Marketing Mix Elements Applied by Coffee Republic in the UK
The primary aim of this paper is to provide a research-based approach on the various marketing and principles of marketing for the Company Coffee Republic, based out of the United Kingdom. The paper will aim to identify at least four of the seven marketing mix applied by the Company for its United Kingdom operations, reflect on the segmentation, targeting and positioning of the Company, four marketing mix elements visible to the public, strong and relevant promotional mix activities, analysis of the chosen four Ps of Marketing Mix, the enumeration of relevant Key Performance Indices for the Company to measure its effectiveness and relevance (Chaffey, Ellis and Chadwick 2019). Coffee Republic are one of United Kingdom’s most acclaimed and well-established coffee chains. Coffee Republic provides both hot beverages as well as cold drinks at its bar. Coffee Republic provides fresh foods, with quality and services. It was founded in 1995 by brother and sister duo of Bobby and Sahar Hashemi. Its headquarters is in London, England and in 1996 was founded in Greece as Coffee Republic Ltd., registering at Greece. Coffee Republic have 30 High Street Coffee Bars and 18 international bars to cater to the wide customer base for its products and services such as the Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and across and within major Spanish airports. Coffee Republic offers an array of roasted blends and strive to provide the best quality of beverages to its customers at competitive prices, with impeccable service for customer satisfaction and business excellence. Coffee Republic is extremely proud of the fact that Coffee Republic has been growing to become one of the best known and acclaimed coffee chains in the United Kingdom, with baristas from Glasgow in Scotland to as far as the Cornwall Airport (Republic 2022). This paper will provide information further on the same. This paper is key in understanding the various marketing principles, rules, designs, practices, theories, ideas and so on a real-life based scenario and on a comprehensive level to portray practicality and applications of the relevant theories and practices within the given target market (Craig, Andrews and Shimp 2017).
Coffee Republic works on the franchising model and operates with over 30 outlets and baristas in the United Kingdom alone and around 15 key international locations for its baristas as well like the Bahrain, the Qatar, the Oman and across and within the major Spanish airports. Coffee Republic is a fairly well spread and well connected Coffee chain, with presence in key cities and areas in the United Kingdom, on the basis of demand and revenue. The Coffee chain also extends from Glasgow in Scotland to as far as the Cornwall Airport. This proves a widely connected and spread out network of baristas and cafes for the Coffee Republic to attract customers, retain them, make sales and increase their revenues. With the help of their franchising model, Coffee Republic has been able to increase its market presence (Donthu et al. 2020). The position of Coffee Republic within the market of the United Kingdom can be accessed via the following criteria’s –
- Segmentation Basis: The market segmentation is done to identify the strong and prospective customers for an organization. For Coffee Republic, the market is segmented into coffee lovers, coffee enthusiasts, coffee experts, students and working professionals. Their baristas are strategically located to cater to its segment in the United Kingdom. The Company also targets consumers between the age group of 18 to 40 years, in order to serve every major segment of the United Kingdom Market. This allows Coffee Republic to attract a large audience and compete with direct competitors like Starbucks and Costa. This segmentation strategy has worked for Coffee Republic in retaining customers, increasing sales and revenue and maintaining a higher quality of its products and services, to improve market reputation and customer satisfaction (Kotler et al. 2019).
- Targeting Basis: The targeting segment allows organizations to further streamline their market segments and target specific group of customers or individuals. In case of Coffee Republic, it aims to target the young population of the United Kingdom who are either working professional or students, to increase its sales and demand and to maintain a regular revenue and craze among its customers. This allows the brand to harness its young customers and create a positive psychological image and impression of the brand. Young people who are social media enthusiasts and tech savvy have the larger likelihood to create demand and spread the organization in terms of popularity (Lahtinen, Dietrich and Rundle-Thiele 2020).
- Positioning Basis: Coffee Republic offers a variety of products via its bars. From hot brews to cold drinks, and also food and meal options, Coffee Republic offers a large range of products selection for its customers to choose from with the continued promise of quality in predicts and services. The company is well positioned within the market to understand the various customer trends and demands to be fulfilled and are active in incorporating those. The Coffee Company also provides excellent value to its customers in terms of pricing to its various customers (Levit and Cismaru 2020).
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning of Coffee Republic in the UK
As it is evident, the Coffee Republic Company makes use of four distinctive marketing mix strategies and elements to reinforce its position into the United Kingdom Market. Marketing Mix Elements are crucial for organisation to exert value and offerings to its target market and for the people. This allows organisations to understand the market demands and trends better and based on the same provide competitive offerings that are in line with the market needs and requirements, as well as the competition. As it is evident, the Coffee Republic Company evidently uses promotion, product, place and people as its key marketing mix elements to create value and continued offering for the market (Strydom, Kempen and Tselepis 2022). The four major marketing mix elements for Coffee Republic in the United Kingdom are –
- Promotion: Coffee Republic engages in active promotions and aims to attract a young customer base. The Company has online and social media presence, in the form of Instagram and Facebook account as well as a website. This allows the organisation to grab the attention of the larger and younger audience base of the United Kingdom. The Company also promotes itself and its products via paid advertisements and word of mouth strategies as well. Offers and deals are another way Coffee Republic capitalizes on its position, and offers a variety of attractive prices to its customers (Rundle-Thiele et al. 2019).
- Product: The products of Coffee Republic are segmented into four major segments, coffee, cold drinks, hot drinks and foods. These are same in all the baristas and bars and offers a variety of products under these categories. The most in-demand coffee products are Espresso, Latte, Cappuccino, Mocha, Flat White and Americano. The most in-demand cold drinks are Iced Latte, Iced Mocha, Café Freezer, Cookies & Cream, freshly brewed iced tea and lemonade. The most in-demand hot drinks are English Breakfast, Dragonwell Green, Egyptian Mint, Decaf Ceylon, Chai Latte and Classic Hot Chocolate. The most in-demand food items are Bacon Roll, Croissant, Sandwiches and Baguettes. All of the items are highly competitive in prices and offer great value to the customers(Strydom, Kempen and Tselepis 2022).
- Place: The Coffee Republic Company bars and cafes are located in over 30 outlets and baristas in the United Kingdom alone and around 15 key international locations for its baristas as well, like the Bahrain, the Qatar, the Oman and across and within the major Spanish airports. Coffee Republic is a fairly well spread and well-connected Coffee chain, with presence in key cities and areas in the United Kingdom, on the basis of demand and revenue. The Coffee chain also extends from Glasgow in Scotland to as far as the Cornwall Airport (Rundle-Thiele et al. 2019).
- People:Over the years, Coffee Republic have created a culture that encourages development and growth. Many of its bars are managed by former baristas, or by people that have worked with cafes and baristas over the years. Coffee Republic is always on the lookout for more talented people to join them as managers, baristas or as part of its Head Office team. They are looking for people with energy, enthusiasm and the ability to talk passionately to their customers about its products and about the company (Strydom, Kempen and Tselepis 2022).
The various promotional mix and activities are essential for every brand to capitalise on their market segment and position. In this case, the key elements for promotional mix and activity for Coffee Republic are stated below, as it is evident from its operations in the United Kingdom Market –
- Word of Mouth Marketing: A large part of Coffee Republic’s business rely on word of mouth marketing. This is clearly evident, given the popularity of the brand and the engagement of the people. The word of mouth marketing allows for Coffee Republic to build a positive brand image in the United Kingdom and attract new and prospective customers to its products and services. This is important as a large number of its customers are interconnected and form a customer base for the organisation that is repetitive and loyal to the brand. The brand also occasionally rolls out referral programs to encourage more word of mouth promotion of the brand (Abdeta and Zewdie 2019).
- Social Media Marketing: The Coffee Republic Company is present online with a website and social media accounts in Instagram and Facebook. This allows the brand to post and engage with its audience and build an online community around the brand. The brand has been using social media to its advantage and creating healthy conversations, communities and customer base via its posts, videos, stories and engagements. The Company also rolls out exclusive offers to its online customers (BASHA 2019).
- Advertising: The Coffee Republic Company has moved away from traditional sources of advertising to modern sources like digital advertisements. Digital billboards, email Marketing, promotional SMS, promotional emails, social media advertisement, paid advertisements online, paid SEOs and so on. The company has realised the potential of digital medium and has been capitalizing on the same to reach maximum audience in the United Kingdom., The underlying message of the brand is “quality products and services at competitive prices and ambiance”. This allows the brand to hook its target audience and create a value based customer offerings (Sharma and Berad 2019).
- Sales Promotion: The Company often announces discounts and offers. These offers can range from seasonal and special offers, to bundle and combo offers. The Coffee Republic Company also provides attractive discounts to new customers and continued discounts to its regular and repeat customers. Additionally, it also introduces combo meals and time and season specific discounts to the people of the United Kingdom. This allows the brand to create extreme value for its customers, without compromising on the quality of products and services offered. This is an important activity as the United Kingdom coffee market is excessively competitive and a lot of options are available for the customers to choose from (Zeithaml et al. 2020).
- Promotion: As it is evident, effective promotion can lead to new customer acquisition and market share gain. In the case of Coffee Republic effective promotion is directly proportional to the rise in sales and revenue for the organisation (Rundle-Thiele et al. 2019).
- Product: As it is evident, a wide selection of products from Coffee Republic ensures that everyone can enjoy something or the other with them and also allows the brand to target a larger audience segment in the United Kingdom (Strydom, Kempen and Tselepis 2022).
- Place: As it is evident, strategic locations allowed Coffee Republic to be centrally located in key areas where it facilitates increase in sales and revenue (Rundle-Thiele et al. 2019).
- People: As it is evident, the right people are extremely important to provide value and create a generational brand. Hence, Coffee Republic believes in exemplary customer service via capable staff members (Strydom, Kempen and Tselepis 2022).
The Coffee Republic Company can measure its effectiveness in the United Kingdom Market via the following Key Performance Indices to allow the organisation to understand its data better –
- Marketing ROI: This is an important index to measure the return on marketing costs in terms of value to the Organisation. Coffee Republic can use this index to understand the return on the expenses incurred in the form of Marketing.
- Likes on Social Media: This is an important attribute for Coffee Republic to understand the interaction level of its online audience and the acceptance rate of its posts and information. This can be used to launch new products and based on the likes understand the approval or rejection rate of the same.
- Engagement on Social Media: This allow the Company to understand the level of active interaction of the audience with the brand. This can be in the form of shares, saves and community activities like quizzes and giveaways.
- Community: It is important for Coffee Republic to build a strong and loyal community. By analysing the various elements of its community, Coffee Republic can improve upon its products and services and formulate strategies for adoptions.
- Website Visits: This is important for Coffee Republic to understand the number of people engaging with its website, either in the form of web pages, exploring the website, foods, coffees, services, jobs and so on.
- Email and SMS Interactions: These are key metrices to understand the relevance and effect of email and SMS marketing for Coffee Republic. This can be measure din the form of clicks, link visits, purchases made, subscriptions and so on.
- Sales Rise: This can be measured as the rise in sales due to a particular activity. For example, if Coffee Republic announces a new offer for 2 days, the sales within those two days will be measured against the regular sales to identify the rise or impact on the level of sales and customer engagement.
- Customer Retention: This is important for Coffee Republic to understand the number of repeat customers and regular customers who prefer what and when.
- Customer Acquisition Cost: This is the cost of acquiring anew customers, based on set expenses. This will allow the Company to understand the value of its offerings and how much on an average they have to spend on customer acquisition.
- Online Traffic: This is the overall indicator of the presence of the brand online and how well they can leverage the same. This can be measured in terms of profile visits, website visits, link clicks, advertisement engagement and so on.
Conclusion
The above paper concludes the essay by summarising all the key factors that were to be addressed within the paper for the organisation Coffee Republic, for the target market of the United Kingdom. This paper has allowed the author to provide a research based enumeration of the same and has helped the author to clearly state and define the marketing principles, concepts, ideas and strategies parameters for the Company, Coffee Republic and has created a research and on the basis of evidence approach to harness all the relevant data and projections made by the author. This essay revolves around one of the most acclaimed coffee chains in the United Kingdom, Coffee Republic. This paper successfully identifies four of the seven marketing mix elements that are visible in the United Kingdom for the Coffee Republic. This paper also successfully identifies the various targeting, segmentation and positioning strategies of the Company within the United Kingdom market. The paper further elaborates on the four marketing mix elements that are visible to the public and how these justify the business condition and situation. This paper also successfully enumerates the relevant promotional mix and activities for the Company, Coffee Republic and how there are prevalent and are tackled by the organisation within the United Kingdom market, and for the people of the United Kingdom. The paper also uses relevant marketing theirs and practices to justify the various marketing mix elements that are crucial and are in practice within the Coffee Republic Organization. This allows for a robust idea into the various marketing ideas and practices that are prevalent within the Coffee Company, and how they can address the various deficiencies and work upon their strengths further. The paper also successfully enumerates the different Key Performance Indices that are the most necessary and relevant for the Coffee brand to better understand its performance and the relevance of its various marketing and promotional elements. The above essay successfully provides a comprehensive analysis of Coffee Republic, operating within the United Kingdom, that allows for its success and operational excellence within the targeted market of the United Kingdom.
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