Barq’s Root Beer

GSD

TESTING STRATEGYCASE STUDY

Table Of Contents-PROBLEM STATEMENT-CRITICAL FACTORS-TARGET AUDIENCE -ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES -NEW TAGLINE -ADVERTISEMENTS-PROMOTIONAL EVENTS-MEDIA OBJECTIVES -MEDIA MIX -TESTING OPTION A -TESTING OPTION B-DECISION -CONCLUSION

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The Problem

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Since Barq’s was acquired by Coca-Cola in 1995, sales have been at a halt and not much

of the brand’s personality has changed Most Barq’s consumers are not very loyal to the

brand. Barq’s primary competitor, A&W, has steadily been increasing its market

share while brand awareness of Barq’s has decreased.

Critical Factors

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Digital PresenceBarq’s lacks a digital presence on all three social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This not only excludes Barq’s from some of the primary media that its target audience uses, but it sets it behind its main competitor, A&W, which does have an active digital presence. Not having an account for any of these platforms also gives off the image that Barq’s is outdated and not an active brand.

Target AudienceBarq’s has a very broad, universal target audience. On one hand, this is A good thing because a very general message can be shaped to appealTo a larger target. On the other hand, it makes it more difficult to truly know if we’re shaping a message that’s resonating with our audience.Barq’s must be able to identify the small, subtle factors that the target audience does share in order to craft a better message.

Brand AwarenessSince the late 1990’s when Barq’s adopted the new slogan:“Barq’s has bite!” A&W increased its marketingefforts, Barq’s has made very few progress in restoringits market share or improving its brand awareness. Along with its complete lack of digital presence, Barq’s is not making much of an effort to put itself inthe minds of consumers.

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Critical FactorsPositive Perception

The Barq’s old tag line of “It’s Good” has a very positive perception amongst consumers and opinion leaders. People appreciate its

simplistic, straight-forward message. They don’t get the perception that marketers are forcing something on to them by just telling

them “It’s Good.” This is contrast to Barq’s current slogan: “Barq’s has bite!” Consumers do not have a very positive

response to this message, and some consumers flat out do not understand it.

Competitors Barq’s primary competitor is A&W, while Mug and IBC are secondary competitors. A&W and Mug’s also have their highest index rating in the Midwest, but have lower numbers for the South. The exception is with IBC, which is very heavily concentrated in the South. A&W’s consumers are much older than Barq’s, and its primary age group is 55-64.

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Target AudienceThe target market for Barq’s is broad and universal. However, we

are narrowing our primary target to males and females aged 18-34. Within this target demographic, they are pyschographically

diverse in terms of education, income and marital status. However, the slight majority of drinkers are in the working

class.

Barq’s drinkers are primarily in the Midwest region, with the South in second. Cleveland, Atlanta, Detroit

Philadelphia, Boston and Houston are the cities with the highest BDI for Barq’s. Mississippi, DC,

North Dakota, Wisconsin, Utah, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina are the states with the

highest BDI representing a diverse consumer demographic.

Furthermore, Barq’s has a high index rating with either current or previous

members of the Armed Forces.

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Geographic Profile

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Midwest SouthMaintain Strategy Aggressive Strategy

Advertising Objectives

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With our campaign, we have five advertising objectives.

1) Increase brand awareness of Barq’s brand by 10%

2) Increase positive perception. 3) Increase product consideration.

4) Increase digital presence by 80% 5) Increase traffic to social media by 75%

We will measure all five factors beforehand and then again three months after we launch our campaign in

2016. We expect significant increases in the five objectives in the post-testing.

Additionally we have a secondary objective: Establish Barq’s as the #1 root beer brand in

Louisiana.

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Drink Barq’s.It’s Still Good.

Print Advertisement

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TV Spot

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This quirky and visually impressive TV commercial will follow Samuel Jackson and Tim McGraw adventuring together through time as they drink and discuss Barq’s. Sam and Tim sit together, wearing old-style attire in a late 1900’s French Quarter setting, as Tim sips Barq’s and pronounces “Nothing like a nice cold Barq’s on a hot southern summer night.” Samuel Jackson, in emphasized Samuel Jackson voice, pronounces “Yo Tim, it’s good, but there’s no way a taste like this can last forever.” The scene, along with their attire, gradually shifts to modern day as they joke with each other and talk about Barq’s. Along the way, they allude to different historical events, and images of past Barq’s ads and slogans are shown. As the time finally comesto a modern day Mardi Gras festival in New Orleans, Sam laughs at Tim and says,

“Hey Tim, It’s Still Good.” They laugh and the new slogan is shown on a black screen below the Barq’s logo.

Radio Spot

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From the TV spot, a radio spot will be created. It will have the same idea that the television ad has with our two spokesmen

taking the lead. You will easily recognize their voices, and the product and tag line should create imagery in the listeners

heads.

We would run these during rush hour traffic times, in hopes to catch as many listeners as possible. Additionally

we would place the ad’s on popular music sites like Pandora and Spotify.

Social Media Ad

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MILITARYAPPRECIATION

MONTH

MARDI GRASPROMOTIONSPECIAL EDITION

FACEBOOK BANNERS

Promotional Events

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Mardi Gras In order to achieve our secondary objective and increase positive brand awareness in the South, we will have billboard ads promoting Barq’s around Mardi Gras

season in Louisiana, Mississippi, southern Alabama and east Texas.

Military Appreciation We will be doing special Barq’s promotions during the month of May which is military appreciation month. Barq’s will pledge to donate

a percentage of proceeds to Operation Homefront – a charity that provides assistance for U.S. military personnel and their families when they return home.

This is appropriate for Barq’s because it has a high index rating among U.S. military members and it’s also one of the top charities supported by Tim

McGraw.

League of Legends World Tournament League of Legends is an on line computer game that hosts an annual tournament for

teams to compete in. The 2013 World Championship was held in sold out Staples Center in Los Angeles and was watched by 32

million, setting it above the amount of viewers for the 2013 NBA Finals and the 2013 World Series. We found that most

males in Barq’s target audience have a high interest in video games, making this a very suitable event to sponsor.

Southern Football Teams Our target audience also responds very well to football. At the beginning

of the NFL season, we will launch limited edition Barq’s cans themed around regional football

teams. I.e. black and gold for Louisiana and blue, silver and white for the greater Dallas

area.

The primary type of content Barq’s needs to create on a regular basis.

Website has good content, but design is outdated and need visual repairs.

Barq’s lacks both a Twitter and Instagram presence, setting it behind its primary competitor, A&W. They need to become competitive and take use of these social media platforms

Most alarmingly, Barq’s lacks its own Facebook account. This not only excludes them from one of the primary mediums of its target audience, but gives the impression that it’s an outdated brand.

Additionally, Barq’s needs to run promotions on it’s social media platforms and even a blog to help advertise their special events like Miliary Appreciation Month.

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Owned Media

We hope to generate earned media primarily through social media and our promotional events. For each promotional or sponsored event, we will

highlight those on all social media and website platforms. In addition, by supporting socially positive promotions, such as Operation

Homefront, we hope to gain positive media attention and even get published on news outlets or get fan’s to share content.

By bringing the drink to the public’s eye at key events such as football games and Gaming competitions, we hope for

individuals to become exposed and share their experiences they had with Barq’s Root Beer.

Additionally, we hope to generate earned media through the premise of our campaign itself. By

combining two contrasting, yet individually popular personalities, Tim McGraw and Samuel

Jackson, we hope for people to fall in love with our campaign and spokesmen, and

for opinion leaders (such as Reddit) to develop positive attitudes toward it.

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Earned Media

Media Mix

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Testing Option A

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Test Market SelectionsTest cities: • Nashville, TN - South • New Orleans, LA – South • Columbus, OH – Midwest • Phoenix, AZ – West

We will conduct focus groups with people from our target (male and female ages 18-34) in these four cities. Based on studies we found through secondary research, these cities best represent American consumers’ priorities as a whole. We chose the top cities that represent each of our target regions (South, Midwest and West) and we included New Orleans to see if perceptions differ in Barq’s founding city.

We’ll conduct five focus groups of 12 people each in each four cities. Each participant will be paid $40. We’ll run a newspaper ad in each of the cities’ primary paper in order to recruit participants ($11,200 in total). The ad will run on prime days: Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, and the focus group will be done that Saturday. A three-line, three-day newspaper ad in the classifieds is approximately $200 ($800 in total).

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Test Market Selection In each focus group, we will ask participants for their thoughts on Barq’s

current creative strategy and logo, and then conduct brand awareness and at-titude tests. In addition to this, we will conduct quantitative research through

an online survey posted on our owned media (Facebook, official website, etc.) and survey websites (Qualtrics, Surveymonkey, etc.) with a partic-

ipant cap at 2,500 people. As non biased incentive, we will offer 150 gift cards at random worth $50 to a place of the participants’ choos-

ing.

In the surveys, we will be evaluating similar factors as the fo-cus groups, such as brand awareness, likability, and perception.

We will launch the surveys and begin conducting the fo-cus groups at the end of November, 2015. This will a)

provide more incentive for participants to receive ex-tra money for the holidays and b) run close to three

months before Mardi Gras season begins, which is when we will launch our first regional promotions.

We will read the tests a month after we launch them, as this will give us two months to tweak

the campaigns based on our results.

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Copy testing TechniquesWe will test all three dimensions of the process:

cognitive, affective and behavioral. This is because our advertising objectives covers all three elements.

We are testing for the following: • Brand message and image• Breakthrough ability• How memorable the ad is• How enjoyable the ad is• What is communicated• How well it’s communicated• Viewer engagement

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Types Of TestsCoincidental Survey

Random calls are made in target market to see if target audience is getting the right message. e.g. “It’s Still Good”

• Does this make sense?

• Is this easy to remember?

• What does this make you think of?

Attitude Tests• Determining the attitude toward an individual ad or the entire

campaign.

• Measuring the tone of ad, wording, etc.

Advertising Tracking Research Measures• Awareness, attention, recall

• Likability• Purchase intention

Advertising Tracking Research• Begin two weeks after launching campaign.

• Measure attitudes compared to Barq’s previous campaigns

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Why ?

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We selected a number of procedures in order to make sure we’re not missing any factors that could affect our campaign. Each measure is relevant to accomplishing our advertising objectives, and test both the objectives while keeping in line with the critical factors. These tests come from each of the three categories that our objectives covered, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral. Therefore, we believe that by doing these tests, we will receive the best information from prospective and current consumers.

Post-Testing EvaluationWe will put a focus on understanding and comprehension tests to make

sure consumers understand the message behind “It’s Still Good.” We want to verify that consumers comprehend that it’s a play on both

the history of Barq’s and its old slogan.

Brand Linkage Tests Measure to see if people associate Barq’s with Samuel Jackson and

Tim McGraw. We will also conduct brand linkage tests around our seasonal promotions (such as Mardi Gras) to gauge if people

associate it with seasonal events.

Likability Tests Numerous studies have shown that likability is one of the

most key elements in driving an ad’s effectiveness. We will measure if people find it: to be personally relevant,

personally important, stimulate interest or curiosity, create warm feelings, enjoyable, entertaining and/or

fun.

Persuasion TestsKey element in measuring the success of our

advertising objective. We will continually conduct attitude change tests and

purchase intention change tests.

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Why ?

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We are running a thorough number of post-test measures to ensure the success of our campaign. We are putting an emphasis on understanding and comprehension tests because we want to make sure that consumers understand the basic history and context behind the “It’s Still Good” tag line. Through research conducted, we learned that people liked the simplicity of “It’s Good.” And we want to make sure that has not changed. We are putting a secondary emphasis on likability, because research shows that it’s one of the most significant factors in driving a campaigns success.

Pros and Cons

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Pros:• Large sample, but it still accurately reflects our

target market.• Techniques and methods are thoroughly

applied.• Covers various geographic areas.

•Covers all three of the Copy Testing dimensions.

Cons:• Might be too broad of a sample.

• Could be time inefficient due to large sample sizes.

• More expensive than alternative.

Budget Allocation

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We’ll run a newspaper ad in each of the cities’ primary paper in order to recruit participants ($11,200 in total).

A three-line, three-day newspaper ad in the classifieds is approximately $200 ($800 in total).

As non biased incentive, we will offer 150 gift cards at random worth $50 to a place of the participants’ choosing.

Additionally we will spend 13,500 on copy testing and post testing throughout the campaign. That will be spend during the months in which testing is done, and we have a small amount left over for any excessive budget we run into.

Overall about $25,000 will be spent per month testing is conducted, about 7-8 months a year,

Expected Outcome

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Because of the numerous measures and techniques we will conduct, we expect a very thorough

insight into how consumers are responding to our campaign throughout its entire life cycle.

Furthermore, because of the amount of time we’ve allocated to testing before we

launch the campaign, we have plenty of room to make necessary adjustments.

Finally, we expect our campaign to be successful thanks to the thorough

testing done, and thus expect Barq’s to achieve its marketing

and advertising objectives.

Testing Option B

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Test Market Selections

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Test cities: • Cleveland, OH

• Atlanta, GA • Detroit, MI

We choose these three cities because they represent

the top three DMA’s for our target audience. We will conduct in-street interviews with around 150 people

per city. We will conduct one-on-one interviews and ask participants their thoughts on Barq’s current

creative strategy and logo. Additionally, we will conduct brand awareness and attitude tests.

We will give $5 and a bottle of Barq’s to each person who participates ($3,000 in total).

Test Market Selections

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To draw peoples attention we will create a Barq’s Mobile to draw people to where interviews will be conducted. The”Barq’s Car” will drive around giving out free cans of Barq’s. After engaging people, the drivers will offer $10 to anyone who does an in-depth interview about the Barq’s brand, aiming for about 30 people from each city. ($1,200 in total).

We will begin interviews late November, 2015, in order to give us ample time to tweak our campaign before it launches in February, 2016. We will read our test results when we have reached the target number we chose to sample. This will give us a variety of data to look through and interpret before the campaign launches.

Copy testing Techniques

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We will test for two of three dimensions of the persuasion process:

affective and behavioralBased on our advertising objectives, we believe that these are

the two most important elements to understand about how our target views all aspects of our campaign.

We are testing for the following:• Message breakthrough/attention.

• How memorable the ad is.• What is communicated.

• Persuasive power.

Types Of Tests

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Attitude TestsWe will determine the attitude toward individual ads and the entire campaign. Because studies show that likability and attitude are the most significant factors in the persuasion process, measuring this will be sufficient enough in evaluating our campaign’s success.

Ad Tracking Research MeasuresBy doing Ad Tracking, we will be able to measure consumer buying habits and behavior. It will help us learn about consumer awareness, attention, recall/recognition of ad message, brand, and campaign. Additionally, it will also detect when wear-out is beginning to set in.

Why ?

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We believe that we will get a thorough and sufficient insight into the campaign’s success by simply

focusing on the attitude response by our consumers. By only focusing on this measure and continuously

conducting ad tracking measures, we will get a complete measurement in an efficient

manner. Furthermore, by only focusing on these two techniques, it’ll allow us to

make simpler fixes to our campaign. Additionally, it saves both time and

money for the company that can be spent for more promotion and

media buying.

Post-Testing Evaluation

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Breakthrough: AttentionWe will put a focus on evaluating how well the advertising draws and keeps attention.

Emotion TestsWe’ll measure the feelings or mood generated by our ads and campaign.

Persuasion TestsMeasure how consumer behaviors has changed and it purchase intent has changed.

Why ?

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By conducting breakthrough tests, we will find out if the ad’s stood out among the crowd and presence

increased on different platforms. Additionally, emotion tests will help us understand how

consumers related to our ads. If they are more brand loyal than before and if they

have any new emotional connections to our product. Finally, will help us see

if consumers behavior has changed towards the product. It will allow us

to see if attitudes have changed, and if purchase intention has

increased.

Pros and Cons

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Pros:• Less methods so it’s simpler and more time- efficient.• Relatively affordable.• Gathers only the key pieces of information.

Cons:• Less thorough.• Doesn’t fully measure all functions of persuasive process.• Test participants may only be motivated by money.

Budget Allocation

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We will give $5 and a bottle of Barq’s to each person who participates ($3,000 in total).

The drivers will offer $10 to anyone who does an in-depth interview about the Barq’s brand, aiming for

about 30 people from each city. ($1,200 in total).

Additionally, we will set aside 10,000 for Copy Testing, and Post testing procedures.

In total we would expect to spend about 15,000 per month testing in conducted,

(about 6-7 months of the fiscal year.)

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Expected Outcome

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With Testing Option B, we will save both time and money on testing methods but still get in-depth measurements by only focusing on the most important factors based on our objectives. With the time saved in testing, we can put more attention into making adjustments and tweaks to ensure that our campaign is successful. Additionally, we will be able to get a on the street opinion about a product from a variety of different people. It would help us conduct testing fast and get the job done correctly.

Decision

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Testing Option A

Rationale

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Based on our rationale, we believe conducting Testing Option A will lead to a more thorough wealth of information and data, and therefore increase the success of our campaign. While Testing Option B is more inexpensive and time efficient, our budget can allow the more complete testing methods of Option A. Furthermore, there is an ample amount of time between pre-testing methods and the campaign launch to make necessary changes. Option A’s method of conducting focus groups and online surveys has a higher likelihood that we will receive more in-depth, honest answers as opposed to on-street interviews. While it could be risky and uncover insight that does not agree with our campaign, we would be able to truly get inside the current users and non-users and see why the do or do not drink Barq’s Root Bee. We believe that through our previous research and testing to occur that this method will help us correctly achieve both our advertising and marketing objectives while keeping our critical factors in mind.

Drink Barq’s.It’s Still Good.

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