Experiential marketing is a popular trend in many industries, especially the hospitality industry, which is largely influenced by the satisfaction of customers in all kinds of service. Experiential marketing called engagement marketing or participation marketing is a marketing strategy that directly involves consumers and encourages them to act on their feelings of the brand (Mukiira et.al, 2017, p.3). Different from the traditional marketing which focuses on products’ functions, experiential marketing aims to deliver a desirable customer experience.

Experiential marketing suggests the holistic experience of customers rather than experience of one service. Experiential marketing is also an effective method to build brand equity and personal experience by increasing the real interactions between customers and the brand. Brand equity is an intangible value of the brand which can also be regarded as awareness of customers to the brand. Positive interactions between customer and the brand can engage customers into the brand equity and further builds brand loyalty. China Chef incorporates both Chinese and American food, and it has no specific theme for its marketing. It only uses traditional marketing strategies, such as promotions.

Methodology

There are two methods to collect and analyze data in my study: daily report of the restaurants and questionnaire. Daily performance of the restaurant, including all sold food and beverages, can be obtained from system of the computer. What’s more, data from the website will also be included, especially customers’ feedback. To have a better understanding of my target issues of this company, I collected data through questionnaire performance as my one of major methodology. Based on the current operational situation of the company, such as its revenue management, and the analysis of my collected data, findings concerned with the assumed problems in marketing strategies were found. Questions in the questionnaire were carefully designed to ensure that they could effectively reflect the situation of the three selected issues in the marketing strategies. Each customer would be invited to finish one online questionnaire after having the meal to document their feelings before and after having meals.

Summary of findings and conclusions

Most of our customers are American, and more than 50% of customers won’t recommend our restaurant to their friends. 80% of customers have positive attitudes toward our food, but most of them don’t give high score to our environment, such as lighting and music. The website management is also poor and it doesn’t play a positive role in advertising this restaurant. In a word, despite the good food and good location, customers can’t have a unique dining experience in China Chef.

Recommendations

There are five suggestions to improve the holistic dining experience. First, add accent lights to dining desks to improve the brightness. Second, play traditional Chinese light music in the restaurant to create a more relaxing atmosphere. Third, use traditional Chinese tableware to display food to make more aesthetic enjoyment in addition to the taste. Fourth, enhance the quality of service by providing comprehensive trainings. Fifth, better design of the website and more attractive pictures of delicate food can draw more customers.

Section I – Introduction/Background

My summer internship was spent in a Chinese Restaurant – China Chef, which was required half an hour driving from my house. The location of my department is Daly City, San Francisco, which is far away from East Bay, the location of the restaurant. Plus, the traffic from San Francisco and East Bay is always very busy. Based on these two considerations, I had to depart from 2:30 pm which was one and a half hour before the time, 4:00 pm, I had to punch in. This restaurant has a relatively big kitchen, one public bathroom, a bar counter, and 7 round tables. There are two designs in the restaurant make the environment unique. First, the kitchen is separated from the dining area by glass window, which allows the customers to closely observe chefs. Second, several water vets which contain sea fishes are displayed behind the glass window of the kitchen. Customers can pick their preferred ones as their food material. The display of living sea fishes also serves as an entertaining scene to customers. There are two chefs in the kitchen, Jay Jiang and Jeremy Scott. In addition to be the owner of the restaurant, Jay Jiang was a 25-year old Chinese man who got 6 years’ experience of Chinese food in China. However, his father was a chef who already had 20 years cooking experience in China, so his father taught him when he was young. Jay was good at three of the Eight Regional Cuisines in China: Chuan (Si Chuan Province), Zhe (Zhe Jiang Province), and Su (Jiang Su Province). Jeremy Scott is a 31-year old man who is responsible for American food. He is relatively young and had less work experience, and it is his first job as a chef in a restaurant. This restaurant is open Monday through Saturday, from 11:00 to 21:30. The dinner service starts from 5:30 pm and there are discounts of some sets of lunch from Monday to Friday.

Students with student cards can also get discounts of some cuisines from Monday to Friday. Paper Menus are on each table and customers can also check the digital one by logging in the mobile system.

Although this restaurant isn’t a large one, it has many potentials in the market due to its qualified chef and comfortable environment. Effective marketing can help the restaurant to attract more customers and build a persistent positive brand image. From this perspective, after about 2-month internship, I was determined to have a study of its marketing strategies. Restaurants belong to the hospitality business and face very fierce competitions. As one part of the hospitality business, customers’ experiences of the provided services are very important. In this aspect, experiential marketing is increasingly adopted by this industry and this trend is also evolving and upgrading consistently. There are already many restaurants that are famous for their experiential marketing, such as Ultraviolet in Shanghai and The Fat Duck in Melbourne, Australia. These restaurants all have specific themes that customers can get unique experience.

According to my observation, China Chef is weak in marketing and has no actions of using experiential marketing. China Chef is just a blank plate for me to explore the adaptation of experiential marketing in Chinese restaurant in US.

Section II – Statement of the Problem/Research Project

According to report by US ethnic food market (2005), 75% of ethnic food consumption in American came from non-ethnic customers. This means most customers of ethnic restaurants, such as Chinese, Thailand and Muslim, are not people of the same ethnicities, but people from different cultures. According to Chinese Restaurant News (2007), there are about 43,139 Chinese restaurants in the United States, which is more than the total number of all McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King domestic outlets combined. In addition to the competition from other Chinese restaurants, the changing tastes of customers who prefer healthy or spicy food and emerging restaurants from other Asian countries. With the large number of competitors, it is of top importance for the restaurant, China Chef, to identify its value and increase its brand equity, providing unique dining experience to its customers to increase its market share and find the correct marketing positioning. Due to the lifestyle changing and dining out becomes more and more common, many customers not only desire new flavors, but also get more inspiring experience of other cultures.

Just as mentioned above, experiential marketing is the target to be studied in this paper. Brand equity and holistic experience which are two significant ingredients of experiential marketing will be focused. These two ingredients are inter-influential, and indispensable to each other. Brand equity, usually known as the brand value or brand awareness, is the premier to any marketing strategy. In other words, all marketing strategies should express the messages of the brand equity consistently and effectively. Otherwise, customers’ awareness of the brand equity will be diverted.

This restaurant has vague brand awareness and also lack enough effective marketing plans. Since it has both Chinese and American food, it is hard to identify its marketing position. The original idea of the owner is to operate a Chinese restaurant with few American food in order to adopt the market. It sounds reasonable but it results in a vague brand awareness. Plus, marketing strategies are in great lack.

As for the brand equity of the restaurant, it should be based on the opinions of customers. Customers feeling toward the restaurant is an important indicator of making decision of what features should be added to the restaurant and what values should be expressed to customers. The name of the restaurant, China Chef, emphasizes the services of Chinese food in this restaurant. Plus, there is no classic or emphasized cuisines that distinguish the restaurant in the market and give it competitive advantages. Liu et.al (2009) claims that the basic restaurant attributes can be said to include food, service and environment. Therefore, the brand equity of the restaurant will be majorly focused on these three attributes and the experiential marketing strategies will also focus on these three ones.

First, environment. Decorations and the design of the restaurant are normal, failing to attract customers in the first glance. Outside of the door, there is a blackboard that displays the popular staples and discounted dishes. Beside the entrance, there is a line of green plants on each side. On the wall in the restaurant, some pictures of food are displayed. Since windows are large, there is enough natural light in the day time, and in evening, LED lamps emit bright lights. There are also some inspiring parts of the environment. The wooden ceiling is chocolate brown and adds a natural and antiquate touch to the contemporary dining space. Due to the warm color of the wooden ceiling, the whole room looks cozy and intimate. Plus, the ceiling is vaulted and adds add dramatic height to a room with steep, sloping slides that connect at a point. In the middle of the vault, a large pendant lamp which is made from iron and has five bulbs in candle shape. This large chandelier lamp illuminates the whole dinning space due to its strong LED lights. Around this ambient light, there are other smaller LED lights dotted on the ceiling. The bar is also made by wood, and behind the bar, there is a high wooden cupboard which has two parts. The lower part of the cupboard is a refrigerator with transparent glass door, and the higher part is the wooden cupboard with glass doors. The cupboard part contains various kind of wine cups and some decorative displays, such as antique dishes. The refrigerator storages western and Chinese drinks, such as wine, beer, spirits and soft drinks. There is also a blackboard beside the cupboard which displays the prices of various drinks and some discounts. I think the wooden vaulted ceiling, wooden bar as well as the wooden cupboard provide an inviting look and gives a special experience to customers. Plus, this restaurant is very clean. The owner cares a lot about the sanitation, and he demands frequent sanitation check to achieve high level of sanitation. Every day, staff need to do the sanitation work twice, before opening and closing. Staff need to clean all tables, desks, floor, and the bar. All food materials in kitchen need to be checked for their quality, and all cooking facilities and equipment need to be quickly cleaned quickly. A cleaning checklist and schedule must be filled everyday by the responsible staff. Every staff who works in the kitchen needs to wear a mask to prevent contamination. Everyone who works in the restaurant needs to wash hands regularly. Before being registered employees, we all need to take the training in cleaning, knowing which cleaning products to use for various objects, such as dishes, ovenware, and steamers. Sanitation is vital to all commercial restaurants because a clean area can leave a good impression on customers at their first glance.

Second, food. This aspect includes the safety, taste and the outlook. Customers can only check the food safety by its appearance and the environment. A clean dining environment as well as fresh and clean food materials can basically ensure the food safety. Most food materials, especially vegetables, are bought from cooperated companies and delivered at the early morning.

Third, service. Employees of the restaurant who have direct engagements with customers are also an important factor that influences the holistic experience. Good waitress not only order and bring food to customers, but also shows the brand equity of the restaurant by their words, behaviors, and appearances. Except for the training of sanitation, we only have few trainings of servings，such as recognizing all food and their prices, as well as taking orders from customers.

Section III – Methodology

There are two major methods used to collect information. First, I collect existing information, such as feedback from websites and numerical data of daily and weekly performance of the restaurant. As for these numerical data, I can get the cuisines and drinks that ordered by customers. Since I am at the night shift, I can also observe that whether customers are satisfied with their food. If there are customers who leave a lot of food uneaten, I’d like to ask for their feedback whether they are unsatisfactory of the food or any other reason. Mr. Jiang will even have a taste of those food left behind by himself to find out problems. Mr. Jiang was very generous and was willing to give me those daily reports for study purpose. These data can show me many significant information, for instance, what food are mostly favored by customers, the average cost for dinning, dinning periods, and even the payment methods. These data range from the beginning of the March to the end of April, which show the situation of two month. I further collect and analyze them by transforming them in various charts and tables in Excel. Line chart and column chart present the data more vividly and hidden trends. I separate these data in two time periods: week and month. Weekly data can give me more details and monthly data can give me a broad performance.

The data is basically separated as follows:

· Weekly/Monthly Total Revenue (includes revenue contribution of Chinese food and American food)

· Weekly/Monthly Beverage Revenue (includes sales of each beverage)

· Weekly/Monthly Food Revenue (includes sales of each food)

The feedback online, such as Facebook, and website, are also presented in charts. I divide the information as follows:

· Weekly/Monthly Total Number of Users

· Weekly/Monthly Total Number of Feedback (includes positive and negative)

· Content of Complaints

As for the questionnaire, it is a large challenge for me because I need to design a set of questions that can effectively reflect the situation, and also invite enough participations to ensure the data sources are large and valid enough. On the other hand, I also need to control the length of the content to avoid it to be overwhelming, because customers will lose patient if the survey is too time-consuming. The time limit for my questionnaire is about 2 minutes and most of these questions are choices, and only one blank column is left for customers to leave their comments. I made an online questionnaire on the QuestionPro website and send the link to each customer to finish them. One advantage of online questionnaire is that the system collect data automatically and creates a simple analytic report.

Here is the link of my online questionnaire.

https://www.questionpro.com/t/APMI2ZePz0

There are 6 significant parts in the questionnaire. The first question “How likely would you be to recommend us to a friend?” aims to find out whether the customer is satisfied with the dining experience in our restaurant. The second question “How often do you dine with us?” is to find out whether the customers will come for service repeatedly. The third question is about the server and there are two included questions in this part. Server has the direct interactions with customers and it is important to find out whether their service is qualified. The fourth part is about food which includes three questions: taste, temperature, and price. The fifth part regards the ambiance of the restaurant: cleanliness, lightning, music, and comfort. The environment of the dining area greatly influences the dining experience, and these four listed elements in the questionnaire all play vital role in this process. The last part is a blank space for recommendations which allows customers directly point out their suggestions and opinions on their experience in this restaurant.

Section IV – Findings

Online questionnaire

48 customers completed my questionnaire, and among them, there are 33 American, 5 Japanese, 3 Vietnam, and 7 Chinese. The percentage of customers from different countries show that most customers who come to China Chef are American, and only few are from Asian countries. In addition to this, there are few significant findings from the analysis of each question.

Question 1: How likely would you be to recommend us to a friend or a colleague?

The extent of the opportunity to recommend ranges from 1 to 10, representing very unlikely to very likely. To simplify the analysis, I divide customers in three categories in this question: promoters, passive and detractors. The Net Promotor Score is -29.63, there are only 22.22% promoters, 25.93% passive, and 51.85% detractors. It is clear that the majority of applicants are not willing to recommend the restaurant to others, which represents the dining experience isn’t surprising enough for most customers.

Question 2: How often do you dine with us

29.17% of our participants, which is also the largest group in the survey, dine in our restaurant once in three months, and about 19 % of our participants dine in our restaurant daily. This shows a small portion of our customers are loyal to us and also shows our restaurant still has some potentials.

Question 3: The Server

3.1 Was the server attentive and available when you needed him/her?

There are 62.5% of participants think that servers in our restaurant are attentive and available when they need them and 25% of participants have negative attitudes toward the servers. Although most participants hold positive attitudes toward our servers, the percentage of these participants merely passes 60%, and it is far enough to be a satisfactory result. Consequently, more efforts should be devoted to increase the service quality provided by our servers.

3.2 Was the server knowledgeable and able to answer your question about the food and the beverage?

About 69% of participants think that our servers are qualified in answering questions about the food and beverage. Answering customers’ questions is one basic duty of restaurant servers and I believe that every server should be totally qualified in this respect. Therefore, more trainings should be implemented to ensure all servers have enough understanding of all products in our restaurant.

Question 4: The Food

4.1 taste of the meal

60% of my customers believe the taste is excellent and 25% of them think it is good. This means 85% of customers satisfy with our food and it is a relatively good result which represents that our food is one strength.

4.2 value of the money

This question shows whether customers believe the dining experience is worth the payment. 40% of participants rate excellence，20% rate good and 5% rate poor.

Question 5: The ambience of our restaurant

There are four elements which influence the environment of our restaurant in the questionnaire surveyed in the questionnaire.

Cleanliness: 90% of our customers think that the cleanliness of our restaurant is excellent, and this is a rather satisfactory result which is contributed by the strict regulation of our restaurant. I also believe this is one large strength of our restaurant because food safety has become an increasingly important concern to most modern customers.

Lighting: 60% of our customers think the lighting of our restaurant is excellent. Although the ambient lighting emitted by the large pendant lamp on the vault creates a warm atmosphere, it also results in lack of bright lights.

Music: Our restaurant doesn’t play music and 40% of customers think that no music brings a quite environment, but 60% of customers believe that no music makes dining experience boring.

Comfort: The comfort of customers is determined by many aspects, such as the smell, the comfort of chairs and desks and the environment. It can also be regarded as the final result of all elements mentioned before. 45 % of participants think the comfort of our restaurant is excellent, and 25% of them think it is average.

Feedback from websites

There are not many users in online platforms due to the lack of management and emphasis on online platforms. In my two-month internship, there were only 10 users post their suggestions and 50 people browsed it. The design of official website is quite normal, which lists all kinds of food and service. Plus, there are negative comments posted on websites.

Numerical data of restaurant’s performance

Table 1: Monthly Net Revenue of Each Beverage

The first five kinds of beverages that makes the largest contribution to the monthly net revenue are Fresh juice, Tsingtao Beer, Pearl Milk Tea and Wang Lo Kat. Except for the fresh juice, other three beverages are all classic and popular drinks in China. This shows that traditional Chinese beverages can bring a good dining experience in a Chinese restaurant. The consumption of white liquor accounts the least part and I think it is contributed by two major reasons: the too strong taste and high price. Although it is one classic beverage in China, its over-strong taste can’t be widely accepted by American customers, and its high price is also unaffordable to most customers. The fresh juice is the most popular beverage because it is healthy and tasty.

Conclusion

Based on the study, although most customers have positive attitudes to the food, they fail to have an unforgettable and exceptional dining experience in China Chef. The holistic experience already begins when the customer finds information or hear words of this restaurant from friends. Good food quality and the good location are two advantages to China Chef, but the efforts on building environment is far from enough. For example, the service quality of servers isn’t satisfying, the ambient light is a little too weak, and there is no music to create a better environment.

Recommendation

To improve the holistic dining experience, there are few suggestions to solve problems demonstrated by the study.

First, add more accent light. The large lamp on the vault is a good choice but the ambient light isn’t bright enough. Smaller LEDs which has brighter lights on the roof can be used to wash directly on the desks. This smaller beam of lights can both improve the sight and maintain the ambience.

Second, traditional Chinese music. Traditional Chinese light music can allow customers to have a dining experience with more Chinese attributes. It is also recommendable to put few traditional Chinese musical instruments in the restaurant, such as bamboo flute and Chinese zither.

Third, the display of food. Traditional Chinese tableware can be used to contain food, such bowls and plates with blue rice pattern, and Chinese clay pot.

Fourth, better service. More profound trainings for servers are necessary. These trainings should include both the service behaviors, speaking tones, and knowledge of traditional Chinese food.

Fifth, improve the website management. Better design of the website can leave a good impression on browsers. There should be more nice pictures of delicate food on websites to attract customers.

Reference

Chinese Restaurant News, 2007. Chinese Restaurant News.

Available at

http://www.c-r-n.net/Jin_e/ContentList.aspx?catid=301324490

Liu, Y., & Jang, S. S. (2009). Perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the US: what affects customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(3), 338-348.

Mukiira, E. M., Musau, M. C., & Munyao, M. J. (2017). Effect of Experiential Marketing in Building Brand Equity: A Case of Selected Unilever Tanzania Brands. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 2(1), 1-31.

US ethnic food market, 2005. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Available at

http://www.ats.agr.gc.ca/us/4040_e.htm.