutrition until 6 months must be studied and avoided not just at the service level, by community-level services. The campaign for feeding would sufficiently represent the necessity for continued breastfeeding during the six months as well as the prompt and effective implementation of supplemental foods. from this market proposal, it can be seen that it's important to keep the practices of the company within the boundaries of ethics and morals. A company that uses measures such as aggressive marketing or false advertising of products would sooner or later gain negative publicity around the globe as is the case with Nestle. The company tried advertising the infant products as a substitute for the breast milk of mothers and led to deaths of millions of infants. This raised questions on the claims of the company about the product being a substitute for the breast milk. Soon the company has received bans on its products across the world. Therefore, companies need to be wise while advertising but not try to beat the world with false information. Also, there is a requirement for healthcare professionals, especially nurses who oversee medical facilities in rural locations, to consider the situations in which baby formula may be used because providing a synthetic formula for saving someone's life under certain circumstances becomes quite important.
References
Krasny, J. (2012). Every Parent Should Know The Scandalous History Of Infant Formula.
Mowbray, S. (2018). A brief history of the Nestle brand.
