Strategic Brand Management
Café de Coral – Hong Kong
Company Background
Café de Coral is the largest Chinese restaurant chain in the world. It is listed in the Hong Kong stock exchange. Café de Coral has different business operations and has managed to expand its business worldwide. “Major operations include fast food outlets, institutional catering, specialty restaurants, food manufacturing, distribution and other overseas food and beverage businesses” ( ).
Profile
Café de Coral is Hong Kong’s leading fast-food brand. The company is the undisputed market leader in Hong Kong and is currently serving an average of 300,000 customers everyday. The company boasts its broad experience in the food and catering industry that made them the biggest and most successful brand in Hong Kong. The company’s 34 years of proven experience has made them one of the market leaders in Asia.
Product
café de Coral offers a wide array of food to choose from. Its specially designed menu aims to meet every customer’s tastes and budgets. Café de Coral offers 100 items on the menu that are intended for customers that seek good food, fun dining experience and affordable prices. The food items are regularly rotated to offer the customers a variety of choices. The standard menus range from western cuisine to traditional Chinese dishes. The company also introduces new and innovative products regularly.
Place
Every restaurant is strategically located to reach the target markets and attract potential customers. Restaurants are located in different mixed use district, business core, shopping centers, industrial areas, private and public and housing estates. The restaurants are modern in terms of designs and have warm ambiance that encourages maximum customer flow.
People
The staff at Café de Coral are friendly and warm. They are dedicated and energetic. The service team is properly trained in order to render high quality service to Café de Coral’s valued customers. Café de Corals customers are diverse. People from all walks of life and different backgrounds come to Café de Coral to experience the state of the art ambiance, best food and high quality service.
Promotion
“Achieving A Hundred Points of Excellence” has been our commitment to our customers and is now a household catch phrase. As part of our on going campaign to strengthen the Café de Coral Brand, proactive advertising campaigns are launched on a continual basis. Through the campaign, the brand image has been further enhanced by positioning Café de Coral as a place not just for best taste and value meals but also a popular meeting place for all walks of life ().
Prospect
Café de Coral is dedicated to accommodating changing market needs and continues to uphold its reputation and status as the leader in the field of food service. Total dining experience is continuously being enriched by developing new products and constantly improving the facilities and incorporating exiting design concepts. The company is looking forward to establishing a stronger market lead in the Chinese market. Café de Coral is planning for China expansion.
History
The first Café de Coral opened in 1968 on Sugar Street, Causeway Bay. After years of hard work, Café de Coral evolved from a single outlet to a leading Chinese fast food chain with over 120 restaurants, serving over 300,000 customersdaily
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Products and Services Provided
Signature Products
“Baked Pork Chop with Rice”, “Hot Pot”, “Chicken in Glutinous Rice” and “Tea with Milk” are all signature products of Café de Coral with huge success, but we don’t just stop there. We want to be better than the best and we never stop evaluating our signature products to make improvements, so that you always get the best without even having to ask for it.
Premium Ingredients
Besides our well established menu, Café de Coral also explores into the realm of the newest tastes. We even introduced luxurious dishes that used to be served only in the most prestigious hotels and high-end dining restaurants, such as our Winter Melon Soup that comes in one-person portion, Shark’s Fin Soup, King Size Scallop and Campedore Soup. You always get the best food with the best value for money at Café de Coral.
Quality Control
Café de Coral insists so much on food quality that we set the strictest standard for every step, from merchandizing, cooking to storage. We also hire an independent team to examine and evaluate the quality of food at each branch. And you, as our customer, of course have the say – we conduct surveys regularly to understand what you need in terms of food and services
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Services
A Hundred Points of Excellence
“A Hundred Points of Excellence” is our motto and every one of the 10,000 Café de Coral employees treats “customer satisfaction” as a mission. We try our best to improve our service and food every minute so that you always get the best.
Staff Training
Café de Coral provides training for employees on all levels regularly, to refine their individual skills and to improve their co-operation skills as a team. “Mystery shoppers” program is conducted to reveal the real service quality and employee’s attitude. This auto-amelioration is surely one vital step in elevating the standard of service
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Brand Development Strategy
One of the most important brand strategies that Cafe de Coral must develop is creating consumer demand by using advertising and promotion. The company must be able to communicate the brand effectively to the consumers. Café de Coral must continuously launch advertising campaigns in order to strengthen its Brand. Advertisements will be primarily used to build marketing relationship between the consumers and the company’s brand. The company is continuously growing with the aid of effective marketing studies that aim to identify opportunities for expansion, targeted marketing opportunities and discover new niches. The company is growing in a breath-taking rate with over 330 outlets in Asia Pacific region, and over 200 quick service restaurants in North America. The company has expanded its operations, which now include fast food, institutional catering, specialty restaurants, food manufacturing, distribution and other overseas food and beverage enterprises. The company is also determined to sustain customer loyalty by continuously improving the products, the ambiance of the restaurant and maintaining a high level of service quality. Café de Coral has developed a reputation of being both the best place to eat best taste and value meals and a place where from different backgrounds and social levels can meet and mingle. According to (2000), the company offers a diverse menu so that the customers would visit more than once a week and have a different selection to choose from each time (). Café de Coral offers a menu that is specially designed to meet the tastes and budgets of every customer. It also introduces new products and seasonal products regularly. The stores are well designed and have a warm and relaxing environment that attracts different people. The stores are strategically located in areas where they can reach their target market and can gain access to potential customers.
Brand Elements
1. Memorability and Recognition
The company must employ different advertisement campaigns in order to make the mainstay customers and potential customers remember the company and its products and service more. Because of the effective advertisements, Café de Coral is easily recognized and recalled by the customers. The company has successfully created a recognizable identity among their many communications and product lines. The company’s “Achieving a Hundred Points of Excellence’ has earned wide recognition and memorability among its customers.
2. Meaningfulness
The company must use brand names, brand logos, brand symbols, brand slogans and brand characters that are descriptive, persuasive and interesting in order to attract the customers. These can be combinations of both visual and verbal approaches.
Brand Positioning
Category Membership is important in establishing and sustaining the company’s brand position. Attributes and image must be used to provide rationales that will give consumers reason to believe that Café de Coral’s brand has the benefit that implies membership in a category. Brand attribute must be used in order to create a point of difference. It is very important for the company to inform the customers of Café de Coral’s membership before stating its point-of-difference in relation to other category members. It is well known that Café de Coral is a fast food restaurant but it is important that the customers know what sets Café de Coral apart from other quick service restaurants such as McDonalds. The company must develop concurrent marketing programs where one features membership and the other the point-of-difference. Developing compelling points of difference is crucial to effective brand positioning. Café de Coral is known as the largest Chinese quick service restaurant chain in the world. The point of difference between Café de Coral and its biggest competitor, McDonalds is the menu, ambiance and service style. The company must focus on highlighting this edge and product development and improvements. The advertisement must convince the customers that Café de Coral offers the more superior products, ambiance and service quality together with affordable prices.
The Role of Marketing Mix
The four P’s of marketing mix are important in controlling the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment.
1. Products are the tangible and physical products as well as services.
2. Price decision is important in creating a competitive brand.
3. Distribution is about delivering the products and services to the customers
4. Promotion deals with communicating the product or service to the customers and making a favorable image of the product or service in the minds of the customers.
Contradictory Arguments
Café de Coral is one of the largest Chinese quick service restaurant chains in the world. One major strategy of Café de Coral is advertising. Advertisement is important in gaining customer attention. However advertising alone is not enough to sustain its status and create new opportunities for expansion. Café de Coral must build its success on product innovation and marketing excellence, backed up by an uncompromising commitment to quality customer service. Its marketplace is fast changing and competitive, characterized by increasingly sophisticated customers and ever-tighter profit margins. To sustain its leadership position in this demanding environment, Café de Coral must find a way to improve customer experience while enhancing operating efficiency and reducing costs.
Recommendations
A carefully formulated marketing Mix is important in positioning Café de Coral in the customers’ minds. The elements of the marketing mix (product, promotion, price and distribution) are essential in order to carry out a brand management strategy. The aim of the marketing mix is to create a favorable customer view of Café de Coral using promotional messages, pricing strategy, mode of distribution and the product and service appearance.
1. Products
Café de Coral’s products and services are important in creating a favorable image of the company in the customers’ minds. This image is reflected in the customers’ perceptions and feelings about the products and services. Attention must be given to the benefits that the customers get from Café de Coral’s products and services. The customers must be convinced that the company is capable of giving them the benefits that they expect in order to attract them. Product decisions should include quality, features, options, style, brand name, packaging, services, and returns. Special attention must be given to quality.
Quality reflects differences among products or differences among services. As long as it is possible to create differences among products then it should be possible to create differences in quality. Even in cases where it is difficult to create differences, producers can still try to promote products through ‘perceived’ quality differences, i.e. the way in which they are perceived by the customer. Quality is a relative value that people attribute to things. It reflects people’s expectations concerning a product or service and how well it will provide the various benefits they require from using it. Fortunately, large groups of people have shared ideas about quality and it is possible to produce and market products and services that will meet with the perceptions of large groups of customers. Groups of customers sharing a common perception of a particular level of quality form market segments. A firm can direct its promotional messages to these groups of customers provided that it knows how to reach them. Product quality contributes to business profitability. It has been found to be positively related to market share and return on investment over a wide range of products and in different market situations (2000).
2. Promotion
Café de Coral’s products and services must be noticed and must be trusted by the customers. This can only be achieved through an advertisement campaign that stands out. Advertisements must be able to catch the customers’ attention and deliver the message in an original way that will ensure customer memorablity and recognition. The advertisements of Café de Coral must not only inform but it must also entertain to be able to attract customer attention and interest. Café de Coral must give emphasis to images because they have the “capacity to capture the essence of a thousand words” ( 2000).
3. Price
Due to stiff competition, Café de Coral must maintain a competition-oriented pricing.
4. Distribution
The distribution process of Café de Coral is direct distribution. Through direct distribution, the company has more control over marketing activities and reduces time spent in the channel.
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