Purdy's Chocolate Mother's Day Marketing Campaign - Case Study

Purduy’s Chocolates Case Study

Consumer Behavior – BMKT 364

Yasaman Nourani

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Introduction

Market demand for the chocolate-related products has been rising in the recent years. 52 percent of Americans says chocolate is their favorite flavor. (Schwarcz, 2010) Chocolate contains minerals and antioxidants that can help reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. (Biomed, 2011) Both of these factors are in favor of this feels-good food market.

The US National Confectionary Association (NCA) reported in 2014 that the retail sales of chocolate products reached $21.1 billion dollars in the US. ("State of the Industry - NCA", 2016)

The same market in Canada, reaches the value of 3 billion dollars. ("Chocolate Production in Canada Market Research", 2016)

Mother’s Day is an extremely important day for retailers and small and large businesses, as it is the highest-spending holiday after Christmas. Americans spent almost $21.4 billion on this day in 2016. 28 percent of these consumers put chocolate gifs on top of their wish list. (Schwartz, 2016) To get a good share of this multi-billion dollars market, a company should employ a series of efficient marketing strategies.

Purdy’s Chocolates

Purdy’s Chocolates is a Vancouver-based chocolatier with 63 stores across Canada, from west of the country to the east of it. Founded in 1907, the confectioner is a family business. (Chocolatier, 2016) The target customer for this retailer is middle age, middle class and females. The business provides customers with artisanal handmade chocolates, which is perfect for gift purposes.

Sensory Marketing

When a customer goes in to a Purdy’s Chocolate store, the first stimuli catches her are the color and the scent.

Using purple and gold colors gives a luxury feeling to the customer, meaning that the store is providing a premium service to its customers. Purple is also a very rare color in nature, and it’s just a few steps from x-ray and gamma rays, making it bold and visible from distance. The store is also bright and cheerful, which is consistent with the target market i.e. the people who are willing to pay higher price than usual to buy a luxury good.  The customers can see the handmade chocolates on the shelves, making them feel the authenticity and freshness of the products.

Smell is a well-known stimulus in sensory marketing. According to Journal of Environmental Psychology, the smell of chocolate keeps shoppers browsing longer and inspecting more merchandise. (Doucé, Poels, Janssens, & De Backer, 2013) Purdy used this natural superiority to ensure their customers have a better shopping experience.

In addition to the sensory stimuli this retailer is generally using, it employed some special designs for the Mother’s Day event. Purdy’s assigned special shelves of the store to the products particularly designed and made for this event. The dominant color used in the gift-wrapping papers and boxes was pink. This color is primarily a female color, and also represents positive aspects of traditional femininity such as nurture and kindness making it a good choice for this event.