The Firm – General Mills Canada Corporation

Pillsbury

The firm – General Mills

American firm based in Minneapolis (6th largest food product manufacturer)

Various famous brands (Betty Crocker, Progresso, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Cheerios)

Three operating segments:

• US Retail (69%) (Safeway, Wal-Mart, Costco)
• International (16%)
• Food service (15%) (cafeterias, restaurants, hospitals…)

The firm – General Mills Canada Corporation → we can ad

→ do we ad anorganigram?

Created in 1954 → second largest division of General Mills

Market leader in the Canadian Market → US$ 566 million

Division divided into four units: (divided into 12 other categories)

• Breakfast
• Baked goods
• Meals
• snacks

Few products developed only for Canada (pizza pop snacks & something else but I don’t remember)

Leader in Canadian Packaged food

Refrigerated Good Category

• Ready backed goods (you only have to put them on the oven) → cookies, breads, sweet goods

Pillsbury Refrigerated Good Products

• Pillsbury’s cookies were dominating the market this 85% of the market
• Four largest sales for GMCC
• Pillsbury Soughtboy really famous (one of the 10 logo most know in Canada)

• Family products
• Most profitable products
• 62% of category’s total unit volume
• 75% of category’s profit

4Ps

Product

• Available in multiple flavours
• Available in 2 formats:

• Chub
• Ready to bake

• Easy to bake
• Seasonal products (Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day)

Price

• Premium price
• Varied from the cookie format, the size, the retailer
• Seasonal cookies more expensive

Place

• Distributed in almost every stores in Canada
• Food service operators (cafeterias, restaurants)

Promotion

• TV advertising (expensive) & print advertising
• Dough Boy really famous
• Very product focused
• Target: household mother [30-40] years with busy lifestyle

Issues:

Refrigerated Baked Goods (RBG) in Canada have a low performance over the past two years → volume growth [2004 ; 2006] remained +- 1%

Household penetration fall to 24%

No Canadian-specific marketing plan (most campaigns come from the US and are just adapted to the Canadian Market)

→ showing the “kisses” commercial → very product oriented

Example: “Kisses” advertising campaign

Campaign launched in 2005, adapted from the USA for Canada featuring Pillsbury Doughboy. This ad was product-focused and highlighted taste benefits of the cookies.