Please help! I need help identifying examples and ideas from the case study below to revert back to the mission, goals, core competency, customer characteristics, competitors, marketing objectives and marketing mix bullets listed below.

• Mission: Focuses on the activities of Chobani for stakeholders.
• Goals: Targets against which the companys performance are measured.
• Core Competency: Abilities to provide high quality products and services.
• Customer Characteristics: Main demographics and lifestyle analysis.
• Competitors: Companies and products that seek to displace Chobani in the marketplace.
• Marketing Objectives: Planned targets against which marketing activities are measured.
• Marketing Mix: The four elements included in the marketing plan: price, product, promotion, and place (distribution).

THE IDEA

Hamdi Ulukaya came to the United States in 1994 to learn English and study business. He started a feta cheese company, Euphrates, when his visiting father complained about the quality of American feta cheese. In 2005, Kraft Foods closed its New Berlin, New York, yogurt plant. While tidying up his office, Ulukaya stumbled upon a postcard about the sale of the shuttered Kraft plant and threw it out. After sleeping on the decision, he fished it out of the wastebasket, visited the plant, and purchased it with the help of a U.S. Small Business Administration loan.

Ulukaya (center in photo) had no real experience in the yogurt business. He grew up milking sheep at his familys dairy in eastern Turkey and eating the thick, tangy yogurt of his homeland. Describing the regular yogurt he found on shelves in America, he has one comment: Terrible! In his view, it is too thin, too sweet, and too fake. So he decided to produce what is known as Greek yogurtan authentic strained version that produces a thick texture, with high protein content and little or no fat. With the help of four former Kraft employees and yogurt master Mustafa Dogan, Ulukaya worked 18 months to perfect the recipe for Chobani Greek Yogurt.

The very first cup for sale of Ulukayas Greek yogurt appeared on the shelves of a small grocer in Long Island, New York. The new-product launch focused on the classic four Ps elements of marketing mix actions: product, price, place, and promotion.

PRODUCT STRATEGY

From the start Ulukayas Greek yogurt carried the brand name Chobani. There was no room for error, and the product strategy for the Chobani brand focused on the separate elements of (1) the product itself and (2) its packaging.

The Chobani product strategy stresses its authentic straining process that removes excess liquid whey. This results in a thicker, creamier yogurt that yields 13 to 18 grams of protein per single-serve cup, depending on the flavor. Chobani is free of ingredients like milk protein concentrate and animal-based thickeners, which some manufacturers add to make Greek-style yogurts.

Chobani uses three pounds of milk to make one pound of Chobani Greek Yogurt. Some other features that make Chobani Greek Yogurt nothing but good, to quote one of its advertising taglines:

• Higher in protein than regular yogurt.

• Made with real fruit and only natural ingredients.Page 22

• Preservative-free.

• No artificial flavors or artificial sweeteners.

• Contains five live and active cultures, including three probiotics.

Then, and still today, Ulukaya obsessed about Chobanis packaging of the original cups. While designing the cup, Ulukaya concluded that not any cup would do. He insisted on a European-style cup with a circular opening exactly 95 millimeters across. This made for a shorter, wider cup that was more visible on retailers shelves. Also, instead of painted-on labels, Ulukaya chose shrink-on plastic sleeves that adhere to the cup and offer eye-popping colors.

With our packaging people would say, Youre making it all look different and why are you doing that? says Kyle OBrien, executive vice president of sales. If people pay attention to our cupsbright colors and allwe know we have won them, because whats inside the cup is different from anything else on the shelf.

PRICE STRATEGY

To keep control of their product, Ulukaya and OBrien approached retailers directly rather than going through distributors. Prices were set high enough to recover Chobanis costs and give reasonable margins to retailers but not so high that future rivals could undercut its price. Today, prices remain at about $1.29 for a single-serve cup.

PLACE STRATEGY

The decision of Ulukaya and OBrien to get Chobani Greek Yogurt into the conventional yogurt aisle of traditional supermarketsnot on specialty shelves or in health food storesproved to be sheer genius. Today Chobani sees its Greek yogurt widely distributed in both conventional and mass supermarkets, club stores, and natural food stores. On the horizon: growing distribution in convenience and drugstores, as well as schools. Chobani is also focused on educating food service directors at schools across the United States about Greek yogurts health benefits for schoolkids.

The Chobani growth staggers imagination. From the companys first order of 200 cases, its sales have grown to over 2 million cases per week. To increase capacity and bring new products to market faster, Chobani opened a nearly one million square foot plant in Idaho. Built in just 326 days, it is the largest yogurt manufacturing facility in the world.

Along the way Chobani faced a strange glitch: Demand for Chobani Greek Yogurt far surpassed supply, leading to unhappy retailers with no Chobani cups to sell. Kyle OBrien launched Operation Bear Hug. Instead of hiding behind letters to retailers, we decided to get on a plane and to communicate with them within 24 hours about the problem and what we proposed to do about it, says OBrien. So we found it critical to be very transparent and open with our communication at times like that.

PROMOTION STRATEGY

In its early years Chobani had no money for traditional advertising, so it relied on word-of-mouth recommendation from enthusiastic customers. The brand harnessed consumer passion on social media channels early on and found that people loved the taste of Chobani once they tried it. So Chobani kicked off its CHOmobile tour: a mobile vehicle sampling Chobani at events across the country, encouraging consumers to taste Greek yogurt for the first time. As Chobani grew, it began to launch new promotional activities tied to (1) traditional advertising, (2) social media, and (3) direct communication with customers.

Chobanis first national advertising campaign, called Real Love Stories, was very successful. The only problem: apparently it was too successful! The resulting additional consumer demand for Chobani Greek Yogurt exceeded its production capacity, leaving retailers unhappy because of complaining consumers. What did Chobani do then? It stopped the advertising campaign and sent in another Operation Bear Hug team to communicate with retailers. Since then it has run other successful national advertising campaigns, including sponsorship of the U.S. Olympic Teams.

Social media has been important to Chobani, which has embraced a high-touch model that emphasizes positive communication with its customers, says Sujean Lee, head of corporate affairs. Today, Chobanis Customer Loyalty Team receives about 7,000 inbound customer e-mails and phone calls a month and is able to make return phone calls to many of them. Consumers also sometimes get a handwritten note. Chobani launched its Go Real Chobani campaign to highlight that it is a real company making real products and engaging consumers through real conversations.

In addition to Facebook, the company interacts with its consumers through Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare, and other social media platforms. Chobani Kitchen is an online resource with recipes, videos, and tips on how to use its Greek yogurt in favorite recipes.

AGGRESSIVE INNOVATION AND POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE

Dannon, Yoplait, and PepsiCo were shocked by the success of Chobani Greek Yogurt. Each now offers its own competing Greek yogurt. With giant competitors like these, what can Chobani do? Innovate and develop creative, new Greek yogurt products!

Today we offer our Chobani Greek Yogurt in single-serve and multi-serve sizes, while expanding our authentic strained Greek yogurt to new occasions and forms, says Joshua Dean, vice president of brand advertising. Its recent new-product offerings include:

• Non-Dairy Chobania coconut blend made from natural, non-GMO ingredients without artificial flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. Sample flavors: blueberry, mango, peach, and vanilla chai.

• Chobani Gimmiespouches, tubes, and containers for kids, with protein, probiotics, and calcium and less sugar than other kids yogurt products. Sample flavor: Cookies and Cream Crush.

• Chobani Flipa 5.3-ounce, two-compartment package that lets consumers bend or flip mix-ins like granola or hazelnuts into the Chobani Greek Yogurt compartment. Sample flavor: Almond Coco Loco, a coconut low-fat yogurt paired with dark chocolate and honey-roasted salted almonds.

• Drink Chobania smooth, drinkable yogurt with 10 grams of protein in 10 flavors.

Chobani gives 10 percent of all profits to its Shepherds Gift Foundation to support people and organizations working for positive, long-lasting change. The name comes from the spirit of a shepherd, an expression in Turkey used to describe people who give without expecting anything in return. To date the foundation has supported over 50 projectsfrom local ones to international famine relief efforts.

WHERE TO NOW?

International operations and a unique test-market boutique in New York City give a peek at Chobanis future.

International markets provide a growth opportunity. Other countries have far greater annual per capita consumption of yogurt than the United States. For example, some Europeans eat five or six times as much on average. So while entrenched competitors exist in many foreign countries, the markets are often huge, too.

How do you test ideas for new Greek yogurt flavors? In Chobanis case, it opened what it calls a first-of-its-kind Mediterranean yogurt barcalled Chobani SoHoin a trendy New York City neighborhood. Here, customers can try new yogurt creationsfrom Strawberry + Granola to Toasted Coconut + Pineapple. The Chobani marketing team obtains consumer feedback at Chobani SoHo, leading to potential new flavors or products in the future.

Hmmm! Ready to schedule a visit to New York City and Chobani SoHo? And then sample a creation made with Pistachio + Chocolate (plain Chobani topped with pistachios, dark chocolate, honey, oranges, and fresh mint leaves), and perhaps influence what Chobani customers will be buying in the future?