PowerPoint completed

The Completed PowerPoint

Since I had previously made the summary table for all my 9 brands creating the power point slides was quite easy as I basically just had to elaborate a bit more on the information I already had. For a lot of the brands, Magners primarily, there are a lot of information. I tried to keep the amount of information the same for each brand.

I have kept the design of the powerpoint very simple as its mainly the information that is the important part.

In terms of layout, above shows my ideas. I will need to book a tutorial to top up my InDesign skills so I can achieve the outcome I want. I really want my review to be very interactive. 

Powerpoint

Now that my introduction has been approved the next step is gathering together all the information I have already collected and compiling it into a power point to show I have the right information to actually carry out the investigation I have stated in my introduction.

The PowerPoint wasn't meant to be until the 8th November but I decided to do mine earlier so I can get on with writing the actually review, and I feel I have done enough to be at that stage.

The power point will allow me to see exactly what information I have for each and what extra bits I need to find for certain brands where the information is not as easy accessible as the others.

The power point will be split into sections:

• Title Page
• Intro- my investigation
• 2 slides for the 2 low market brands
• 3 slides for the 3 mid market brands
• 4 slides for the 4 high market brands
• The main promotional campaigns I will investigate for each brand
• Conclusion page stating how I will compare the brands and answer my initial question
• Layout, how I want my actual review to look

Introduction

Writing my introduction will help me finalise what I want to find out in my report and what aspect of each brand am I going to compare. Starting my introduction with the Mintel statement sets my review up nicely as it highlights the fact that cider has become more popular recently which is down to promotion.

‘Cider has been the success story of the UK alcohol market over the past five years mainly due to its constant innovation which has ensured that it now attracts a high proportion of the key 18-24year old drinkers that eschewed it as old-fashioned just a decade ago. This has been to the detriment of lager in particular.’ Mintel, February 2012, Cider Report

Following this I will give a brief intro into the cider market in general before describing what I want to gain from my report. I think it is important to introduce the content in general before delving in as it gives the reader a taster of what follows.

Promotion is going to make up a high percentage of my review as it is massive in the cider/alcohol industry. I have decided to focus mainly on one main campaign for each as I want to have enough words to go into detail on each. 

My investigation:

'This report will look closely at nine popular cider brands, looking at the brands as a whole and also investigating the promotional techniques of each brand. The cider brands will range from low market to premium brands to see the difference in how they reach their target customer; do big budgets result in a more successful campaign? Or do simple; well planned campaigns have more of an impact? It will be interesting to see if there is a difference in the promotional methods used by low market brands compared to the mid/high market. Which brand ranks top for most innovative means of promotion and which brand is losing too its competitors. Another aspect of this review will be the brands use of social networking, with the ever changing digital world have the brands embraces this new way of promotion or have they yet to modernise their promotional techniques.'

Summary Tables

To set my research out in a more clear way so I can see what information I have I design three separate tables for each market level including the following information for each brand:

• When and where it was founded
• The Unique Selling Point of the brand (USP)
• The different varieties of the brand
• The alcohol Percentage
• The slogan (current)
• The producer of the brand

All the brands had the information for each of these points apart from Jacques who don't have a well known slogan for the brand.

From making this table it has made my research far more organised and allows me to easily find a certain bit of information easier.

This will be very beneficial when it comes to making my power-point presentation. 

I have also listed what promotional campaign I am going to focus on when it comes to that point of the review, as I have discovered through research that the promotion is very big for each company it would be best to just focus on one main one for each brand as I want to get all the relevant information included in the 5000 word limit. 

The promotions for each are as follows:

Frosty Jack's- Strong links with comedy- Sponsorship deals with ITV2 promoting their comedy season. Teamed up with 'Loaded' mag to produce a sequence of Celebrity Comedy Podcasts

Strongbow- 'Earn It' campaign

Magners- 'Theres Method in the Magners' campaign

Bulmers- 'Experimenters Wanted' campaign

Brothers- 'Join the Family' campaign

Stella Artois Cidre- 'C'est Cidre not Cider' campaign

Jacques- Jacques Townhouse event

Kopparberg- 'Unestablished since 1882' campaign

Rekorderlig- 'Swedish School' campaign

 I have already a lot of information on each of the campaigns but will collect more after I have completed my introduction and got it approved.

The next stage is writing my introduction..

Research

Now that my proposal has been approved by Paz I started my research into the 9 Brands.
My starting point was to focus more on the Mintel report I found on Cider as it was compiled in 2012 so the information will be up to date.

I read through the whole report highlighting the 3 different market levels in different colours to make it easier when it comes to writing my actual review. This Mintel report has a good bit of information on the brands customer and also the background information on each brand as a lot come from a large manufacturer that makes several alcoholic drinks eg Frosty Jacks comes from the Aston Manor Brewery.

The next stage I am going to look at is the background information behind each brand. The information I want to collect is:

• Background History
• Product Range
• Target Customer
• Price Range

I will look on the brands official website/Mintel to get this information. I will look at promotional campaigns after this as it will be the main focus of my report and there will be a lot of information for each brand. 

Slight change..

From my last post I have had a slight change in direction. My previous idea was to focus on 9 spirit brands as the research would be good for my final campaign idea, although with further research it was proving to be quite difficult to find a spirit (vodka, gin etc.) with 9 well known brands to look at. This made me think about changing it to cider brands as there are loads to choose from. 

I went on Mintel and came across a report published in Feb 2012 about the cider industry, it was very useful in the selection process of my 9 brands. My 9 brands are:

• High End- Reckorderlig, Kopparberg, Stella Artois Cidre, Jacques
• Middle-Magners, Bulmers, Brothers
• Low- Strongbow, Frosty Jack's

This statement..

‘Cider has been the success story of the UK alcohol market over the past five years mainly due to its constant innovation which has ensured that it now attracts a high proportion of the key 18-24-year-old drinkers that eschewed it as old-fashioned just a decade ago. This has been to the detriment of lager in particular.’ Mintel, February 2012, Cider Report

Got me thinking my report would be very interesting if I focused on the promotion used by the cider brands over the 5 years which it has become more popular. 

The proposal is due in on 4th so the next step is finishing it and getting it approved, also to start researching more into each brand, brand history, product range etc.