A few months after an Argentinian food manufacturing company had launched a number of product categories in Uruguay, it decided that the next launch would be cake and dessert mixes. The sale of these products would help to build the brand rapidly and would contribute high volumes to the company’s operations.

It was entering a market where there was only one competitor, and it had a 90 per cent market share. The company thought the launch would (literally) be a ‘piece of cake’: the country’s culture was similar to its own, so what could go wrong? The products were launched together with a TV commercial where the only change was to give the voice-over a Uruguayan accent.
About three months later, the products were still on the shelves. The distributor was not sending any new orders but calling instead to ask what should be done next.

The company decided to run focus groups to find out what was happening. What it discovered was surprising.
Consumers, women aged 20 to 45, middle class mothers who were the purchase decision-makers for this type of product, explained that it was a disgrace to buy a pre-packaged cake or dessert. The true identity of a mother or a wife was only proven when she could cook something delicious for her loved ones. These women even prepared gelatine at home out of chicken bones (a very time-consuming and disgusting process).

Making cakes from packets was out of the question: only the housewives could give them the right flavour and ingredients – and cakes were easy to make anyway. There was a market for pre-packaged ingredients, but only a small one, for those occasions when the housewives had no time to prepare cakes in the normal way.

The company was not prepared for this feedback and started wondering whether its main competitor was aware of this. It was time to start a campaign to educate the customer.

Questions

1. Analyse the case using Trompenaars’ framework. 

2. What should the company have done to make the launch of its cake mixes a success?