Mangia Pizza Practice Marketing Case
MANGIA PIZZA
Four years ago, your company (a large multinational food manufacturer) successfully launched the Mangia brand: a line of refrigerated pasta and pasta sauces. As the Mangia brand manager for the US market, you have recently realized that the sales growth began to slow and that the pasta and sauce line is reaching maturity. In an effort to encourage further sales growth and build on the Mangia brand strength, your product team is contemplating extending the Mangia line by introducing a shelf-stabilized refrigerated pizza in the coming year. These types of refrigerated products have longer shelf lives (several weeks) compared to fresh foods (a few days) but shorter shelf lives than frozen foods (several months). Consumers tend to perceive refrigerated products as higher quality and better tasting than frozen ones. The Mangia pizza will be the first of its kind on the US market. The Mangia pizza will be available as a cheese-only pizza as consumers are expected to customize the pizza with their favorite toppings before baking it. The Mangia pizza is designed to 1) provide a “baked-from-scratch-like” experience without the long preparation time that true home-baking requires, and 2) provide a quality and convenient meal without the cost of ready-to-eat options such as delivery or restaurant takeout. Developmental product tests have confirmed that the company has the technical know-how and the available manufacturing capacity to produce the product.
Following your initial presentation of the product concept, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has asked you to gather additional data and develop an ultimate recommendation on whether the company should introduce the product in the US market. In the last two months, you have assembled a lot of information from company executives, consumer tests and trade research and believe that these data will allow you to determine how successful the company will be if it introduces the new refrigerated pizza
Four years ago, your company (a large multinational food manufacturer) successfully launched the Mangia brand: a line of refrigerated pasta and pasta sauces. As the Mangia brand manager for the US market, you have recently realized that the sales growth began to slow and that the pasta and sauce line is reaching maturity. In an effort to encourage further sales growth and build on the Mangia brand strength, your product team is contemplating extending the Mangia line by introducing a shelf-stabilized refrigerated pizza in the coming year. These types of refrigerated products have longer shelf lives (several weeks) compared to fresh foods (a few days) but shorter shelf lives than frozen foods (several months). Consumers tend to perceive refrigerated products as higher quality and better tasting than frozen ones. The Mangia pizza will be the first of its kind on the US market. The Mangia pizza will be available as a cheese-only pizza as consumers are expected to customize the pizza with their favorite toppings before baking it. The Mangia pizza is designed to 1) provide a “baked-from-scratch-like” experience without the long preparation time that true home-baking requires, and 2) provide a quality and convenient meal without the cost of ready-to-eat options such as delivery or restaurant takeout. Developmental product tests have confirmed that the company has the technical know-how and the available manufacturing capacity to produce the product.
Following your initial presentation of the product concept, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has asked you to gather additional data and develop an ultimate recommendation on whether the company should introduce the product in the US market. In the last two months, you have assembled a lot of information from company executives, consumer tests and trade research and believe that these data will allow you to determine how successful the company will be if it introduces the new refrigerated pizza