4.1 Introduction to marketing questions for IB Business Management

Loxley Acoustics

[1] Loxley Acoustics (LA) is a private limited company in Sheffield, United Kingdom, founded in 2012 by two acoustic engineers, Owen Pryce and Hamid Qureshi. LA designs and assembles wired studio headphones. Its products have won several engineering awards, and Owen describes LA’s approach as “build the best headphone we can, then find the people who appreciate it”. LA spends 11 % of its revenue on research and development (R&D) but has never carried out any formal market research.

[2] For many years LA sold most of its output to recording studios and professional musicians. Since 2022, however, sales have been flat. Retailers report that younger buyers want wireless headphones with noise cancelling, long battery life and a choice of colours. LA’s headphones are available only in black and only with a cable.

[3] In 2025 the board appointed Lerato Mokoena, previously a marketing director at a consumer electronics firm, as chief executive officer (CEO). Lerato wants LA to become market oriented. She has proposed spending £180 000 on a programme of primary market research, including surveys of 2 000 headphone buyers and focus groups in five cities, before LA designs its first wireless range.

[4] Owen and Hamid are worried. They argue that customers “do not know what they want until they hear it”, that the research would take six months and that £180 000 is almost half of LA’s annual profit. Hamid suggests that LA could instead use secondary data from market analyses and online product reviews, which would cost less than £10 000.

Kirima and Mlima dairy co-operatives

Kirima Dairy Co-operative and Mlima Milk Co-operative are farmer-owned co-operatives in central Kenya. Each collects milk from its members, small-scale farmers with three to ten cows, then processes it into fresh milk, yoghurt and mala (fermented milk). Profits are shared among members according to how much milk they supply.

Both co-operatives struggle to compete with Brookfresh plc, the largest processor in the region. Brookfresh pays farmers less per litre, but its modern plant processes milk at a lower cost and it supplies supermarkets across Kenya. The boards of Kirima and Mlima have proposed a merger to form Mlima-Kirima Dairies. The merged co-operative would close Mlima’s older plant and invest KES 300 million in Kirima’s site.

Some Mlima members are unhappy: their collection centres would be further away, and they fear that one combined board would pay more attention to Kirima’s larger membership.

Table 1: Annual sales revenue of milk processors in the region, 2025

Table 2: Processing cost per litre (KES)

Dugub Délice SARL (DD)

Read the resources and answer the questions that follow.

Dugub Délice SARL (DD) is a social enterprise in Thiès, Senegal, founded in 2014 by Aïssatou Ndiaye. Dugub means millet in Wolof. DD buys millet from 900 smallholder farmers, paying 10 % above the market price, and its 40 women employees clean, grind, steam and dry it into traditional products – thiéré (millet couscous), arraw and sankhal – sold in hygienic 1 kg packs in shops and supermarkets. Preparing these foods from raw grain takes hours, so DD saves families time. Its mission is “to keep Senegal’s grains on Senegal’s tables”.

Image: a row of colourful 1 kg packs of millet couscous with a pattern of woven baskets, next to a steaming bowl of thiéré with a vegetable sauce. Label: “Dugub Délice – le goût de chez nous” (the taste of home).

Resource 1 – News article from *Dakar Économie Hebdo*

Bread or millet? The battle for Senegal’s plate

Senegal imports almost all of its wheat. Young people in Dakar increasingly eat baguettes for breakfast and pasta at lunch, while the traditional millet dishes of their grandparents take too long to prepare. After world wheat prices rose sharply, the government launched a “Consume Local” campaign and is considering a rule that bakeries must mix 15 % local cereal flour into bread.

Table 1: Market for packaged local-cereal products in Senegal

XOF = West African CFA francs. USD 1 ≈ XOF 600.

Resource 2 – Social media posts from Fatou, a 26-year-old office worker in Dakar

My grandmother makes the best thiéré in the world, but it takes her half a day. I tried Dugub Délice and it was ready in 15 minutes – almost as good as hers! Proud to eat local. [1/2]

But why is it only sold in big 1 kg bags with old-fashioned packaging? I live alone. Give me small packs, quick recipes, maybe a millet breakfast cereal – then I’ll stop buying croissants. #ConsommonsLocal [2/2]

Resource 3 – Internal email from Aïssatou Ndiaye to DD’s management team

From: Aïssatou Ndiaye, Founder and Managing Director

To: Management team

Subject: Two ways to grow

Boulangeries Sunugal, a chain of 60 bakeries, wants to buy 1 200 tonnes a year of fine millet flour to blend into bread if the 15 % rule is introduced. This would more than double our volume and make us a major player in local flour. But the margin is small and our mill can handle only 1 500 tonnes a year in total; a new mill would cost XOF 150 million.

The alternative is to grow our own consumer brands: smaller packs, ready-to-cook flavoured couscous and a millet breakfast cereal for young city people. That would need market research and new marketing.

We have always made the products we know how to make. Perhaps it is time to start with what customers want.

CONFIDENTIAL: this email and any attachments are intended only for the named recipients.

Resource 4 – DD’s product and cost information

Resource 5 – Market research: survey of 400 consumers aged 18–35 in Dakar

Resource 6 – Interview with Moussa Diouf, president of a farmers’ group supplying DD

“DD pays us more and pays on time – our children are in school because of it. If DD sells to the bakeries, we can grow more millet; we have land. But the bakeries will push the price down every year. I would rather see our millet on supermarket shelves with our story on the pack than hidden inside a baguette.”

Casa Ribera

[1] Casa Ribera (CR) is an agricultural co-operative of 140 olive farmers near Jaén, Spain. Each member has one vote at the annual general meeting, regardless of the size of their farm. For decades CR pressed its members’ olives into bulk olive oil, which it sold to large bottling companies at prices set by the world market.

[2] In 2022 the members elected a new manager, Lucía Moreno. Lucía found that CR had been product oriented: it produced as much oil as its members’ olives allowed and then looked for buyers. Profits rose and fell with world prices, and in two of the last five years members received less than their costs.

[3] Lucía commissioned research among delicatessens and restaurants in Madrid, Barcelona and Germany. Buyers said they would pay much higher prices for oil from a single estate, with information about the farmer and the harvest date, sold in dark glass bottles. In 2025 CR sold €3.6 million of its own branded oil in Spain’s premium olive oil market, which was worth €48 million.

[4] CR now plans to launch Ribera Único, an oil from the co-operative’s oldest groves. Lucía wants to set a premium price of €28 per 500 ml bottle, three times the price of supermarket extra-virgin oil. Some members fear that a high price will leave unsold stock; others think CR should use a lower price to build sales quickly.

Kothrud Masala Co.

Kothrud Masala Co. is a family-owned business in Pune, India, that produces packaged spice blends for home cooking. In 2024 it changed its approach: before launching any new blend, it now tests recipes with groups of home cooks in different regions of Maharashtra and adapts them to local tastes. In 2025 it launched three regional blends developed in this way.

Table 1: Sales revenue in the packaged spice-blend market in Maharashtra (₹ million)

Bloom & Root

[1] Bloom & Root (B&R) is a partnership between two agricultural engineers, Wairimu Njoroge and David Otieno, near Naivasha, Kenya. In 2021 they designed a hydroponic greenhouse system that grows roses using 70 % less water than traditional farms. They are proud of their technology and have spent most of their capital improving it.

[2] B&R grows one variety of long-stemmed red rose, chosen because it grows best in their system. It sells the roses through the flower auctions in the Netherlands, where prices change every day. In 2025 B&R exported roses worth KES 156 million. Total Kenyan rose exports were worth KES 7.8 billion.

[3] Recently, the Dutch buyers have told David that florists in Europe increasingly want mixed colours, smaller “spray” roses and flowers with an environmental certification. Wairimu believes B&R should keep improving its technology because “good roses always sell”.