Group-14 (AIB)

Mrigendra Sinha 1501058

Baibhav Nigam 1501059
Amit Singh Tolia 1401064
Prem Kishor 1401095

General Mills Inc.: Yoplait Custard-Style Yogurt (B)

By June 1980, General Mills have done numerous tests in these 2 years and the
tests shows high potential for the product. When the confirmation time for the test
market came, the New Business Development Group was faced with a limitation of
budget and production capacity and the pressure of introducing the Yoplait first new
product as soon as possible. Bruce Becker opted for mini-market test in the
market instead full-scale market test.
Mini-market Test
Mini-market test saved a lot of time and effort for the market research
department to conduct the test and overcome the limitations like unavailability of
refrigerated warehouse, lack of production experience and capacity. The test
involved 22 stores, costs about $150,000 and lasted 20 weeks. They priced the
product at 49 cents per cup.
Market variables for mini-market test:

Radio, Newspaper advertising, Product sampling and Trade deals were used
to provide marketing support for the product.
Radio was used mainly to control the cost.
Product sampling was a major consumer promotion tactic used for generating
trial.
Three trade deals each lasting 6 weeks were offered during the test and the
average Custard-style volume in stores that accepted one or more deals was
52% higher than those that accepted none.

Although the test results for the mini market test was encouraging and it forecasted
that the production is to be doubled in volume. But in mind of some executives, this
test was not sufficient as they thought that it was too localized. They wanted and
nationwide test to estimate the potential product volume, so they decided to do
BASES test.
BASES Test:
This test was conducted in 12 geographically dispersed cities, distributed equally
among three regions. Including the samples of current users and non-users in this
study, they also interviewed 200 respondents from each region and also in
Minneapolis/St. Paul to compare results with results from Mini-market tests.
A comparison between two tests is shown below:
Comparison of Mini-Market test and BASES Market Share predictions
(Total U.S)
Type of test
CustardTotal Yoplait

Group-14 (AIB)

Mini-Market test
BASES (Sanford
commercial)

style
23.1%
21.8%

Mrigendra Sinha 1501058

Baibhav Nigam 1501059
Amit Singh Tolia 1401064
Prem Kishor 1401095
48.0%
43.7%

Market Variables of BASES Test:

3 national spending plans were simulated by the BASES Model

High (Plan A), supported at 100% of media spending level.

Medium (Plan B), supported at 50% of media spending level.
Low (Plan C), supported ate lower level of spending.

COPY Test:
The test was carried out by panel of 4 members each. It covered approximately 900
respondents in nine cities. The respondents were shown pre-recorded videos and
were asked about their likelihood of buying yogurt from them. Thus the final result
was obtained from evaluating the test results along with the weight of the past
usage.
Market variables of COPY Test:

300 respondents were selected in each panel

Respondents were female shoppers aged b/w 18-60 who had purchased it 2-3
times in past 6 months

Conclusion:

The Becker and the group were to introduce Yoplait Custard-Style Yogurt in six
flavors.
The Custard style was decided to be positioned in West first though there
were few misunderstandings among the executives.
Prices were decided to be kept same for both the varieties to keep confusion
low among the consumers and sales force as well
The Salt Lake City being the major market for Yoplait products with it being
the market leader WITH a share of 22%.