D'Angelo Brands

Introduction:

Founded as a juice company in 1986, D'Angelo Brands expanded into the pasta and canned vegetables industries . In 2001, it was purchased by Play and Win Inc. of the United States, and it was decided that it would keep its name and Frank D'Angelo would be the company's CEO and President . Since then it has undergone further expansion into the beer and energy drink industries. D'Angelo Brands has two types of beer, Copperhead a higher end beer, and Steelback to compete with Molson Coors™ and Budweiser™ . In the energy drink industry, D'Angelo Brands has come out with Cheetah ™ Power Surge energy drink to compete with other brands such as Red Bull™ and Monster™ .

D'Angelo Brands has never had ordinary marketing, and this report will look at some of the marketing concepts that are working for them as well as some of the ones that are not. It will also give a brief overview of D'Angelo's two newest products as well as the juice industry and the different marketing techniques used in the general industry compared to that of D'Angelo Brands. It will then look at the ten key marketing concepts: value, relationships, relevance, rewards, competitive advantage, differentiation, customer experience, the target market/marketing mix, satisfaction, and evaluation of performance. Finally it will conclude with where D'Angelo Brands is going in the future and if this marketing style will continue to be successful.

For many years now, the marketing of beer has remained fairly similar. Beer is marketed to people generally between the ages of 19-30 in Canada, and 21-30 in the United States . One main similarity is the patriotic approach to advertising the beer industry has taken. North America's largest brewery, Molson Canada, took this strategy to a new level from 2001-2005 with their "I Am Canadian" campaign. The advertisement ran throughout Canada and the United States, and was put to rest when Molson merged with American brewer Coors in 2005 . However, it created strong patriotism throughout the nation. Many Canadian beer companies include hockey in their advertisements, and American beer companies use popular American sports such as football, baseball and NASCAR. Budweiser is aligned with the National Football League, and many of their advertisements include football to increase American pride with their beers . Also, in general, beer companies throughout Canada and the United States release promotions to encourage consumers to buy their product. Certain items such as sports team hats or shirts, or golf balls are included in the box as a reward for purchasing that particular company's product . Also, it is rare to see a beer advertisement that does not include a large group of people enjoying the product, and/or some form of humorous element.

When taking a look at the marketing strategy that Steelback Breweries uses, you'll notice that their advertisements are not your typical humorous commercial with young people, more often women, that are around having a good time drinking. With Steelback being a local Canadian beer the advertising is very patriotic and he is trying to sell himself as being a typical everyday Canadian by having famous retired Canadian hockey players sit down and have a drink and discuss his product in a few of his advertisements . Steelback's advertising tends to aim more towards an unscripted format that shows the owner, Frank D'Angelo, talking about his product in a casual setting in a very easy going tone in order to gain the market's trust. D'Angelo has openly admitted to being an avid hockey fan, which just adds to the Canadian image he is trying to convey on the Steelback product . If you take a look at most commercials in the beer industry you will notice that most if not all the advertisements are based on either humor and giveaways or everyone just hanging out in an exclusive fun party atmosphere where everyone is having a great time. Steelback does not use humor in its advertisements, and has only had one giveaway which was a watch giveaway, which really was fairly small .

Energy drinks are experiencing rapid growth and increasing in popularity: they are currently thought to be the next high-growth sector of the soft drink industry as more and more companies take advantage of the lucrative market . As people continue to seek new and better ways of achieving any kind of "high," many people have started mixing these energy drinks with alcohol for even more excitement and fun. In such a crowded industry, marketing is definitely the name of the game. Most energy drink companies target their efforts towards men, deemed to be the more turbocharged sex . Red Bull currently spends about 30 percent of its revenue on marketing, compared to Coca-Cola, which spends a mere 9 percent . But that's the price of doing business when you've got competitors like Go Fast! Energy drink promoting their product by launching several cans into space via a small rocket . As in the beer industry several of the companies use humor in their ads, and have catchy slogans, for example "Red Bull™ gives you wings."

D'Angelo brands entry in to the energy drink market with their Cheetah Power Surge energy drink is not a surprising move. Cheetah competes in a variety of new areas of the growing energy drink market. It competes on price and has an advantage against many of the leading energy drink makers. You get three times the volume per can of Red Bull and 50% more than a Monster or Rockstar energy drink. All while maintaining the current market price of near three dollars. Secondly, Cheetah competes by being low in carbohydrates and low in calories, two things that health conscious consumers are currently concerned about . Lastly, Cheetah is all natural, caffeine free source of energy, its source of energy is from Ginseng and Royal Jelly . This allows for the expected benefits of any common energy drink but without the so called 'caffeine crash' afterwards. The product's benefits, position it well for continued growth in this market, in the future.

To see if a company is successful you need to look at the ten key marketing concepts mentioned above. It is extremely important that a company be able to perform in all areas to be successful in the present as well as into the future.

Value:

Value is a word that Steelback really takes to heart. D'Angelo really feels that it is very important to put a product on the market that is not only great tasting, but is affordable and the customer feels they are getting great value for their money . This is where Steelback really differs from the competition because D'Angelo really tried to market himself to the target market in order