Marketing Strategy

Introduction The success of any company is partly determined by its ability to recognized problem and make well informed decisions to find solution to those problems. Just like any other organization,   Massarela ‘one of the oldest retail catering company is faced with some problem. In this regard, this report will explain the problem or business issue faced by massarela and then develop   theoretically backed solutions to solve them.  Brief description of the company Massarella  catering Group ltd is a company with a very rich food History. During the 1800s, the Massarella Family decided to seek better life by moving out of Italy to a destination believed to be America just like most of the Italians.  However, on their way, they changed plan and decided to stop in England where they later settled.  In England, the family established an ice Cream business which distributed it products mostly throughout Midland and North England. The Ice cream business experienced significant growth to become one of the Europe largest ice cream manufacturers.  However, due to changing business environment, the ice cream business was failing and the head of family at that time, Ronnie Massarella, has to decide a new direction for the family business.  In 1970s, Ronnie Massarella made the decision of steering the company toward retail catering. Several decades later, Massarella catering group has grown significantly to become of the leading   retail catering company. As part of the growth the Company has opened several branch one of them being the one in Sheffield on Atkinson departmental store which will be the focus of this report (Massarella 2016). Theoretical background to the business issues The main issues faced by Massarella Catering group are mainly that of branding.  Branding is defined by Kolter & Keller (2012) as the function of creating   unique name and picture of a product in consumer mind so that consumers can connect with that particular product.  Theoretically as well in practice, ‘brand’ is said to influences the number as well as type of people who buy a given product.  Brands which are well known and have good reputation   attract more customers. On the other hand, the way a brand is communicated as well as it attributes determine the type of customers it attracts (Touminen 199). Unfortunately, Massarella catering Group limited has some issues with it brand and branding Efforts.  According to a small scale survey conducted as part of this report in which 10 young campus students were involved, the company has very low brand awareness and Poor brand images among the young generation.  In regard to brand awareness, very few people among the younger generation are aware about Massarella Caffes as well as it offering.  Majority of the younger generation seems to have no clue about it. In term of brand Image,    it current branding strategy has attracted large numbers of old generation at the expense of the younger generation.  In other term, the younger generation are not connecting with the current branding strategy adopted by the company. This position is well supported by small scale survey conducted as part of this report in which 10 young campus students were involved.  The survey indicated that majority of the young people perceive Massarella cafe as an elderly haven.  It is well known that perception is everything in business. According to Kolter and Keller (2012) the branding strategy adopted by a company determines people perception about the product. Perception in turn influence people attitude which later play a crucial role in making purchase decision. The business issue in context Massarella is facing a big   business issues in that, it is only able to attract the older generation but fails to attract the younger generation to it three caffe in Sheffield.  A further analysis through survey as explained in section above shows that branding has been the main cause of the said business issues.  Specifically, the company has very poor brand awareness and no so good brand image among the younger generation.  The issues of brand awareness and brand images are serious and in this section, their impacts on massarella will be discussed in details. Brand awareness is a term used to describe the extent to which consumers are familiars with distinct image of a product of services (Aarker 2009).  Defined differently by Keller (2013), brand awareness refer to the likelihood that consumers recognize the existences of certain product or services. Brand awareness and sale are related.  According to empirical studies, consumers uses mental shortcut when making purchase decision.   They avoid being paralyzed by the available options and as such they tend to buys a brand they know or have heard about (Bairman 2016).  The massarella’s Low brand awareness among the young generation is therefore preventing the company from tapping into one of the largest market segment. It is actually making it almost impossible for the company to penetrate or attract the millennial market i.e. the younger generation segment.  But what is the root cause of   low brand awareness? According to Keller (2013) Brand awareness is created through consistent and well planned promotion activities and advertisement. Therefore this suggests that massarella weak brand awareness is caused by lack or poor promotional and advertisement   activities. Brand Image basically refers to the impression of a product as held by consumers (Kolter & Keller 2012). It refers to the ways a product is perceived by the targeted market (Wheeler 2014). Brand Image is an asset crucial for success.  For any product to be successful, it must create good impression in consumers’ mind.    As discussed earlier, the brand Images of Massarella is not so good among the young generation. According to the survey conducted, those who were aware of Massarella   had the perception that the caffes is meant for the older generation.  This kind of perception    is one of the reasons why the Massarella has been unable to attract the young generation despite some efforts being in place. Detailed solution In order to attract the younger generation to massarella cafe, there are two solutions that need to be implemented. The first solution   to Massarella cafe Issues is to rebuilding   it brand Image. Brand image basically mean they way a product or service is perceived by customer (Wheeller 2014).  It well known in theory as well as in practice that brand image do influences people attitude toward a product or services which in turn influences the purchase decision (Kolter and Keller 2012).  A   product with positive brand Images (i.e. One that create good and attractive impression) experience more success in the market.  Although, massarella   cafe in Sheffield has a brand image that create good impression toward the older generation,   it has failed to impress or attract the younger generation i.e. people between 18-40 years old.    given that majority of  residences in Sheffield  are  the young generation dues to high  university student population, Massarella  is  losing  a lot by failing to attract the younger generation and that why  building a different  brand image is inevitable.  The new brand image image needs to impress the younger generation as well the older generation.  In the next section below, more detailed on how a new brand images that capture both the older and younger generation   will be explained.      The second   solution to massarella business issues is redesigning the promotional strategy.    The company should first of all increase it promotional activities.   According to the survey conducted as part of this report, massarella has low brand awareness among the younger generation and therefore there is the need to increase the promotional activities.  Increasing the promotion activities   especially those targeted to the younger generation will help improve brand awareness among university students hence attracting more of them. Secondly, the promotion strategy   in term of message appeal and promotional channels need to be redesigned in order to attract the widened target market.  As stated by Kolter (2015), when choosing a promotional strategy,   the demographic Characteristic of target market should inform the message appeal and the channels of communication chosen.  Since the market targeted by massarella has widen to include the younger generation, there is therefore the need to relook at some aspect of the promotion strategy including message appeal and communication Channels used.   In regard to Message appeal, Massarela cafe should use the emotion appeal strategy to attract more people from the targeted market segment.  Emotion Appeal is   marketing techniques where advertiser uses tone, message, the environment that activate the emotion in targeted consumers   to persuade them to buy given product ( Shimp 2006). Emotional appeal is hailed as one of the most effective advertisement appeal (Shimp 2006). It has been   successfully used by a number of companies including coca coca. For instance, coca cola, one of the most successful global companies has been using emotional appeal to connect with customers.  In it promotional campaign it does not tell   the client how sweet it product are or how they are different from other. Instead   it tells the audience the kind of lifestyle their drinks   represent.   It uses communication that touches on people emotion.    For instance, I   2015, it advertisement slogan was ‘open happiness’ and currently it global slogan is ‘Taste the feeling’. All these slogans are based on emotion appeal strategy.   In term of   Communication Channels, Massarella   need to use those channel that are heavily consumed by the targeted age group.   More importantly, they have to utilize social media marketing a lot because that where most of the targeted group spend most of their free time.  Social media has proven to be a very viable platform for reaching the younger generation.  For   instance, OREO has successful be able to build a strong audience base on facebook with more than 35 millions like in it facebook.  In fact the company nowadays launches most of its products through   social media most of which go viral due to huge fan base.     The final solution to Massarella   business issues is to build brand royalty. The solution 1 and 2 as explained above are mean to attract the target market i.e. 18-40 years old to the massarella three caffes in Sheffield. However, attracting the target market will not be sufficient if at all the company will not be able to retain them.  It is therefore crucial   to build brand royalty.  Brand Royalty refers to positive feeling   and commitment to purchase a product over and over again (Wheeler 2014).   By building Brand Royalty Massarella will therefore be in a position to maximize profit from repeated visitation by the target market.   As mentioned by Yec (2011), building customer royalty requires one to gives value, provide quality, engage the customers and give them a reason to come back.  Massarella will therefore have to consistently provide quality menu, engages customers in a positives manners, offer value for money and actually entice customer to come back.