Overview Of The UK Chocolate Industry
The chocolate industry in the UK is huge, worth billions of pounds a year and showing now signs of slowing due to the affects of the recession.
The chocolate industry in the UK dates from around 1900 when John Cadbury invented 'solid chocolate' in the form of the chocolate bars we all know today.
The history of chocolate can be traced back many thousands of years to the Aztec, Maya and Olmec civilisations in Central America who used the coco bean in offerings to their gods, produced chocolate drinks (different to ours today as they contained no sugar or milk) and various products from the coco bean.
As the Europeans (from other areas of the continent) caught up on John Cadbury's invention, the chocolate race was on.
The French used it in cooking, the Belgian's started the famous 'Belgian Chocolates' and the British started the confectionary industry.
The chocolate industry today is huge and ranges from the bars of chocolate that are available in petrol stations up to high end chocolates in Harrods that are hand made and can cost over £100 a box.
Marketing For Chocolate Companies
The marketing of chocolate products is very complex and involves a lot of work than anyone could credit. Chocolate (as mentioned) has been incorporated into all public holiday's in the UK so that people will associate events with chocolate - clever.
Chocolate companies put a lot of resource into their marketing and new products are always given good marketing support so that they sell well in the UK market.
Advertising For Chocolate Companies
Most chocolate companies have used advertising in the past, particularly around events such as Christmas, the TV adverts for chocolate products start in their drones. Chocolate companies do use radio advertising, but not as much as other forms of advertising (such as advertising chocolate on billboards and other visual forms of advertising media).
Magazines play a big role in the advertising portfolio and advertising chocolates in magazines has been going on for decades, and will probably never change.
Websites For Chocolate Companies
All chocolate companies have websites and normally these are high end websites, fun, interactive and social. Websites for chocolate companies are quite different to other businesses, as they are not necessarily designed to be a sales tool, but more a visual shop window (in cyber space).
PR For Chocolate Companies
Public relations plays a big roll with chocolate companies and they spend large amounts of money in targeted brand building exercises. PR is all about building a brand, a reputation and PR for chocolate companies is a great example of how PR can be used to build a brand, sculpt and image and target the product (to children, high end etc.).
Choosing A Marketing Company For A Chocolate Business
For any chocolate company, choosing the right marketing agency is important. There are tens of thousands of marketing companies around the UK to choose from, they cannot all be right to work with.
The main thing that a chocolate company needs to look at is the experience the marketing company has. Have they worked in the chocolate industry before, do they know how the industry works, do they know the trends, know the competitors. The other important question to consider is their success rate, if they have worked in the chocolate industry, how successful are they, can they produce results, can they justify their fees?
Choosing the wrong marketing company may well result in the following:
- Poor marketing results
- Loss of money invested
- Waste of time
- Potential damage to brand
Selecting the right marketing company should result in the following (the exact opposite):
- Great marketing results
- Boost in sales as a direct result of marketing campaign
- Quick results from start of campaign
- Stronger brand in the chocolate industry
It is very wise to shop around and get advice from different marketing experts before deciding on who to work with; marketing is an important part of any chocolate business, do it wrong and your chocolate (no matter how tasty it is) will never sell, get it right and your chocolate will become a world brand.
Compare Marketing Prices For Marketing Of Chocolate Products
All marketing companies are privately owned businesses that set their own fees. Paying a lot of money for marketing is no guarantee that the marketing would work, you could have paid 70% less with another marketing company and got the same results (or better). Results are all about how successful the marketing is, there are some great marketing campaigns for chocolate products (and some poor ones); but care needs to be taken on how much is paid. Remember that marketing companies need to make profit, the directors need cars, holiday's, houses, expensive offices etc. so are charging profit to cover all the extras outside of your campaign costs.
Generally the larger a marketing company is, the more resources they have; more resources means more costs, more costs means higher profits. Smaller marketing companies may be able to achieve just as much but for a fraction of the cost. It pays to shop around, it could save millions.
For free advice and quotes from marketing companies that work in the chocolate industry, just fill in the form above.