Mktg 496 Eastern Classic

Competitive Advantages

Eastern classic is one of the best restaurants for a homemade meal. A quick meal to go through the day or one that fills that desire for Thai. It is a family-owned restaurant. Which has the best quality of food compared to others? However, others seem to be more of a franchise type of business. Where there are more of a selection to pick off, Yelp reviews show good ratings. Eastern Classics has an advantage of the expertise since it is a family home cooked based Thai restaurant.

Competitive Disadvantage

Eastern Classics has plenty of other competitors around them. If they don't live up to the expectation of its customers they will be going to the other restaurants near it. The other disadvantage is the plate, these other restaurants seem to have a better presentation when it comes to serving the plates.

Group Members Contribution:

• Haixin Hu 34%

• Joselyn Lopez Morales 33%

• Javier Figueroa 33%

100%

Part 3 

Customer Analysis

· Market size is small, businesses that around the restaurant seem to be the majority of the customer base. Mostly mechanics, auto body shops, some gas stations, a few markets, and residential streets a few blocks away are in the range of Eastern Classic. Though it is found next to the freeway, the restaurant can be missed because of the small sign that seems to blend in with the color of the building. Lunch and dinner rushes are the busiest times of the day (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and fluctuate on days like Fridays. Mondays and Wednesdays seem to be the restaurant’s slowest days. 

· The employees along with Nick, the owner, are very capable with providing excellent customer service.

Demographic Market Segments

· Age - history: most customers are mid 20’s to mid 40’s. Some older and younger couples dine often. 

· Gender: majority of the customers are men, and women are generally accompanied by men.

· Marital Status: almost all customers are married or are couples between the ages of 30-40. There are some family parties of 4 or more on weekends. 

· Income - Social Status: Mostly working-class, labor workers around the area for lunch, and after normal business hours. 

· Education - Social Status: Majority of customers have some college education, few college graduates; some younger customers are still enrolled in college.

· Purchase Behavior: customers buy buffet specials, or appetizer and entre. Inexpensive prices of the dishes allow the customer to try new entres every time they stop by. 

· Communication Style: customers verbally communicate their satisfaction with each other and the staff, as well as share reviews and opinions on medias like yelp, google reviews, etc. 

· Geographic: most customers are native to Redlands or work around the area; yelp reviews have brought in new customers. 

Psychographic Consumer Behavior

· Personal activities: consumer market behaviors include people who are around the area and looking to try something new, as well as those who work around the area, and people who have been recommended Eastern Classic. 

· Group Activities: People are more inclined to eat at Eastern Classic when it has been recommended by friends or family, as well as those who are Eastern Classic regulars, and those who like to try new places to support local businesses and have seen great reviews for this restaurant. 

· The average amount of time spent is approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes, depending on the time of day and the dish they decide to order. 

· The customer’s thought process is that they read the reviews whether or not a family or friend has already recommended Eastern Classic. While ordering, they also take the staff’s recommendations on what dish they should order. Also, the buffet option also attracts many customers in along with the affordable prices. 

Media and Communications used 

· Traditional: Eastern Classic’s phone number and location address can be found online, they do not have an active website. 

· Nontraditional: The restaurant hangs colorful banners beside their sign which helps customers find their location. 

· Social: Easter Classic is found only on Yelp and Google reviews.

· Search Engines: Eastern Classic can be found on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.; the restaurant’s website is nonexistent, only their menu can be found online which has the location address, phone number, and brief synopsis.   

Marketing Objectives and Goals

I. ·         Redesign the interior of the restaurant to have  a better and friendlier aspect inside

A. As a start of the finishing plans, we are seeking to start the process of promoting next month and hopefully have recognition by the end of the year.

B. Have the company be friendly to kids, family, friends, and couples.

B. Friendly where they can order and have a good time

Strategic and Tactical Recommendations

I. ·       In today times, social media is a key aspect to spread the word. Everyone nowadays seek any knowledge of the company on social media to get a better idea of what to expect. Of how the environment is in the restaurant and how the food looks. Most people like to try foods that look appealing to the eye and in today generation that appeasing looking food will be posted in social media to be seen by anyone who comes across it.

A. Some ways to spread the word is encouraging its current customers to post their honest experience on yelp. This will help its reviews out and let how the restaurant is by its customers who go there.

B. There is also having a social media platform; Facebook, snapchat, or Instagram. Whichever suits the best and gets them the best views. That’s how you will attract more of its younger customers in.

Secondary Research

I. ·         Tripadvisor and Yelp both have the same ratings from previous customers. They state their honest opinions and experience during their stay.

Primary Research Results

I. ·         From the small amount of posts I have seen, I have noticed small gatherings of a group of people together. If its family or friends it's a small group. They seem to enjoy the small environment of this place. 

A. From what I have seen, the reviews state that the food is okay not as well, which the restaurant could improve on a bit.

B. Could make the environment more kid friendly, like having food items for kids, to have more family gatherings at this location.

C. There also people stating that they wish it could be a great place for couples for the younger generation to come to.

D. Restaurant could add more accessories around the place to make it more modern look and appeasing to its customers, for those that look into those things.

Group Members Contribution:

Haixin Hu 34%

Joselyn Lopez Morales 33%

Javier Figueroa 33%

100%

Part 4

Strategic Plan

This is an important tool for business management. It is used in the strategic management while goals, resources and stakeholders in the organization are all directed toward achieving the common goal of the organization. In the strategic planning, long-term goals are set and strategies that aid achievement of the established objectives are defined and implemented taking into consideration both internal and external environmental variables (Ugboro, Obeng & Spann, 2011). To further demystify strategic planning, four basic elements are considered. First, the mission of the organization is defined. Second, long-term objectives are established aligned with the mission and vision of the organization. Third, strategies are developed that will be used to attain the outlined objectives and lastly, an action plan is outlined that shows a tool to be used in actualizing outlined objectives. In the entire process, the commitment of the top level management is crucial to make the process a success.

In bringing the concept of strategic plan in the context of Eastern Classic Thai Restaurant, long-term objectives of the firm are; offer effective quick service, delicious lunch and dinner that is cost friendly, be the best restaurant that is providing premium homemade meal in California and lastly, the company envisions to leading restaurant service to provide in California where all these objectives are aligned to the mission of the company which is provision of the excellent services without doing away with traditional touch. In order to actualize the above-mentioned objectives, the company banks in the favorable and effective strategies such as the implementation of the innovative technologies at the customer service with aim of making customer service more efficient which contributes to increasing in the sales thus acting as a competitive advantage to the firm (Mills, 2019). Additionally, the top level management is in full support of the strategic plan through provision of the much-needed resources, favorable environment and equipping its employees with competency-based skills in hospitality, food preparation and customer services which all coupled together contributes together are aligned to the core mission of the firm and also support the action plan to implementation of the strategies to actualize long-term objectives of the Eastern Classic Restaurant.

Message aspect of organization strategic Communication

This defines strategic organizational communication. In order for the message to be effective and achieve the predetermined purpose, it must be tailored to address audiences and most importantly, resonates the values that define the organization. The mission and objective of the mission must demonstrate a sense of the purpose and also be communicated in the manner that catches the attention of the audiences. People have different levels of the comprehension and once the message is delivered, they tend to understand it differently, however to reduces misinterpretation, it is important to design message such that it takes into consideration the value of the customers (Kang, 2013). Therefore, the conclusion can be made that the message is important for organization strategic communication because it communicates the objective and purpose of the company by informing the public while sticking to the values of the audiences.

In the organizational communication, the message should be selected that suits a specific type of the audience and this should be done regularly to help make all customers part organization family. For Eastern, Classic Redlands makes the best use of the message or rather organization communication to advertise and bring to the attention of the products to the audiences. Each message is uniquely coded either in the pictorial or word form to address a specific type of audiences. Considering Eastern Classics Redlands aims to provide premium homemade meals to maintain traditional touch, its menu contains various types of food which is best suits several cultural backgrounds. Some of the pictorial and graphics that demonstrate the menu and that are designed to address specific audiences of the firm are shown below

(Thai restaurant, n.d).

Promotions

Promotion is the marketing strategy that is used by the firm to bridge the gap between the product and the customer. For the business to promote its products and services have to choose the best way to pass information to the customers. Since this is one of the marketing strategies that is used by the firm, it is critical that the firm first to choose communication strategy which will define the best way to reach the customer and what should be entailed in the message. The process goes through four steps. The first step is segmentation where customers are divided into segments and during the promotion process, the firm will then decide the market to target. In this context, since Eastern Classic Thai has several branches, their situations where it implements a particular promotional activity targeting a particular branch. The second step is targeting where specific customers are identified and marketing communication such as Outdoor Ads, radios, televisions or newspapers are used. Other tools that may be used in promotion is sales promotion-coupons, discounts and referral incentives, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing-telemarketing, bulk mailers, e-mail and digital marketing such as the use of Facebook, YouTube and blogging. The third step in the market mix is positioning where product image is defined in the market through branding and the last step is where the promotional message is developed (Camilleri, 2018).

All the above four steps in the market mix, they analyze promotional tools that are used in marketing. In Eastern Classic Redlands, they optimally use digital marketing to promote its product. Additionally, Thai Cuisine has gained international acceptance and as a result, the company put emphasis on the positioning of this product through branding and maintain its superior image (Yambunjong & Gulasirima, 2013).

Media

Media play a significant role in marketing where they are used for advertising and promoting products and services being produced by the companies. Currently, there is a proliferation of social media in marketing. Companies have opened marketing social pages. Some are using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and many other social platforms where some of the companies have more than one social account for marketing purposes. Below is the media charts of running chart images of promotion and advertising images of Thai restaurants.

Figure 1: Pa-Ord Noodle Figure 2: Pailin Thai Cuisine

Figure 3: Rodded soup Figure 4: The Original Hoy Ka Hollywood

(Coser & Lee, 2018).

Tools to Measure Success

Key performance indicators are used to measure the success of the firm. Most commonly used KPI is cost of goods sold, net profit margin, the volume of sales, market and share. However, for Eastern Classic Restaurant, three KPI are used which are; the volume of sales, market share and product performance. In particular, the firm recorded annual sales worth $300 million 2018 financial year, a market share of at least 30% in Tennessee and product performance was as the follows; fried noodles performed best at 29% of total sales and second position was taken by Thai signature at 15% of total sales and the remaining percentage was shared among by other products (Wank and Farrer, 2015)

Group Members Contribution:

• Haixin Hu 34%

• Joselyn Lopez Morales 33%

• Javier Figueroa 33%

References

“Eastern Classic Thai Restaurant.” SinglePlatform, places.singleplatform.com/eastern-classic-thai-restaurant/menu.

“Top 10 Best Chinese+Food in Redlands, CA - Last Updated July 2019.” Yelp, www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Chinese%2BFood&find_loc=Redlands%2C%2BCA.

Camilleri, M. A. (2018). Market segmentation, targeting and positioning. In Travel Marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 69-83). Springer, Cham.

Chung, N., Song, H. G., & Lee, H. (2017). Consumers’ impulsive buying behavior of restaurant products in social commerce. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(2), 709-731.

Chung, N., Song, H. G., & Lee, H. (2017). Consumers’ impulsive buying behavior of restaurant products in social commerce. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(2), 709-731.

Coser, C., & Lee, J. (2018). 20 Essential Thai Restaurants in Los Angeles, 2018 Edition. Retrieved July 13, 2019, from https://la.eater.com/maps/best-thai-restaurants-los-angeles-essential

Heo, C. Y. (2016). Exploring group-buying platforms for restaurant revenue management. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 52, 154-159.

Jang, Y. J., Zheng, T., & Bosselman, R. (2017). Top managers’ environmental values, leadership, and stakeholder engagement in promoting environmental sustainability in the restaurant industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 63, 101-111.

Jogaratnam, G. (2017). The effect of market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and human capital on positional advantage: Evidence from the restaurant industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 60, 104-113.

Kang, M. (2013). When an organizational message resonates with personal values of publics: implications for strategic communication management. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 21(4), 185-199.

Khan, M. A. (2014). Restaurant franchising: Concepts, regulations and practices. Apple Academic Press.

Mills, M. B. (2019). Cookbook confidential: global appetites, culinary fantasies, and Thai food. Food, Culture & Society, 22(1), 26-44.

Štiglic, M. (2017). Models and solution algorithms for the ride-matching problem: facilitating the matching process in ridesharing systems (Doctoral dissertation, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ekonomska fakulteta).

T., Sothy, et al. “Garden Thai Cuisine - Redlands, CA.” Yelp, 12 Jan. 2019, www.yelp.com/biz/garden-thai-cuisine-redlands.