The Nigerian consumer market is growing on all fronts and this is a pointer that it cannot continue to be business as usual. Brand handlers who understand this are thinking outside the box to create strategies for a deepened consumer affinity that will guarantee market share, profitability and brand loyalty.

In the past, some brands had dwelt on the old proverb of building mousetrap and allowing the world to beat a path to their door. This was true then. But today’s mousetrap requires intensified communication. In any competing market, the brand shandlers have to package and promote the mousetrap and the world will definitely come en mass if other variables are in tandem.

The objective of every marketer in the fast growing market like Nigeria is to allow the world to continuously beat a path to its door. For this to happen, it requires certain factors which include the completion of production process of allowing the goods to reach the final consumer. This is a marketing strategy employed by brands like Chivita Premium fruit juice in its marketing mix to create sales and achieve consumer satisfaction. Analysts agree that the perpetual unavailability of any product in some regions cannot effectively enhance sales as would have been expected.

The handlers of Chivita have leveraged on an efficient distribution system which comprises pf retailers, wholesalers, multilevel marketers and sales representatives to bring the product nearer to the people with the underlying objective of creating more market share. This effective distribution strategy has ensured that millions of people across the country readily have access to it. A quick check at various retail shops in Ibadan, Abeokuta and Lagos reveal the availability of the product. For Atinuke Jegede, who operates Choice Stores in Ibadan, ‘’Chivita’ premium fruit juice is always readily available at shops and its 100 percent pure juice content has really endeared to its consumers who are increasingly becoming conscious of realness and quality”

The brand has been able to achieve market- appealing product availability with economical price and exciting marketing promotion strategy especially in Nigeria’s competitive juice market which has created a positive effect on the return on investment. To achieve this, according to analysts requires consumers insight. An analyst said that “Brand loyalty cannot happen without a thorough understanding of the consumer and a deliberate decision to satisfy and exceed the customer’s expectations via both core and surprise values”

Unlike the captain of the sunk Titanic ship that looked at the tip of the iceberg, the handlers of Chivita have deviated from focusing on the “pieces of information about the customers but probed “deeper into the world of the consumer to understand their motivations, needs, aspirations, belief systems and other deeper values they hold dear and which hold the key to the levers that open the door to customer satisfaction and loyalty”

The handlers of Chivita fruit juice which is a 100 percent fruit juice with no preservatives prides itself as creating a compelling and unique brand experience by incorporating other marketing mix such as price and promotion to ensure it keeps its eye on the ball. It was this effort as well as the adoption of a functional campaign strategy to communicate the reality of the 100 per cent fruit juice content that won the brand the preferred fruit juice drink in a preference study among 15,000 youths across Nigeria at the Next Generation Survey Award recently. The Generation Next survey awards, in its maiden edition and organized recently in Lagos by HDI Youth Marketers and Businessday, a leading business daily in Nigeria is a consumer choice driven brand award.

The brand handlers of Chivita have also “successfully positioned Chivita Premium Juice as a food product with local roots through its “Be Nigerian, Buy Nigerian” campaign. Because the fruit juice market is a peculiar market that is driven more by volume sales, availability at every point of purchase is critical to market leadership. The distribution network, built over 30 years, is able to match and even surpass that of competition in certain locations”.