Order Description
. Case Study
In September 2015 the Financial Times reported that data from VISA showed UK consumers are
starting to spend more on eating out and entertainment. It reported significant increases in
spending on hotels, restaurants and bars — up 9% in August compared with last year. Figures
compiled for the Financial Times by the Local Data Company show that the number of restaurants
and pubs nationwide has increased 17% during the past five years. Chains appealing to the middleclass
diner, including French brasserie Côte and British restaurant Bill’s, are competing for prime
locations in order to rapidly expand their number of restaurants.
However, it is not all positive news for the leisure industry because the UK government has recently
introduced the “national living wage”. This means that employers will be required to pay £7.20 an
hour to workers over the age of 25, rising to £9 an hour by 2020, replacing the £6.50 minimum
wage. Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn and the Costa Coffee brand, has stated they will have to
raise some prices throughout its chains of hotels, restaurants and coffee shops in response to the
government’s new “national living wage”.
You are to take on the role of a marketing consultant for a restaurant chain of your choice. You can
choose any local or international restaurant chain as long as there is sufficient information available
in the public domain. Your task is to provide an analysis of the marketing environment and identify
the key issues, to set objectives and develop a marketing strategy for the restaurant chain. You have
been asked to specifically address the targeting and positioning of your chosen restaurant chain and
the services marketing mix. How can the restaurant chain improve service quality and the consumer
experience? The strategic marketing plan should cover the next 3 to 5 years.
Tasks
In your strategic marketing plan you need to address the following tasks:
1. Analyse the marketing environment: You should provide a thorough, logically structured
analysis of the market and your chosen restaurant chain, using a variety of information
sources to support your analysis. You will need to consider internal and external influences
(including competition) and use facts and figures, where appropriate, to provide evidence to
support your analysis. The analysis should use at least three different audit tools such as
SWOT and PESTLE.
2. Identify the key issues that the company faces: Based on the marketing audit, you should
identify what the main challenges and barriers to success are. The key issues should be
relevant to marketing and be supported by facts from your marketing analysis.
3. Provide marketing objectives: Your objectives must include sales or market-share forecasts
and may also relate to other goals such as satisfaction, repeat custom, branding etc. They
should be formulated in a specific and measurable manner (SMART). Themarketing
objectives should be linked to the key issues identified in the marketing audit.
BPP University Business School: For Submission April 2017
4. Discuss and critically evaluate Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP): Indicate how
to segment consumers, which consumer segments the company should target and why. In
addition, you should recommend how the brand should be positioned considering the
competitors in the market. You should base your proposals on tools and theory discussed in
this module. Provide a rationale to support yourrecommendations.
5. Provide detailed recommendations for three out of the seven marketing mix elements
which will enable the company to achieve its targets and enhance consumer experience as
well as service quality. Justify your proposed implementation with a comprehensive
rationale and support with theoretical frameworks ortools.
6. Critically evaluate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Most companies incorporate CSR
into their marketing plans. Referring to the CSR principles critically evaluate the company’s
current approach to CSR and provide justified recommendations for how your chosen
restaurant brand can improve their CSR activities.
