Global B2B Growth - Differentiating a food ingredient in a price-competitive environment

SPLENDA® Sucralose, the global leader in no-calorie sweetening ingredients, came under attack from offshore suppliers due to a patent expiring, promising customers the same product at lower cost.
Since the competitive product met the technical requirements for the ingredient at a lower price, and as this ingredient was usually listed relatively low on ingredient panels, this was a tempting proposition for customers.
The team’s goal was to maximize retention of this highly profitable business for Tate & Lyle (the manufacturer).

An international cross-functional workshop was held to identify points of competitive advantage/differentiation. These included product-centric factors such as quality, process, testing and traceability, as well as corporate factors such as service, product development expertise, and product availability.
Potential claim areas were investigated, documented, quantified and approved through corporate Legal and Regulatory authorities.
Resulting factors presented a compelling comprehensive story of superiority, which was converted to a highly memorable global campaign (‘Elements’) and integrated into customer and internal-facing communications, including web properties, Sales presentation materials, trade advertising and other events. Trade communications were adapted for use depending on global region - and translated into 7 languages.
Special training sessions were held for Sales around the world, so that they were confident and effective in presenting to their customers.
An innovative online promotion (free to customers) and proprietary sweetener research provided unprecedented access to Marketing executives.

Unprecedented access was gained to senior Marketing influencers in 29 of top 30 customers.
Due to this campaign, the team was able to demonstrate that SPLENDA® offered advantages that more than justified its price premium.
Tate & Lyle was able to retain its market share of the global sucralose market, and SPLENDA® actually grew globally by 20% over the next 3 years.