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Executive Summary

Innocent Drinks has become a pervasive household name in the juices and smoothies’ industry. This company has revolutionized and disrupted its operations industry, especially by producing only healthier and nutritious options to consumers. In addition, the company has reiterated its support of caring for the environment by building carbon neutral factory to reduce carbon in every product they make. Although Innocent Drinks primarily targets young adults as primary consumers, the company targets the elderly because of their psychographic features. The purpose of this report is to examine the marketing strategy of Innocent Drinks by discussing the influence of consumer psychology in purchasing decision-making. First, the report will discuss Innocent Drinks’ product category involvement and various motivation constructs to influence sales positively. The second section assesses how Innocent Drinks has profiled its customers’ segments and how it positions itself in the juices and smoothies market. The third section examines Innocent Drinks’ marketing approaches and tactics through discussing message structure and features, route to persuasion, perception aspects, memory and learning concerns, consumer attitudes, and consumers self-belied and identity. Finally, the paper provides recommendations for improving Innocent Drinks’ marketing approaches and strategies before summarizing and concluding the entire report.

Introduction

Innocent Drinks is a company that specializes in the production of smoothies and juice that are distributed to retail stores, coffee stores, and other stores. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the company has committed to keeping people healthy, aid the immediate communities who need help and ensure our planet is healthier too. The company produces drinks out of fruits, vegetables, and other natural products (Innocent Drinks, 2021). However, intense competition in the juices and smoothies’ sector has demanded companies to reconsider their business-level strategies to remain competitive and sustainable. This report analyses Innocent Drinks’ product category involvement and motivation models, customer profile and positioning, marketing approaches and tactics, and recommendations about marketing strategies and tactics.

Product Category Involvement and Motivation Analysis

The company has prioritized the distribution of smoothie drinks, which is made of pure fruit. Innocent Drinks’ trademark product, smoothie, is complemented by other nutritious products such as coconut water, juice and kid’s drinks, and innocent oat. The unique selling position of the company’s products is that it is preservative-free and is not derived from concentrate. The value proposition fostering the company product is “making it easy (for consumers) to do themselves some good. With ever busier lives and economic turmoil caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, brands need to offer convenient methods to aid consumers in consumer healthier products. Innocent has consistently boasted of being the only brand that offers consumers healthy, natural, and nutritious products (Taylor, 2015, p. 1).

However, the juices and smoothie’s industry has experienced intense competition in the past years. Therefore, it is pivotal for companies to have more insights into consumers’ purchasing behaviour. According to Fischer and Ahlstrom (2011, p. 1), purchasing decisions are highly correlated with the degree of involvement a consumer has for the company products. The involvement dimension is often split into four categories: product, brand, consumption, and advertising involvements. The level of product involvement for the category that Innocent Drinks belong to is ‘product involvement.’ Innocent Drinks maintains high product involvement to remain competitive and sustainable. According to Menidjel et al. (2018, p. 207), consumers are often associated with a product due to its ability to satisfy their demands. In the juices and smoothie’s industry, the level of consumer satisfaction impacts product category involvement and association proneness, leading to changes in purchasing decisions. In the juices industry, even if the interest in the drinks is unchanged, high level of involvement will increase if a health benefit is anticipated by the consumer Santos et al. 2017, p. 504).

Consumers have often associated Innocent Drinks with being nutritious and healthy compared to other brands, which significantly influence their purchasing decisions. However, according to O’Cass (2000, p. 549), the degree of involvement is observed to shift only to the extent that changes in the buyer’s value structure happen on an enduring basis due to encounters with an external stimulus. Various motivation constructs that foster the purchase under the product involvement category are discussed below.

Hedonic Vs. Utilitarian Motives

While hedonic products are often categorized as multisensory and offered for experiential consumption, fun, or enjoyment, utilitarian products are considered necessities, with their purchasing motivated by functional product aspects (Kahn et al. 2005, p. 148). Thus, innocent Drinks’ products have both utilitarian and hedonic benefits to foster their market competitiveness.

According to Yeo (2014, p.1), Innocent Drinks’ smoothies have always been marketed as healthy, all-natural, nutritious, and environment-cautious beverages. Thus, it advances a picture of the product’s values of healthiness experience (hedonic). According to Maehle et al. (2015 n.d), the hedonic construct hinges on making consumers experience high levels of guilt in their consumption. The guilt can be aroused by finance-related feelings, health-related feelings, moral feelings, and social responsibility feelings to influence consumer purchasing behaviour. In most cases, the thoughts of guiltiness from hedonic consumption tend to improve environmentally-conscious products’ desirability (a segment Innocent Drinks ventures in). Innocent drinks have used this concept of ‘guilty pleasure’ to enhance the purchase of its products. For instance, the company affirms, “From smoothies, coconut water, juice and kids’ drinks, Innocent has something for everyone. Stop feeling guilty, and start drinking innocent” (The Coca Cola Company, 2021).

Also, the utilitarian construct has been utilized by Innocent Drinks to improve product involvement. According to Maehle et al. (2015 n.d.), the utilitarian construct is based on instrumental aspects such as low price, nutritional benefits, and low-calorie ingredients. Innocent Drinks uses the slogan “live well, die old” to reinforce its commitment to offering nutritious products. In addition, the company affirms its products are squashed fruits and veg, which supports product involvement.

Negatively and Positively Evaluated Goals

The level of product involvement often impacts how emotions foster consumer satisfaction. According to Calvo-Porral et al. (2018, p. 130), people frequently consume products in their daily lives and experience emotions associated with what they consume. Therefore, consumers often prefer to be related to products with positive evaluated goals that induces pleasant emotions instead of unpleasant feeling. Innocent Drinks continues to market its products with positively evaluated goals such as participation in social corporate responsibility activities, caring for the environment, and offering healthy and nutritious products. Therefore, the rewards inherent in smoothies pleasure value foster the product involvement level. The positively evaluated goals have been integrated to Innocent Drinks marketing and advertising activities. For instance, the company often integrate its objectives about sustainability efforts to induce pleasant emotions for the customers.

Motivational Conflicts

Motivational conflicts arise when consumers are forced to make a purchasing decision considering present conflicting goals, i.e., different prices across the product portfolio. Buyers are always motivated to purchase or not purchase a product due to positive or negative support. They are three forms of motivational conflicts: Approach-Approach, Approach-Avoidance, and Avoidance-Avoidance (Penz and Hogg, 2011, p. 106). Innocent Drinks uses the Approach-Avoidance approach to improve product involvement. Under this category, consumers are willing to purchase a product, but a negative motivational conflict will potentially make them not initiate a purchase.

Innocent Drinks has marketed its products to have positive social and healthier positive benefits, which neutralize any negative motivation conflict to improve product involvement. For instance, most consumers love juice, but the adverse health outcomes related to chemical-preserved drinks by most beverage retailers often inhibit them from purchasing these products. Therefore, innocent Drinks produce juices preservative-free and squashed from pure fruits to resolve any avoidance conflict about consuming juice.

Customer Profile and Positioning Analysis

Customer Profile on Psychographics

According to Peppers and Rogers (2016, p. 195), understanding the consumer’s characteristics is the driver of any organization success. Innocent Drinks has prioritized a wide range of customers for its smoothies and other offerings. Specifically, the company has profiled its customers to ensure the development of relevant decisions concerning their products. Since Innocent Drinks engages in the juices and smoothies’ sector, the firm’s product potential profiles encompass psychographic characteristics, demographics, and customers behaviours. Regardless of the customer profiling process, the company target the market primarily on product consciousness.

Under psychographic profiling, Innocent Drinks targets customers who are health conscious and prefer healthier options. The target market for the company is primarily composed of children, young adults, mostly aged between 10 to 31 years old, and elderly customers, who are more concerned about their health and prefer healthier menus. Children need to consume more nutritional products to be immune to diseases and improve their wellbeing. The young population has multiple life demands that compel them to spend more money on a nutritious diet. In addition, this population prefers healthier products to enhance their productivity and wellbeing. Therefore, this group’s attitudes, interests, values, and need to maintain their lifestyle compel them to select Innocent Drinks.

Moreover, the OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) model can be used to examine Innocent Drinks’ customer profiling based on their psychological needs. The young adult population tends to be open to experience, extraverts, aggregable. On the other side, the elderly careful and disciplined (conscientiousness) and confident (neurotic) calm. Innocent Drinks has focused on the openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion aspects to target its market. The openness element enables the company to target customers who are curious and prefer consistency. The company uses a conscientious factor to target the elderly population who are organized and easy-going. Furthermore, the company uses the extraversion element to target both young adults and the elderly who are outgoing or energetic and reserved. Therefore, Innocent Drinks produces various brands that might interest these groups. By observing the market differently and categorizing consumers on the OCEAN model, a firm opens a platform for developing experiences that directly link consumer needs (Wilson, 2021).

Also, Innocent Drinks focuses on the elderly population because of their psychographic characteristics. The UK population is rapidly aging, with at least 15.4 million individuals aged 60 and above. Also, about 3.2 million people are aged 80 or above, and about 600,000 are aged 90 and above. It is estimated that by 2041, they will be at least 3 million individuals aged 85 or over (Methodist Homes, 2021). The elderly prefer to consume healthier products to supplement their diminishing energy levels and flawed immune system.

Positioning Analysis

Innocent Drinks has consistently positioned itself as a refreshing and healthy drink. However, its brand personality originates from its operating name: Innocent Smoothies. The company has established their brand proposition on the features of what it implies to be Innocent. Jaffar (2021) affirms that being ‘Innocent’ means being wholesome, pure, and natural. Because of these qualities, Innocent Drinks has constantly supported its brand personality and positioning campaigns, specifically through creative copywriting. Although the brand offers expensive products than most of its rivals, its packaging shows it is a brand that cares for its consumers. The organization has used various slogans such as ‘Tastes good. Does good’ to create likeable mission declaration to help its buyers understand and integrates the brand values. Figure 1 below shows one of the packaging designs of Innocent Drinks.

Figure 1: Innocent Drinks’ packaging CuCo Creative (2017).

The company packaging frequently uses new, creative, and engaging messages, colorful visuals, and the feel-good-factor brand’s personality. The company recently published a publication dubbed ‘Stay healthy, be lazy.’ According to CuCo Creative (2017), the publication title and the short, visual illustrated book encompasses the brand personality that motivates consumers to consume its smoothies and lead a happy, healthy lifestyle. Therefore, the company various advertisements and marketing campaigns constantly reinforces its personality. Brand personality refers to specific aspects attributed to a brand name. Five forms of personality: excitement, honesty, ruggedness, reliability, and sophistication, are used to reinforce a brand personality (Tarver, 2019). Innocent Drinks uses these personality traits and the nostalgia concept to reinforce its brand personality by reflecting on simpler times.

Self/brand congruence theory can also be used to examine Innocent Drinks’ brand positioning. This theory affirms that improvement in congruence between consumers’ ideal, social-component and brand personality and identity leads to a positive influence on brand’s loyalty and preference (Sandhu et al., 2018, p. 697). The feel-good-factor and healthier brand personality often improve Innocent Drinks’ consumers’ congruence. Customer who identifies with healthier drinks are the biggest supporter of the company brands.   Therefore, the brand personality of Innocent Drinks is regarded as the primary driver in customer purchasing decision making.

Consumers often strive to be associated with brands that address their self-driven needs by offering a platform that allows participation. Figure 2 below exhibits the relationship between self-congruity, brand attitude by customers, and purchase decisions.

Figure 2: Conceptual framework of self-congruence theory (Sandhu et al., 2018, p. 700).

Innocent Drinks recognize their customer’s behaviour is fostered by their need for dependability and linking with the private and social self. The company has integrated the self-concept, specifically in its website headline: “We started innocent back in 1999 with a dream to make it easier for people to do themselves some good.” It recognizes offering consumers something to relate to, which is clear, fresh, and alive compared to what is provided, is the primary component of brand personality. Therefore, Innocent Drinks uses perceived self-concept to profile its customers, who are likely to be more responsive to its promotional messages.

Marketing Strategies and Tactics Analysis

Message Structure and Characteristics

                Innocent Drinks have mastered developing creative message that is easily understood and appreciated by its customers. For example, here is the product message of “Pomegranates, blueberries and acai” smoothie:

             “This recipe is a bit special. We’ve squeezed three of the world’s finest superfruits into it, a combination of pomegranate, blueberry and acai. Tastes great and much better than getting busy with a funnel and a piece of hosepipe. It comprises of 2 of your 5 a day in every bottle or 250ml glass, it gives you the goodness of 7 different types of fruit, and great tasting” Innocent Drinks (2021).

The message is relatively informal, engaging, and friendly. Rather than relying upon a message as a reserved company, the statement sounds like a friend inviting you to try out a new smoothie they just made. For instance, the “this recipe is a bit special” phrase carries a conversational tone that seeks to engage with its customers. Likewise, the word “we have squeezed three of the world’s finest superfruits into it” suggests unique simplicity in its message, which can easily be understood by consumers looking out for healthier drinks.

Route to Persuasion- ELM

The ELM model offers an organizing platform for persuasion that is advanced to be relevant to multiple sources, message, recipients, and other variables. Under this model, there are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral paths. In the central route, a consumer is likely to carefully examine the message’s contents due to high motivation (Kitchen et al., 2014, p. 2035). For example, the customers know what is important for them concerning the Pomegranates, blueberries and acai smoothie consumption; thus, they will invest in assessing the marketing message’s components. When elaboration likelihood is high, consumers attitude, change, or endurance will be cognitively be altered by the message arguments and predict consumers’ purchasing decisions (Kitchen et al., 2014, p. 2035). Therefore, consumers using the central route are likely to assume any distractions and focus on the health outcomes of consuming pomegranates, blueberries and acai smoothie. Perception Aspects, JND

The JND model harbours on perception baseline in consumer behaviour. If a company introduces a change above the baseline, consumers are likely to know it, whether it is positive or negative (Vojtko, 2014, p. 205). Innocent Drinks has used the concept of JND in its marketing mix decision-making, especially in the introduction of new products. The classic example of the application of the JND model by Innocent Drinks is illustrated in Figure 3 below, during the promotion of its new ‘Bold From the Blue’ smoothie on Twitter.

Figure 3: Bolt From The Blue promotion message (Awards Analyst, 2019).

                The promotion message quickly sparked online conversation due to noticeable change. Innocent Drinks had ‘intentionally’ affirmed their new product was blue rather than its original colour-green. Therefore, the company wanted its consumers to notice the change and foster engagement, observable in the massive number of likes, retweets, and hashtags the tweet got. Innocent Smoothies understands how to use its brand personality to improve its engagement with the consumers.

Memory and Learning Issues

The company has committed to fostering memorable and learning advertising and product development to get its brand message into consumers’ lasting memory. Since its creation, Innocent Drinks has constantly repeated its slogan of offering nutritious and healthy options to consumers. Classical conditioning has helped help the company craft an image for their smoothies that often elicit a preferable response from consumers. To reinforce memory and learning, the company has integrated attractive visuals and colours to ensure consumers get attached to their brand. Since consumer learning is a gradual process, Innocent Drinks uses motivation elements and responses to improve customer’s memory. In addition, the company uses captivating social media profiles that give consumers a more intimate look at their business. Figure 4 and Figure 5 below are the Facebook and Twitter social media accounts that reinforce consumer memory and the learning process.

Figure 4: Innocent Drinks’ Facebook account (Samoilenko, 2020).

Figure 5: Innocent Drinks’ Twitter account (Samoilenko, 2020).

ABC Attitude Model, Attitude Change Strategies, Multi-Attitude Models

The ABC Attitude approach is based on affect, behaviour, and cognition. While affect considers consumer’s feeling about the company products, behaviour considers the responses of a buyer induced from the affect and cognition (Niosi n.d.). As already discussed, Innocent Drinks uses the ELM model to foster central route persuasion. However, changing consumers’ attitudes to accept the company’s products remains Innocent Drinks’ primary objective.

The company has used various attitude change strategies such as changing affect, altering behaviour, and altering beliefs. The company has primarily relied on classical conditioning to change affect. For instance, the company often pair their product with healthier living and nutritional support. This positive relationship induces an opportunity to alter affect without necessarily changing consumer’s beliefs. Therefore, the company positions their product as healthier and refreshing to alter purchasing behaviours. To change beliefs, the company has focused on changing thoughts about juices and smoothies, add opinions, and transform customer perceptions about its products.

The Theory of the Self and Self Enhancement Model

Brands have long been aware that consumers’ self-concepts impact their purchasing decisions. Consequently, products bought impact consumer’s self-concepts (Taylor et al., 2012, p. 13). The company has reinforced its self-concept as a healthier brand focused on providing quality and delicious meals. Innocent Drinks’ consumers can attain self-concept by using the company’s product that correlates with their self-identity. The company acknowledges that product consumption does not entirely depend on its functional utility but also its social benefit. The company has strived to improve its involvement in addressing climate change through its campaign “Doing mother nature proud” and being environmental-friendly. Therefore, consumers prefer to consume the company’s product as they have a societal impact and align to their self-identity. Thus, the company strives to identify with the customers and the industry as a caring and healthier brand, which relates to its consumers’ self-concept. When consumers purchase products that match their self-image and are openly appreciated by others, it improves their self-concept. It leads to the self-enhancement aspect as the consumer believes the company’s product fits their self-concept.

Recommendations

Innocent Drinks has positioned its brand as one that embraces youthful energy and offers healthier options to consumers. The company targets young adults who observed busy and modern lifestyle and the elderly who needs to keep healthy and immune. However, the contemporary marketplace is highly competitive, and Innocent Drinks’ business model is easily imitable. Therefore, the company should strive to differentiate itself from the competitors by focusing on its positioning. To improve its brand and positioning, the company should embrace the models of green marketing and ethical practices.

According to Urzua (2014, p. 13), green marketing is about making ‘green’ products and following eco-friendly practices. Innocent Drinks should continue producing innovative naturally-made products and enter into agreements about taking care of the environment. Consumers are likely to prefer being associated with brands that are eco-friendly and create innovative products. For instance, the company should ensure all its products are made of recyclable materials and integrate ecological externalities into their pricing. Ethical consumerism will encourage Innocent Drinks to produce innovative products that have social and environmental benefits. Since the company has positioned itself as the healthier option, it should remain honest with its consumers through delivering quality products. Taylor et al. (2012, p. 13) affirm that consumers’ self-concept and identity align with a company that seeks to improve its products to their standards and have a societal impact.

Using the proper channels for communication and innovative messages is also recommended to persuade and win over consumers (Berezan et al., 2016, p. 101). Innocent Drinks has used social media to good use and also television advertisements. However, the company should strive to connect with its consumers through instant promotional campaigns. Using correct communications channels will significantly improve consumers’ memory and learning aspects to influence their purchasing decisions. The company should use the classical conditioning model to enhance their consumers’ learning and memory aspects through constant and refreshing advertisements across their social media and advertising platform. Classical conditioning will enable consumers to be willing to associate the company’s products with a specific feeling- self-identity (Pornpitakpan, 2012, p. 282).

The company should prioritize innovation on its product development, packaging, and advertising messaging to attain consumer attitude change. In addition, the company can use the JND theory to introduce positive changes through creative advertising and refreshing packaging to change customer perceptions of the brand (Vojtko, 2014, p. 205). Lastly, the company should choose good sponsorships deals to reinforce their promotional campaigns and brand awareness. The peripheral route under the ELM theory suggests that consumers are likely to get attracted to brands that advertise their products that align with their self-identity and beliefs (Kitchen et al., 2014, p. 2035). Therefore, the company should seek partnerships with sports bodies such as The Premier League, which is mainly appreciated by youths and the elderly, to promote themselves in the market.

Conclusion

Innocent Drinks continues to position itself as the best brand in the juices and smoothie’s sector. As the company mission affirms, the company prioritizes keeping people healthy, aiding the immediate communities who need help, and ensuring our planet is healthier. Under the product level of product involvement, the company has continued to offer healthier options to the consumers and attain brand loyalty. The companies use various motivation constructs such as hedonic and utilitarian motives, positively evaluated goals, and resolves motivational conflicts to improve their sales. The company targets young adults and the elderly mainly because of their psychographic characteristics that prioritize healthier living. The company should continue to improve its positioning by producing innovative products and entering into partnerships with other entities to remain competitive and sustainable.