Task: From a strategic and proactive marketing communications perspective, what do you believe would be the two most important ethical issues you would need to consider for Green Cow? Justify and explain your choices. How would you recommend Ms Printup address these specific ethical issues in an integrated communication plan to ensure that the drink was successfully launched in the marketplace? In presenting your response, please begin by clearly identifying the target audience for Green Cow in relation to the concept of behaviouristic segmentation contained in your studies and recommending which (one) group in this delineation process you believe would be most strategically desirable for Green Cow's primary target audience. What other determinants could be overlayed with this audience to strengthen its validity?

Topic:

Hoppcow is a successful Swiss alcoholic beverages manufacturer that markets its products across the world. Its flagship brand is "Blue Cow" a traditional mass-market beer brand that accounts for the vast majority of the company's sales and revenues. Recently the organisation has been involved in a series of embarrassing media stories. These included reports that one of the company's Blue Cow bottling plants in China was polluting a local river and that Blue Cow global advertising spokesperson, Stem Christie, a world champion snowboarder and X-Games participant from Canada, was cheating on his wife.

As part of its efforts to restore some positive image and growth, the company has conducted an extensive market research study to determine the value of developing a new, environmentally friendly product. These reports have indicated that there is an untapped market of young, environmentally- aware consumers and that these consumers would be likely to buy a drink that "benefited the environment in some way." The research also indicated that many of these consumers were also part of the growing market for energy drinks. As a result, the company is about to launch "Green Cow", a new formula energy-enriched beer to be produced in state-of-the-art carbon-neutral factories across the world, including one in Geelong (Victoria). The product will be made using the latest environmental processes, including using fully renewable and recyclable materials.

The new "Marketing Communications Manager" in Australia for Green Cow is Barbara Printup, who left CSP after the unfortunate failure of Metabical. Despite this, Ms Printup remains a fan of your insight and is seeking your counsel and input. This is an important role and your contribution to the following issues will be particularly valuable as Australia has been chosen as the test market for the new drink to establish its global potential.