The global company Ferrero produces Kinder Surprise. There are many more products created by the company which suit a lot of tastes and ages. Its confectionery is so well known all over the world, that it has become a custom and a cultural icon of many countries. Ferrero’s mission lies in selecting the finest raw material so high quality, fresh products are made from it taking into account respect and consideration of their customers.

Ferrero’s most important brand is Kinder as it consists of a large number of different confectionary products. Among company products, Nutella, Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Surprise are the most sold ones during the 4 year performance, starting from 2008 till 2012. It is being manufactured since 1974 by Italian company Ferrero and even now it’s maintaining its reputation and sales across the world.

For the generic competition, there are so many eggs introduced by other companies, mainly by local ones in almost each country. Still yet, consumers choose Kinder Surprise over other cheaper substitutions. In Russia for example, there are at least 2 companies which also produce eggs with a toy inside and which are sometimes twice as cheap as their rival Kinder. The difference between cheaper eggs with toys and Kinder Surprise is in chocolate taste/type and the toy. However, it is also about the impression a Kinder egg had on a child rather than just a random egg by another producer.

As for a substitute product, Kinder Joy (another product of the Kinder brand) can be one, because it also has a form of an egg and a toy inside.

Then, there is another example with banned Kinder Surprise in US. Import of it and its production is banned there due to safety reasons. There was a substitute made for chocolate egg lovers. The company that produces the “safe eggs” is called Candy Treasure and their product Choco Treasure.

There were a few reasons named before, but to make it more deliberate, I will tell more about the competitive position of the chosen product. Why with existence of cheaper versions of a chocolate egg, people continue buying a more expensive one but which is well established in the market? There are actually many more answers to this question. First of all, Kinder only buys its ingredients from suppliers with which it has a long-standing relationship. Monitoring procedures are carried out at every stage of an ingredient’s life: from production to its delivery. Secondly, the toy designs done by employees of Ferrero Company goes always according to recent movies or cartoons. They know what is popular in the market and that’s the part of their strategy. For example, at the time “Minions” were released, Kinder company had already developed the characters which made an absolute boom amongst customers.

There is a lot of competition nowadays, broadens the variety of substitute products. Substitutes for Ferrero products are usually almost twice as cheap. However, Ferrero uses various extension marketing mix strategies as for example promotion, people and product to extend the life of the product. As it was mentioned before, there are different size of packages available for customers and also Ferrero has built a good reputation with different chocolates to cover various target audiences. This makes people still choose Kinder over other brands after so many years. Kinder keeps its demands by introducing new packaging styles or making new sets of a certain product. For instance, Kinder introduced a package of 3 Kinders, or a limited edition of Kinder Surprise with aeroplanes. In other words, the company always thinks of possible ways to keep the consumers be interested in the product even after so many years. Ferrero use sales promotion a lot, when offering pack-deals or when introducing extra activities for children which they will be interested in (contest, sweepstakes, instant win game, etc.). According to (Ferrero, 2009),the chocolate eggs lovers could win a personalised storybook.

Ferrero has multiple partnerships. Since 2013, the number of them has increased from 40 to 92. The Kinder+Sport programme, which promotes sporting activities, has a partnership with ISF – the International School Sport Federation (Ferrero, 2015). The company itself is a sponsor of many football teams and other popular sports, which brings them even more popularity and maintains the company among chocolate world leaders nowadays.

In general, the company spends a lot of money on marketing that plays an important role in our lives as it can be addictive. By conveying commercial communications consistent with the principles of good nutrition, balanced diet, physical activity and personal choice, industry can play an important role (Ferrero).

It’s hard to advise which growth strategy that popular and developed company has to take but there is always something which can be improved. For example, Ferrero was thinking about Kinder Surprise manufacturing in USA, however already for 30 years it’s been unsuccessful. The company doesn’t want to change/adjust the product so it suits American laws. However, they could try to do that as they can expand their market even further. This strategy, according to Ansoff Matrix makes part of market development.