Saturday, March 19, 2016

Dr Pepper Snapple Group and Innovative Implementations

By Kavita Rangaswamy, Class of 2017

Recently, the Marketing Fellows worked with Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPSG) in an interactive brainstorming session. DPSG is based in Plano, Texas and is a producer of flavored beverages that are distributed across North America and the Caribbean. DPSG has more than 50 brands under its umbrella, including favorites such as Dr Pepper, 7UP, Mott’s, Snapple, and Canada Dry.

DPSG started off the session by giving the students some background into the company, and more specifically into one of the product lines. The team unveiled a new product that may be released soon, and assigned the Marketing Fellows the task of brainstorming go-to-market activations. We were given background on sales, distribution channels, and competitors. The Marketing Fellows were asked to focus on a particular target market and consumer to anticipate some of the challenges associated with product adoption within that market.


We worked directly with the Chief Commercial Officer at DPSG, Jim Trebilcock. The students were organized into groups of five, each group had to consider the target consumers’ needs, which occasions those needs corresponded with, and how the product’s strengths could dominate the overlapping area(s).  The groups brainstormed a variety of executions, including but not limited to guerrilla marketing tactics, social media campaigns, and paid media implementations. The class ended with a team presentation of the ideas and the impact of those implementations on the brand. The Marketing Fellows now have a better understanding of how to evaluate the consumers’ relevant needs and create an innovative go-to-market strategy that meets one or more of those needs.

A team of five Marketing Fellows presents to visiting DPSG executives.