Pacovici Claudiu Marius

Niculescu Fredolin Ionu

The Product Life Cycle of the Gourment Industry

Betty Ice Vs Algida

Before we go any farther lets explain what the product life cycle means. Its about some
several distinct characteristics. It shows the ups and downs of a product, which means the
profit and the loss. The main coefficient playing this role is the time. The life of a product can
last weaks, months, or year/decades. The ice cream industry is quite payable. Only the brand
Betty Ice has shown a total sales of 20 mil only in 2008.

Ice Cream Growth Stage :

The Growth Stage is most felt in the summer, when the heat comes on and the appetite from
the clients for something cold and refreshing starts to grind. In this stage, the price can grow,
or it can decrease, depending on more facts(competition, promotions, opportunities, climate,
weather). Romania is in a temperate continental zone so it has four seasons. In the ice cream
industry, most experts say: 2 seasons alive, 2 seasons survive. Which means that in summer
and spring the industrys incomings grow, while in autumn especially winter they decrease.
Now, talking about some history of the ice: Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici,was credited
with introducing ice cream into Europe in the 16th century.
When Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici married the Duke of Orlans (Henry II of France)
in 1533, she is said to have brought with her to France some Italian chefs who had recipes for
flavoured ices or sorbets. One hundred years later, Charles I of England was, it was reported,
so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension
in return for keeping the formula secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative. There
is no historical evidence to support these legends, which first appeared during the 19th
century.
The first recipe in French of flavoured ices appears in 1674, in Nicholas Lemerys Recueil
de curiositz rares et nouvelles de plus admirables effets de la nature. Recipes for sorbetti
saw publication in the 1694 edition of Antonio Latini's Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern
Steward).Recipes for flavoured ices began to appear in Franois Massialot's Nouvelle
Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits, starting with the 1692 edition.
Massialot's recipes result in a coarse, pebbly texture. Latini claims that the results of his
recipes should have the fine consistency of sugar and snow.

Product Maturity Stage:

The Maturity Stage is known as the most profitable period of the year for the specific
industry. For the ice cream industry, the products reach their maturity in summer. The
production grows, the sales too, so does the incomings for the firms. Betty Ice knows that it
has to strike in summer, so they start placing lots of trailer sales. They are mostly in parks,
crowded areas, or places with lots of people and lots of heat. As a matter of fact, we
personally havent seen any Algida ice cream trailes anywhere, so, Betty gets the plus.
Summer means for ice cream industry dozens of investments in advertisments. They have to
make themselves known as a firm, as a product, as satisfaction for the client needs.

Decline Stage:
The decline stage is about those 2 seasons of the year, when ice cream is bought only for
special occasions or for lust. Autumn and winter means for the ice cream industry stability or
loss. Betty Ice starts closing the trailer sales and resumes to sale through hypermarkets. The
production, the incomings, the client requests sinks. The prices will be kept at a stable level,
because there are no factors to explode or implode it.

Product in the Marketing Mix of Betty Ice:

Betty Ice is in the ice cream industry since 1994, when Vasile Armenean decided to evolve
his passion into bussines. It is how he said >Made out of passion, to born passion<, their
products look good, give the clients the felling of being served with a kings dessert. The
notoriety of Betty Ice is pretty high in Romania. Betty Ice is selling mostly those ice cakes, or
the ice cream cones. For Betty Ice its not the product itself, because its ice creamit is the
same in most factories. Its about the flavor and the look. People mostly buy, if you ask them,
because of the look. Betty Ice has specialized in making their products looking good and
delicious.

Product in the Marketing Mix of Algida

Algida stands for the ice cream brand owned by the Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer
goods company Unilever.
In 1905, Richard Wall was trying to expand his meat pie family business but saw no success
in it and so begun his new London based ice cream business, which he named Walls. After
being bought by the Lever Brothers in 1922, Algida started to expand quickly and by the 50s
they were already active in lots of supermarkets and begun launching tv commercials. In the
70s, Algida ice creams had the most innovative forms and aromas and quickly gathered lots
of buyers.

Nowadays, there are ten assortments of Walls ice-creams on the market available in the
world: Magnum, Big Milk, Viennetta, Napoca, Callipo, Carte dOr, Kolorki, Twister,
Cornetto and Cucciolone Cooky. In Romania, Algida provides only Napoca, Big Milk, Cart
dOr, Magnum, Viennetta and Cornetto, amongst them the most famous being Napoca.

Price in the Marketing Mix of Betty Ice:

Betty Ice is focusing on maintaining their position in the industry and on evolving and enlarge
their influence on the clients. In the last interview with the official of Betty Ice he talked
about some investments over 100 mil Ron, which means for us customers lower prices, more
products, more offers and promotions for new products/flavors. The prices are almost the
same as the average price for ice cream which means that it has enough power to lower their
price as much as possible and still be on profit.

Price in the Marketing Mix of Algida:

Algida is focusing on evolving and enlarge their concept on the clients. Their products are not
so expensive, for example you can find Cornetto (one of their products with different flavors
and aromas, like cookies, chocolate, vanilla) between 1,10 Euros and 1,60 Euros. So this
dosent mean that Algida is a low budget icecream. In fact, they make icecream for every
pocket. Magnum, or Revival for example are more expensive than Big Milk or Cornetto,
offering a fine touch how the producer say.

Placement in the Marketing Mix of Betty Ice:

During the cold seasons the only placements are in the hypermarkets, or markets with big
crowds, hoping that 3 out of 10 will buy. In the warm season they can expand. Trailer sales
are very cheap and very payable for the ice cream industry, just that it has to be placed
somewhere with lots of people/crowds. Why? Simple. What would you buy when youre out
with your girlfriend on a hot day in the park? Candy floss? I dont think so.

Placement in the Marketing Mix of Algida:

The most interesting thing about Algida is that theyre present in a lot of countries, and the
name is company is called in different ways, like Ola in Holland (Netherlands), in every
country, the products wear different names, as in Romania, Italy and Russia the company is
called Algida, in the United States is called Good Humor, in Germany Langnese and in the
United Kingdom Walls, this also being the original name of the ice cream brand.In the warm
season can be found in parks, in the supermarkets, local shops, almost everywhere, but in the
winter you can find it rearly.

Promotion in the Marketing Mix of Betty Ice and Algida:

Trailers sales
Product placement
Fair trade
Publicity (radio, TV, Internet)
From word to mouth. This depends on the notoriety of the firm. If they dont like it
they will spread bad gossip about your products. If they do like it well then the
incomings will grow.