Creating value through brands

: the rocha do oeste fruit case

Abstract

Agricultural products are generally characterized by their commodity status with little perceived value. The same was true for the Rocha pear. After years of poor returns in the domestic market, the sector of Rocha pear decided to develop a collective brand, Rocha do Oeste, in the attempt to position it as an upmarket fruit that appealed to consumers daily health diets. The brand used a geographical indicator (Protected Designation of Origin), as a branding tool to differentiate its certificated pears from other pears varieties and fruits. As a result of the collective nature and the focus on achieving numeric distribution and volume generation, the branding strategy was not able to achieve the desired positioning for the geographical brand. So that the main objective of this dissertation is to understand which are the key successful factors in giving a new momentum to the collective fruit brand and the best way of approaching to consumers. The research suggests that the applied marketing strategy brought high awareness for Rocha pear however it has only retained the positioning of the product in relation to the functional benefits and attributes. By the end it suggests that the situation could be reversed thorough the creation of a relationship marketing strategy involving targeted marketing and supply-chain management. To give a broader perspective of the product management this paper also includes a brief overview of Rocha pear internationalization strategy.

Date of Award	20 Jul 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Pedro Celeste (Supervisor)