Please check out those word docs before starting. This project is a cumulative assignment. Thanks!
Michelle_Michy
20200617161425business_idea_v2.docxRunning Head: MARKETING PLAN FOR A LOCAL RESTAURANT 1
MARKETING PLAN FOR A LOCAL RESTAURANT 6
Week 1 posting
I’ve always wanted to open a restaurant, and I believe Perfect Foods Restaurant can be the local restaurant that will be established within my grandparents local community. My grandparents and I share a common love of traditional American cuisine, and Perfect Foods transcends a typical American traditional restaurant that puts real heart into customer service. It will also bring back the real memories for traditional American cuisine through unique presentation. My choice to operate within my grandparents community, and those like it, is to serve the inherent needs of the older population. I believe one of those needs is to share the real traditional food memories with their grandchildren in a safe, family focused environment.
The three possible target customer profiles for Perfect Foods Restaurant include thinkers, believers, and survivors. Thinkers are important group of target market because they enjoy historical perspective and will find it more engaging to taste the traditional American cuisine as a reminder of the American traditions. Believers on the other hand, are a potential target market for the restaurant due to their character of wanting friendly communities. The traditional foods offered by the Perfect Food restaurant will be a perfect match for them as it provides a platform for connecting with other members of the community (Sun & Morrison, 2007). Survivors will form the most significant target market for the Perfect Food Restaurant because this type of consumers are the oldest and the traditional foods will provide a framework of evoking old memories to them. The traditional food will help them rewind old memories allowing them to engage and come together (Lee, Cho &Ahn, 2012).
Many restaurants offer contemporary foods that the old population find unappealing. In this case, Perfect Food will try to target older population which is the most neglected market segment. The restaurant will mostly use television, radio, and social media as a way to connect with the target market. Although this population is not commonly found in the social media platforms, their grandchildren and their children will likely get the information and pass the information to them. The older population mostly relies on television as a way of receiving information as such as they are more likely to get television advertisement regarding the traditional foods offered by Perfect Food Restaurant.
References
Strategic Business Insights. (n.d.). VALS™ | VALS™ types | SBI. Strategic Business Insights (SBI). Retrieved from http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ustypes.shtml
Sun, Y. H. C., & Morrison, A. M. (2007). Senior citizens and their dining-out traits: Implications for restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 26(2), 376-394. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2006.03.003
Additional questions/feedback since the Week 1 posting was written:
1) Hello, thank you for your post. I enjoy food myself and several kinds of food. Because America is considered and has been called the melting pot. I am curious as what specific food items would be on your menu. In the south traditional might include black-eye peas, coleslaw, cornbread and other food commonly called soul-food in the southwest the food items deemed traditional have Mexican or Indian roots. Still other areas carry the traditions of settlers from other countries such as Munster, Texas has a lot of traditional food that most would classify as German. Some people would call hamburgers and hotdogs as all American. For that matter you could even throw in apple pie and ice cream. So, could you expand more on what you are calling typical American traditional restaurant food?
i) Hi, thanks for the reply. To me typical traditional restaurant food of America includes burgers, deep-dish pizza, drop biscuits and sausage gravy, tacos, etc. The involvement of traditional food like coleslaw, black eye peas, and cornbread is a good idea because they are mostly liked by traditional people especially those belonging to Mexican and Indian roots. Along with this, I will also focus on seafood, barbeque, fried chicken, pecan pie, shrimp, and grits, to have a large variety of food options. In desserts, I will include pastries, peach cobbler, and Maria mole, along with ice cream and apple pie.
2) Hello, thank you for the post. Looking forward to seeing what 'traditional cuisine' translates to in the way of the nature of the food and service. Targeting the elderly is an exciting idea....in terms of restaurants, it is often neglected. In Ohio, two chains....Bob Evans and O'Charley.....tend to cater to the elderly more than others.
Week 2 posting
Perfect Foods Restaurant will provide traditional American food to the elderly consumers in the community. The goal is to provide them the real traditional memories, and the restaurant will compete with other food chains like KFC. The products of KFC are promoted through social media, print media, and television advertisements. Social media ads catch my attention all the time because I am an active user of different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. An effective social media platform is likely the way many brands get maximum exposure to their targeted consumer demographics (Celentano, 2019).
While television watching and print media reading habits have changed over the decades I believe advertisements on those platforms to still be an effective way to attract those who aren’t as active on social media. My parents and I are fond of eating fried chicken, and the advertisements that appear during our internet television binge nights catch our attention all the time. KFC advertisements on websites where we read our news can also be a great way of attracting consumers because the products that company is highlighting at that time uses attractive colors and appropriate images that invoke memories of delicious food. Recent advertisements for KFC’s combo deals were so attractive that it persuaded me stop what I was doing and find the nearest store to my home so that I could buy the meal. The memories that I had while enjoying the food were so strong that it literally interrupted my day, and I was ok with it. Yes, I will buy the product because it reminds me of past happiness.
Additional questions/feedback since the Week 2 posting was written:
1) Hello! I get the concept to trying to get elderly people to go out to eat more via food relating to their memories, but I am not sure why it just has to be marketed toward elderly people. I feel like this would be a hard sell in terms of financing because all ages of people eat food. Of course, you would want the restaurant to have a clear age group, but elderly people sometimes have a lack of transport and some do not like to leave their homes because of movement issues. If you opened this in a place like L.A. where people tend to stay in good shape, it might work. But I feel that you might consider proposing this to an assisted living facility or a place that provides condo communities for older people. Some of those places have dining options on site. Or, you might want to work on expanding the age range of your intended customer.
2) Hi! I am more likely to see a social media ad than I am a television ad as I use streaming services and social media way more than I spend watching live TV. However, TV and radio media ads are not dead and Colling(2017) gives good reasons for why companies are still buying TV and radio ads. Honestly, quite a few of the television ads make their way to streaming services for some of the streamed content that has certain licensing requirements to be available to the viewers. The print media you mention is an evolving form of advertising. While magazines and newspapers do still exist the way these platforms sell advertising includes their digital media presence as well as their print (Lisk, 2016). The KFC ad you describe is effectively called nostalgia advertising and it works mainly on Millenials craving those old familiar memories (Craft, 2019).
3) Hello! Many people associate food with their emotions. The motivation to eat is not merely driven by a desire for nutrients and satiety.Emotional, and psychological processes play an important role as well. Emotional states affect when people eat, how much they eat, and which food items they choose to consume. Just like your mentioned, you see a commercial of KFC and you associate food with a feeling. this can addressed in Maslow's theory of needs and it is also a tool for marketing and appealing to potential customers emotions and encourage them to buy a product
4) Hi! The nature of the proposed restaurant could be more clearly explained. Based on the selection of KFC, can it be assumed you will focus on a quick-serve, carry-out operation?
