Marketing Plan for Moods Caf - Essay Example

The customers are largely young executives and young adults who escape the rush of the city to enjoy some peaceful time at Moods. The café also sports a small but enough accommodating library along with some soft music and mood lighting to give a relaxing environment to its customers. With its light menu and other value-added services like soft music and a small library, the customers have become addicted to the comfort and coziness offered by Moods Café.

The café shortly will face tough competition from two of the international giant franchises namely Mcdonald's and Starbucks coffee. The two chains of fast food and coffee will be opening around in six months and the customers can barely stop themselves from talking about it.

Moods Café foresees a loss in its customer base to Starbucks with its state-of-the-art technology deployed at the outlet along with McDonald’s world-famous burgers (Jakle et al, 1999). Moods Café on the other hand must come up with a strong marketing strategy to stop Starbucks and Mcdonald's from invading Moods’ territory.

Moods Café’s strength is its personalized service and the light environment which people enjoy the most. The most it can do is to add more value to its services rather than revamp the brand image of Moods Café (Bennett, 1991). Revamping Moods to a more upscale restaurant, bistro, or bar would bring it under head-on competition with Mcdonald's and Starbucks (Ritzer, 1998; Read, 2010). Mcdonald's is a fast food chain that would rather focus on drive-way sales and quick breakfast or meals for the customers whereas, Starbucks on the other hand, would impose a more threat to Moods Café. As the customers are offered value-added services like free Wi-Fi internet usage along with a wide range of coffee flavors and light snacks/breakfasts, Moods is bound to face tough competition from Starbucks. Customers looking for some time to relax or even work with a coffee on the table would go to Starbucks. One advantage which Moods Café will have over Starbucks would be the flexibility of the store environment. Starbucks being an international chain, will have to adhere to strict international guidelines however, Moods Café can mold itself by the tastes of the customers (Bennett, 1991).

Moods Café will position itself as a café with personalized service where the customers will truly relax and feel next to being at home. McDonald’s peak time is considered breakfast or lunch when the people stop by to have a quick meal whereas, Starbucks can be considered as next to being at work but in a more relaxed environment. People stop by for breakfast, to wait for someone or something, to kill time, etc (Read, 2010). Moods Café’s Point of Difference would be that it will take the customers away from work and the daily scuttle of the city. Its Unique Selling Proposition would be its relaxing, soothing environment along with its personalized service (Bennett, 1991).

To create a more compatible market offering, Moods Café would also incorporate Wi-Fi technology to provide what its competition would be providing. Besides this, as mentioned above, Moods Café would be positioned as a place that would feel next to home. This would be used as a strategy to compete with both Mcdonald's and Starbucks which will be positioned as a more upscale brand with little or no personalized service (Bennett, 1991).

Moods Café has six months during which it can reinforce its brand positioning in the market. It will have to think beyond mere word-of-mouth marketing and reach out to the customer through social networks, and other BTL activities. The café would hold weekly small-scale concerts and competitions which will be promoted through social media and direct marketing through broachers. The locals in that area would be welcome to participate in the events and through this way, Moods Café can build a stronger base of loyal customers for its survival (Bennett, 1991).

Competition from international giants does not mean the end of a small-scale business. Instead, it must find the right target points in the market to position itself as unique as possible (Bennett, 1991).