II. Channels policy

è Distribution-channels:

HORECA [key focus on Shokoladnica]: the main focus during the first two years of the market invasion this channel will be one of the top-priorities for increasing the level of acknowledgement and consumers involvement and as well keeping up sales activity. The following years this channel will be more of a supporting one. As another branch of HORECA such customer segments as language courses, work-places and catering services clients are also taken in account.

Retail[with Shokoladnica within the Mall] – first year: retail is important as it leads to significant increase in both sales and brand-awareness. Yet being the most expensive-to-enter channel the strategy for entering retail sector is to invade in the net step-by-step starting from the 6 big malls, chosen on the basis of popularity and the Shokoladnica presence factor in the first year coming up to covering Perekrestok and other chains in Moscow, Moscow suburbs and St.Petersburg. The idea is that having the consumer in Shokoladnica where he may have his first opportunity of experiencing the taste of Voyage by Wissotzky tea and afterwards being able to make a straight-away follow-up buy in the retail-store within the same Shopping mall. It is believed that it is extremely vital to have the point of sales available from the first year of product launch, as in Russia the practice of online-shopping for products is far from being developed. Therefore investing money in marketing campaigns, promoting in HORECA with no possibility for clients to buy the product even in a limited number of shops may end up in deep disappointment and following protest against the brand due to dissatisfaction of the needs to buy. Every year the retail-net would be growing and one by one capturing first the Moscow-suburbs and then St.Petersburg as well.

B2B gifting: the idea of B2B branded gifting is a special separate channel for promoting the products for the Business-sector, which in itself is a new experience as this practice is quite rare and not so many brands overall offer similar service. The idea is to provide Business segment with gift-boxes with branded logos of the ordering company & the brand or name of the recipient printed by the special order on the present box. It is a very common practice in Russia as well as in Europe: to make presents to employees, clients and partners for different celebrations (birthdays, official holidays, et.c.). The opportunity to make a unique personalized branded gift would support the Company's image as serious and thorough one and will also support and strengthen the bond between the companies, which is normally the key idea of business-to-business gifting.

Online Digital Gifting. Internet is rather an undeveloped channel for FMCG sales in Russia nowadays comparing to those in some states of America and for example Korea or China where the practice of online FMCG shopping is becoming more popular. Yet, gifting is another story: in the search of a present people often browse the net, hence having gifting proposition on the internet will help increase sales, brand-awareness and of course customers involvement in brand.

III. Communication Strategies:

Among the traditional communication channels (billboards, web-sites, etc.) we suggest other ideas to increase consumer involvement and brand loyalty while reducing advertising costs.

Digital provides a wide opportunity to communicate through the corporate web-site, social-media marketing, virus-video marketing and of course SME. During the first year Digital would be one of the most important channels as being the platform for crowd-sourcing: a two-months contest which will be one of the initial customer-involvement activities to be performed. The aim of the crowd-sourcing is to use the “crowd” as the marketing channel itself making the customers promote the product themselves by the word-of-mouth which would be necessary for them to with the competition (voting system). As a benefit – this practice will also serve as a marketing analytics and insight base, as the core idea of the contest is for consumers to offer the ideas for flavors combinations in association with a city.

Event marketing includes organizing and participating in a number of different events, which would be again supported by digital and internet marketing via social-nets. Participating in different events (movie-nights, concerts, work-shops, fairs) will help meet different customers from different target groups thus capturing as maximum target clients as possible. Another advantage of this channel of communication and promotion is that it is completely within the brand-essence «new experiences» and will help establish, promote and support the brand image through providing new experiences and taking part in different ones.

Guerilla marketing is as well as Event marketing keeping up to brand essence of providing new experiences and is deeply supported and connected with Digital. Unusual and eccentric marketing promo-actions, virus videos and others will help excite, attract and inform customers into brand. They as well will be a perfect material for follow-up virus videos that will be distributed on the net and will increase the effect even more.

IV. Results:

Overall we are proposing a plan for Wissotzky company to enter the Russian market with a brand that is clearly different from the competition and tells an exciting brand story, which is both relevant to the target consumers and fits Wissotzky corporate brand. The brand message and positioning is displayed throughout the complex communication strategy. The channels policy allows to achieve all the company KPI goals and generate over $21M sales on the 5^th year gaining 17% of specialty tea market share while staying within the budget.