Challenges and Opportunities of EAT Restaurant - Essay Example

? Brand Implementation Table of Contents Introduction 3 Industry Background and the Competitors 3 Challenges and Opportunities 4 SWOT Analysis 4 Needfor Change 6 Change strategies 7 ROI and Test 10 Online promotional Budget 10 Web Marketing Budget 10 Budget of Direct Marketing (Guerrilla Marketing) 11 Testing 11 Conclusion 11 References 13 Introduction Brand is a valuable asset for any organization. Brand implementation is the physical representation and application for the identification of a brand across the visual and verbal media. Brand implementation incorporates different facts, such as architecture, product design, industrial design, engineering, quality surveying, retail design and many more. It is a process for constant and reliable application of the brand image among major of the leading business units, media and communication channels. However, it does not encompass the design and creation of brand identity. Industry Background and the Competitors EAT was founded in the year1996, with the determination of delivering best quality food, coffee and soup in London at rational price. Presently, more than 100 shops all over London are offering handmade food every day. According to the statistics of the year 2011, the organization is having market share of 76%. The CAGR is +27%. It mainly offers soups, sandwiches, pies, salads, wraps, sushi, desserts, cold drinks, juices, coffees etc. Mark &Spencer, Pret a manager, Costa, Starbucks are the main competitors of the company. The sales growth for the year 2011 is more than 13%, whereas the outlet volume growth is more than 11%. The founder of the company is Faith MacArthur and Niall MacArthur. According to them, EAT is a family owned organization dedicated to provide quality food. People of London can also get the home delivery option from the registered company website. Few simple steps will help to bring the food in home within a small period of time. Challenges and Opportunities In order to determine EAT’s challenges and opportunities, SWOT analysis can be framed below. The SWOT analysis will help EAT to make a better brand positioning for the company. This strategic framework will help to reveal EAT’s internal strengths, weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. SWOT Analysis Strengths The food quality is superior. Homemade fresh food used to offer every day by the organization. More than 100 shops are situated in London. The price of the food is also rational. The sales growth is more than 13%. The volume growth is 11%. They used to provide home delivery for every individual customer. The organization has become popular among the local customers. Market share is more than 76%. The CAGR rate is also more than 27% Experience is more than 10 years. Weaknesses The outlets are only London based. CSR reports are not included. Lower range of products has failed to increase customer base. The space area is very limited within the outlets. New and menu sections in the company website are not accessible. Cost of production is very high. Relevant information is very nominal for the company. Inadequate packaging quality. Opportunities Expansion of business footprint across the country. Traditional food items can increase the brand awareness of people. Promoting food menu and price range in social media networks. Cost-effective business operation strategy may result profit maximization. The organization can introduce healthy food items as the demand for healthy foods is increasing. Need to tie-up with hospitals, trains and several domestic and international airways. Designing new logo and slogan. Online promotional activities will increase the brand awareness. Threats Big competitors like Sainsbury, Tesco, and Marks & Spenser’s will pose a big threat to the company. As it is a sensitive industry, the organization may face several legal barriers. Huge capital required in order to expand business. Economic downfall and low disposable income of people. People are tending to avoid outside foods due to the food safety factors. One unsatisfied customer can hamper the brand image and reputation of an organization. Need for Change British restaurant and food market has become hugely competitive. Several domestic and international potential competitors are competing with each other in order to take the advantages of economies of scale and high market share. Presently, the market trend is changing drastically. People are trying to consume healthy foods as they have become more health conscious. On the other hand, people are trying to consume the foods that can be made quickly. The organization has able to fulfil all the parameters, but due to several critical reasons they need to undertake brand implementation in order to increase their market share. They need to employ change strategies and brand implementations in terms of brand. Lack of brand awareness and plain symbol and logo has restricted the growth of organization’s brand image and brand value. Moreover, it is feasible that, due to lack of product differentiation the organization has not able to retain its potential customers. Moreover, lack of effective promotional and advertising strategy has created huge challenge for the organization to increase its market share in this competitive food and restaurant industry. Every organization needs to implement effective branding and promotional strategy in order to pull the customers. Moreover, the promotional activity should be reached beyond the local area. It will provide the organization a significant exposure. In terms of branding, every successful organization has employed effective branding strategy with touchy logo and slogans. If the organization can able to touch the emotion level of the target audience, then the products can be driven towards success. People do not only by products or services; they mainly used to by the brand and enjoy the brand value. This is the particular aspects, where the organization is lacking of. The later part of the study has discussed several effective branding strategies, innovative promotional plans and brand implementation strategy. Change strategies It is feasible that, the organization’s presence is limited within London. Due to the presence of several potential competitors and lack of brand awareness, the organization is failing to increase its market share. As a brand manager it is necessary to redesign the brand and need to reposition in the competitive UK food and restaurant market. Several change strategies need to be implemented in order to increase the efficiency of the brand. Several basic things related to branding need to be examined and evaluated. Firstly, the organization needs to develop an effective logo and should place it everywhere. Then the organization should right down the brand message on every brand attribute. Then the manager should integrate the brand. It will help the branding to extent to every business aspects. A written communication strategy needs to be reflecting the brand. After doing all these things, the managers should develop a memorable tagline. The first responsibility of the brand managers is to examine all the aspects of the brand and investigate about the online presence. In terms of EAT restaurant, the branding and promotional strategy is quite poor. Due to these poor strategies, the organization is failing to increase the brand awareness in the market place. The website of this particular organization is not reflecting all the organization information about the product range and service. Moreover, pricing of products is not visible in the organization website. The online presence of the brand is inadequate. Although they have created a Facebook business page, but the communication process within the group is not transparent and clear. The organization has managed only 74 individuals, who are talking or posing posts on the wall about the brand. This number needs to be increased efficiently. Moreover, the branding and promotional activities of this brand are finding it difficult to touching the emotional aspect of the organization. As it is a small organization change and will not compete with the big players effectively according to their budget, therefore few recommended branding and marketing promotional strategies have been highlighted below. First and foremost, the duty of a brand manager to hire a local brand and promotional agency. The agency should be aware of the branding and promotional budget of the organization. As it is a small brand and limited within London, they should implement guerrilla marketing strategy. Being a small organization comparing to its other potential competitors, it is difficult to take away their present market share. By the help of guerrilla marketing they can directly get connected with the target customers of the local market place. It will be both cost and time effective. Strong online presence is becoming one of the important success factors of every brand. Presence in Google map, Facebook map will effectively increase its brand awareness within the target market (Gelder, 2005, p.78). The hired agency should be focus on, putting the brand in the Google locator according to its presence place. It will help the target customers to find the organization directly through the help of Google map. Facebook posting and Facebook locator will help the people to find it from the suggested Facebook page. They need to increase the number of communicating people. In order to do this, the agency should need to implement better and transparent branding and positioning strategy. The logo and message statement of the brand should positively influence the emotional level and touch points of the Facebook or twitter user. The organization need to implement the advantage of local SEO. It will help the restaurant chain to provide all desired and required information about the products and services to the specific target audience. The organization website is not transparent. According to the positioning strategy, the organization has failed to provide specific information about products and services. The hired branding and promotional agency needs to employ an effective local web designer to provide transparent information. An effective webpage does not need any kind of art or creativity. It should be concrete, simple and transparent. The organization should put price range of various products and provide appropriate address of store locations on the webpage. Moreover, they should provide the images or information about several organization images through their webpage. This strategy will effectively increase the brand value of the organization. Moreover, they have positioned their product as the healthy and price effective products, but the organization has failed to prove it through lack of product web information. Access to in-store and out-store mobile applications will help the outsiders of the city to find the location instantly through their mobile application software. These assigned strategies will help the organization to increase its brand value and awareness among the target group of customers. According to the budget of the organization, it will be effective to hire local branding agency. Access to Google map, Facebook or twitter promotional strategy and Search Engine optimization will be cost effective. Moreover, implementation of guerrilla marketing strategy will not be highly expensive. In order to appoint this strategy, the organization has only to build a strong repo and relation with the local community. Aggressively targeting and communication with the local customers will not harm the brand. Moreover, it will effectively increase its brand awareness. End of the day, it can be assured that the organization can generate more revenue and maximize more profit comparing to its current state or position. ROI and Test The lack of online presence is indicating that the organization has to implement online advertising and promotional strategy. A sample budget for the online, web and direct marketing has been provided below. Online promotional Budget PPC Promotional Budget Network Monthly Cost Clicks Probable Leads Cost Per Click Cost Per Lead Google $200 25 3 $3 $180 Facebook $105 20 2 $5 $180 Others - - - - - Web Marketing Budget Start-Date End-Date Total Resources Division Website Development 1/04/14 10/07/14 $5,000 Web Customer Log in 1/04/14 15/07/14 $5,000 Web Content 1/04/14 10/07/14 $1,500 Web Budget of Direct Marketing (Guerrilla Marketing) Start-Date End -ate Total Resources Division Newsletters 1/04/14 10/07/13 $2,500 Marketing Brochures 1/04/14 15/07/14 $2,500 Marketing Testing A/B testing should be implemented for this promotional strategy. It will help the organization to measure the implemented budget for the activities and how or what the organization is getting back against this strategy. Implementation of Google Analytics will help the organization in this case. The dashboard that has been used will guide the team to realize and understand all its aspects. Moreover, if the organization can start the in-store feedback collection system in order to know the source of the information and effectiveness of the promotional strategy or the advertisement, it will help the organization to re evaluate the strategy. Moreover, they can implement change strategy in terms of perspective future business opportunities. Conclusion EAT restaurant is one of the popular and small restaurant and food chain located in London. The organization has positioned its products basis on the quality and hygienic factor of foods. But, the organization has failed to increase its sales, market share and brand awareness due to inadequate web page development, limited information about price and products, lack of online presence. Therefore, it is necessary for the brand managers to hire a local branding agency who can overcome these problems. Access to online media networks, such as presence in Google and Facebook map will help the organization to increase its brand awareness. Moreover, they should implement guerrilla marketing strategy in order to lead the local market place. Finally, it is necessary to appoint an effective local web developer. It will help the organization to provide, all required information and aspects about several products and services of the organization. They need to implement online business strategy in order to survive in the competitive market place. References Gelder, S., 2005. Global Brand Strategy: Unlocking Branding Potential across Countries. London: Kogan Page. Read More