Cadbury's Ireland in determining criteria for developing TimeOut, looked at it's strengths and competencies which it felt it had expertise or could gain competitive advantage in. It identified three technologies, which would fall into this category.

Cadbury's Ireland combined these three area's of excellence (i.e. core competencies) to develop a product to fill the bridge-brand position, which would directly compete against it's competitors of Twix and KitKat in the bar-biscuit market. Cadbury must also consider another factor in developing TimeOut. This is Dairy Milk chocolate. Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate is made from fresh Irish milk and is used in all of Cadbury's products, as well as being marketed separately under the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand.

But the most important criteria for developing TimeOut was the way in which Cadbury defined market segments. Cadbury defines segments on the basis of how customers buy rather than on how a product is made. This method of defining market segments allowed Cadbury Ireland to identify a significant consumption pattern whereby the take-home segment is

increasing its share of the confectionery market. They also noticed an overlap in the marketplace where brands which were traditionally seen as bars, were now spreading out into the biscuit market. This criteria meant that Cadbury Ireland would have to develop a product, which would sit into this bridge-brand position between the bar and biscuit market, i.e. it would be equally satisfying to the confectionery market as a bar in it's own right, and to the biscuit market as a snack at break time.

as some of the others. Twix is positioned on its good value-for-money, even though it's price is about that of market par. It's positioning in the snack market is personified by the slogan "Whenever there's a snack gap. Twix fits." Twix's marketing strategy is backed up by the heavy advertising it continues to receive. Another main competitor would be KitKat. Although KitKat would be considered more of a snack than Twix, it positions itself by a heavy advertising strategy like Twix and also by keeping its price 2-4p below market par. KitKat showed it's desire to be present in both bar and biscuit market by the use of advertising campaigns such as the innovative advert which debated "it's a biscuit ... it's a bar".

3.How did the positioning and marketing strategies of its main

TimeOuts positioning relative to these other products was done by building awareness through trial and promotion and substantial initial advertising. But unlike the some of the other products TimeOut build loyalty and therefore could survive and prosper once the initial heavy advertising support was removed. This is evident by the survey which showed that out of the people surveyed that 97% of children (aged 1 1 - 1 4) has used TimeOut and that 43% of these would be regular users while 41% being occasional users. TimeOut positioned itself in the middle of the bridge-brand market hoping to capture both markets, yet did not compete to a great extend on price, their price being about that of market par. TimeOut did not try to compete exactly like or mimic any of it's competitors, rather it used a strategy of gaining customer loyalty to enable it to reduce the amount of advertising it had to do other brands.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Cadbury Ireland, Cadbury Snack, United Kingdom, Club Milk, Kingdom Ireland, KitKat KitKat, Cadbury's Ireland, TimeOut Cadbury, Dairy Milk, Irish English, snack market, biscuit market, cadbury snack, cadbury ireland, marketing mix, european countries, bar biscuit market, bridge-brand position, bridge-brand market, bar biscuit, united kingdom, bridge-brand position bar, marketing mix variables, dairy milk chocolate, ireland united kingdom,
Approximate Word count = 1817
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)