AW Ma free essay sample

Four C’s also will be discussed from the customer’s perspective and point of view, which are customer solution, customer cost, convenience and communication. While Direct Marketing will be used to solve their problems and at the same time to improve and promote their product using new ways of promotion. Introduction Aamp;W Restaurants, Inc. is a chain of  fast-food restaurants, distinguished by its draft Root Beer  and Root Beer float. Aamp;W serving a typical fast food menu of  hamburgers, french fries and hot dogs. The food served is 100% Halal and is very popular with the young generation, with Root Beer being the driving force of the large number of sales. The founder of Aamp;W is Roy Allen and Frank Wright, the company name was taken from their last name. (Dinesh, 2008) Aamp;W began in 1919 in Lodi, California, when Roy Allen took on partnership with Frank Wright to help him with the Root Beer business he had started in1919. Allen purchased the formula for his Root Beer from a pharmacist in Arizona. To this day, the unique blend of herbs, spices, barks and berries remains a proprietary secret. Most of the outlets are drive-in restaurants with carhops. Aamp;W starting franchises in 1921 in California, arguably the first successful food franchising operation, the licensing franchises not only in the United States but around the world. They had 2000 stores in 1960, in 1963 Aamp;W’s first store in Asia Pacific opened at Kuala Lumpur’s Batu Road (now known as Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman). It was also the first fast food corporation from the United States to set foot in the country. In 1970, Aamp;W had more outlet than McDonalds. A beverage division was started in 1971, supplying bottled Aamp;W products to grocery stores. The soft drinks  sold under this brand are Root Beer  and cream soda, made by Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. Before 2011, Aamp;W was a Yum! Brands, Inc. On January 18, 2011 Yum! Brands announced its intention to sell Aamp;W along with Long John Silvers because of poor sales for both divisions. (Dinesh, 2008) Market Analysis In 2004, B. K Sidhu has made an analysis about Aamp;W restaurant that had undergone a shareholder or management change for almost 41 years. This has shown that Aamp;W had led to many changes in priorities and a lack of focus. As the result, Aamp;W had not come out with their fullest potential. Besides that, Aamp;W had also undergone with many competitors for this past few years, for example they were being compete and currently still need to compete with many fast food restaurant such as Mc Donald, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut and many more. Aamp;W service also been questioned by their customers. â€Å"†¦Their serving staffs are all nice and friendly too. But of course, nice and friendly do not mean efficient. Unfortunately, they must have scrimped on training fees. † Aamp;W is a big chain fast food restaurant; they should have training services after they recruit their employees. Furthermore, their managers also should be well trained on how to handle their employees and customer complains. Aamp;W also had problems with their four P’s which are their product, price, place and promotion. For their products, they had many complaints from these past few years saying that they had lost their originality taste of their foods and beverages. For example, in food review website one customer had complains about their foods. â€Å"The Coney dog which is one of  Aamp;W signature item has buns dry and hard like sponge. The sausage skin is like plastic. 1901, the hotdog stalls serve better hotdogs. Besides that, the customers also said that Aamp;W had no longer chilled the mugs like they used to serve the Aamp;W Root Beer. Moreover, Aamp;W had lack of varieties and flavors in their menu. The customers had no choice rather than to order the same menu of Aamp;W which has been use for these past 40 years. Besides that, they also face problems with their product pri ces because it was said to be expansive and not in the price range that can be afford by all customers. Since their foods are not in a good quality, it made their customers question whether it is worth buying the products. Their product can be pricy because people will not spend their money on a meal that cost you more than RM10. 00 per meal every day. For the availability of their restaurants for these past few years are not satisfying. This is because they had closed many outlets in many places. Their restaurant cannot be seen as many as Mc Donald’s and KFC’s restaurant. From the customer’s point of view, the Aamp;W restaurant can only be seen in few places and they does not have any small or drive through outlet in petrol stations around Malaysia. As the result, many of their old days customers had forgotten about their restaurant because of their restaurant have closed and only available in few places around Malaysia. Moreover, Aamp;W had forgotten to reach their customers since they think that they were the first fast food outlet to be open in Malaysia. Even though the ad the first mover advantage, they did not take measures of maintaining their promotions and marketing seriously. As we can see there are not many promotions and advertisement available for Aamp;W. hey had failed to capitalize their brand in Malaysia and had given ways to other fast food restaurants to branch out and concurs Malaysian fast food market. Marketing Strategy Online Marketing Blogs During the re-launch, we will also engage the help of successful bloggers to help promote Aamp;W website and brand. We will invite some of the famous blogger to try our new products and services and hope that they can spread the news over their blogs to attract more foll owers to visit Aamp;W website. Many in the past have over looked the power of bloggers. Bloggers have the power to influence their faithful followers. Successful bloggers have thousands of followers. This will increase our outreach to the public. We will also reward the blogger who talk about us the most through their blogs. Top three bloggers who talk about us the most through their blog by sharing, posting and commenting will be rewarded. In order to expand Aamp;W online business, blogging can make a significant difference in their marketing effort to attract more visitors to their site. As per data available it was found that website can get 55% more visitors by using blogs as compared to those who do not blog at all. Forums In addition, we also will register forum to help advertise Aamp;W website and brand. Because, people nowadays will use online forum to search about the products they want to buy or nice restaurant for them to eat. The forum signature or commonly called resource box is a powerful free advertising tool for Aamp;W. They enable users of a website to interact with each other by exchanging tips and discussing hot topics related to a websites theme. This is to generate enough hype and publicity for the brand and to attract people to the website before the grand re-launch. Forums can allow Aamp;W to create robust online communities even with low traffic volumes since people often return to the site on a regular basis to catch up on what is happened since then. The first thing that Aamp;W should do is to edit their forum signature. Basically, a curiosity inducing one-liner and a link to their website would suffice for a forum signature. Once Aamp;W have edited and saved their signature, it will appear at the bottom of all their comments in the forum discussions. That means, the more Aamp;W participate in the discussions in the forums, the more people see their semi-ad written on their signature. This will cause customer to visit Aamp;W website, and hopefully buy from Aamp;W or join Aamp;W team someday. Therefore, forum can help Aamp;W to attract more customers to visit their website and increase their sales as well. Moreover, Aamp;W can register more famous forum because the more forums they saturate, the more they gain leads and Aamp;W learn many things about their target market as well. If Aamp;W are an active forum poster, they will get an idea about the kind of products that are hot on the market. These will reflect in the discussions of people in the forums. Website Optimization Though we have confidence in Aamp;W’s products and promotions, we know that building the road to their website is the key to success. The improvement of Website optimization can help Aamp;W for shorting the loading time of website, reducing size of website and maximizing the performance of website. Website is a mode for Aamp;W to reach out to the crowd, and informatively telling customers about their company be it the latest promotions, updates, or simply sharing information. We will suggest creating a website that would provide the best experience for their intended crowd, such as, beautifully crafted flash animations, eye-catching website layouts, and picturesque visuals. Most company will hire designers and development teams that have the knowledge to create a website that is packed with attractive graphics and stunning visuals. Our concern is not just about the graphics, flash animations and appearance, but more essentially, creating a website that is search-engine friendly. Other than the eye-catching website layouts, fast loading website is also very important on website optimization. We will increase the Aamp;W website speed by reform the site for shorter loading. We will reduce the size of the website’s images to improve the speed of the site while maintaining image’s quality. People love fast loading website so website optimization can make Aamp;W website getting more traffic and sales. Moreover, it saves the bandwidth since it reduced the website sizes. In addition, we will improve the website by offer web-site purchasing for customers. Customers can make their purchases through Aamp;W website and having delivered within 30 minutes. Customers will receive their order at their doorstep within 30 minutes, because the products of Aamp;W are perishable so it does require to be served fresh. Web site purchasing has developed to the point that a sites main intent has now become to make a customer happy with their decision, and to help them make the purchase quickly. So, customer will want to return to the site in the near future and continue to make purchases. We will also reward the customers who make purchases of Aamp;W through website. The customers who make three times order through Aamp;W website can free one can of Root Beer. Mobile Marketing Mobile marketing will be the best way to promote Aamp;W. This is because, now a day, many people have mobile phones with them which not only normal phone but smart phones that can connect to internet. There is a study of Mobile Insights Malaysia shows that the usage of and subscription mobile to the internet in 2009 which was active subscribers was 25 percent and in 2010 was 41 percent. While for mobile broadband internet usage by mobile phone was 54% in 2010. Besides that in one month, the usage and subscription of mobile internet in search engine was 23 percent and 12 percent for internet banking. From this information, it shows that users of mobile internet are rapidly increasing. Aamp;W can use this advantage to promote their product and sell it online. By providing delivery service, Aamp;W can increase their sales. This is because people now days are busy with their work and they will not have enough time to cook. So they will get delivery service from fast food restaurant. Having mobile internet, the customers can order and pay their meals online. With online transaction it will be convenience for the customers to order and buy meals from Aamp;W. Moreover, the Aps Advertising is also useful for Aamp;W to market their products online. Since many people using smart phones with Apple and Android application, Aamp;W can ask them to create an application of Aamp;W restaurant to be uploaded in smart phones. From the application, customers can choose meals and make online ordering from Aamp;W. then they can straight away pay the amount from that particular application and it will be sent to Aamp;W ordering transaction. By doing this, people will download it in their mobile phone and they can easily purchase Aamp;W meals from the application. As the result, it will create repeat purchase and at the same time increase customer’s loyalty towards their brand. Other than that, QR code is also one of the Aps Advertising and it can be used by Aamp;W to gain repeat purchase and increase customer’s loyalty. This is because the QR code is a chip that can be scan using androids smart phones and it will reveal information or information automatically in their phones. Aamp;W can benefit from this QR code by placing it on their food boxes and paper cup drinks and also their Aamp;W can drink. This is because when the customers purchase these products they will bring along the containers with them. So Aamp;W can give promotions using the QR code when the customers purchase their products. The promotions can be free drinks or other sides and desserts of Aamp;W products. At the end, when the customers want to use the promotions they need to redeem it at Aamp;W restaurant, when they went there they will not only redeem the free product but they will buy ome other foods and drinks to go with it. By giving one free drink or waffle, Aamp;W can sell other foods that are not available for free. This will increase their sales and at the same time increase customer’s loyalty. TV Marketing We found that Aamp;W did not spend much on their television advertisement in Malaysia. Frankly speaking, we do not even have any idea in mind of Aamp;W advertisement. Firstly, it is because the company did not spend much on television advertisement. Secondly, the advertisement is not eye-catching enough. We could see one video advertisement only on their Aamp;W website but not on the television channels. In order to aware others of the brand, Aamp;W do not only advertisement on their website but also on television channels. Television advertisement consists of sound, movement and image to make the whole package interesting for consumers. If the message of advertisement could capture the attention of audiences, the message could be channel to many consumers through words of mouth too. Television advertising is able to communicate to a large amount of audiences. Once if the advertisement is played at the right time to the right person, it benefits the company by increasing sales and generating income. Although people are exposing to tons of advertisement nowadays, television advertising still can attract attention, generate awareness if people finds the advertisement interesting or the product or service meet the audience’s needs. A television advertisement might be costly but the outcome will worth the cost. It is the return of investment we said. The Aamp;W’s television advertisement can be colorful and eye-catching but it must come with its context too. For example, the Great Root Bear or some celebrities are used in their television advertisement. A television advertisement that can target the children and parents will be perfect because one stone with two birds so that it can also cut the cost to come out with two television advertisements to target different people. Furthermore, Aamp;W can also sponsor some big or international events or sports like EURO Football 2012 in England or Olympics 2012 in London this year. So that Aamp;W credits can be seen all over the world that will appear on the television all the time. It will definitely help to promote branding, increase sales and also generate more income. If Aamp;W is sponsoring these events, they will make sure their products are on standard. This would affect the Aamp;W Company all over the world. Besides, it affects their employees’ performance too. Such as, if they know their brand is on television they will perform and present well by not tarnishing the company’s image and reputation. Hence, some fans will also follow what their idol or celebrity eats. They will be affected too by seeing their idol eating Aamp;W’s Coney Dog or drinking Aamp;W Root Beer. Moreover, if Aamp;W has sufficient budget they can sponsor every sportsman their signature â€Å"Root Beer mug† with adding on with a cover on it. So, those sportsmen might be using it like a water bottle carrying here and there. For some fans that see their idol with Aamp;W signature mug, it will influence them to buy one too. A flash mob event can be created on social media like Facebook, and include all age range of people to join a 10 minutes flash mob dance together in front of big shopping mall such as at the main entrance of Pavilion with all the employees in Aamp;W together with Great Root Bear too. Here, Aamp;W can reward those who went for the flash mob by giving out some coupons. Occasionally, people with the coupons will want to visit Aamp;W and purchase Aamp;W’s goods. Thus, it helps boosting up sales here. Great events with great deals definitely make a chance to further Aamp;W’s business. Big events can get interviewed by newspaper and television news too. Marketing and Sales Organization Product In order for Aamp;W to gain their customer’s trust and loyalty towards them, they need to make improvements with their current products and also expand new products to be served to the customers. Even though they only have outlets in restaurants, Aamp;W need to expand their outlets in many different places and together with it they need to create new products suitable for each place. Aamp;W can improve their product by providing more flavors and varieties in the menu list. For example they can introduce new hotdog with 3 different sizes in small, medium, and large size of hotdogs. With these three sizes of hotdogs they can target different ages and appetites of customers, for example small hotdogs can be serving to hildren, and the large size of hotdogs can be serving to adult customers or customers who have big appetites. Besides that, they can introduce new flavors for their hotdog by adding flavors such as BBQ, Back Pepper, hot amp; Spicy, Cheese or maybe they can make seasonal flavors such as for Hari Raya event they can introduce ‘Rendang’ Hotdog, for Deepavali event they can make hotdogs with Curry flavors and for Chinese New Year event they can introduce B lack Pepper Prosperity Hotdog. They can also provide varieties of ice-cream flavor to go with their Root Beer drink and their waffles. For example, Aamp;W only serve vanilla ice-cream with their Root Beer drinks and waffles. But they can add more flavors such as chocolate, strawberry, cookies and caramel flavor to their drinks and desserts. Besides that they can add pies in their dessert menu with few flavors to go with it such as Apple Pie, Pineapple Pie and Chicken Pie. Since their signature drink is only Root Beer Float, they can introduce new beverage which is Milkshake Root Beer to their customers. Moreover, Aamp;W can target customers who consider their eating habit in a healthy way by selling hotdogs or burgers using healthy bread and adding more salads and greens in their food. For example, Aamp;W can introduce hotdogs with wheat bread and salads as side serving in the menu to their customers. Aamp;W can create new menu for each new outlets they want to open. For example if Aamp;W have kiosk in petrol station, they can sell their main dish which is Coney Dog and their Waffle. They can have simple and small Coney Dog and waffles with different kind of flavors to be selling in the kiosk. This is because, many people will stop by the petrol station to get petrol but at the same time they will went in the convenient store to buy foods. Besides that, Aamp;W also can sell Coney Dog and waffle together with their drinks and Root Beer in the kiosk that available in shopping malls. In cinemas, Aamp;W can sell their Root Beer drink and also Hotdogs to their customers. Their food and drink will be packing it in paper container such as hotdog box and paper cup for drinks because it will be convenience for the customers to carry it with them. Besides that Aamp;W can sell their Curly fries and nuggets in cinemas because these sides food will be convenient for the customers to eat while enjoying their movie. Customer Solution By providing various kinds of food and beverages to be added in their menu, Aamp;W can improve their relation with their customers. This is because Aamp;W now a day are known for their lack of varieties of food and beverages and also their flavors and recipes need to be improved so that it will taste delicious and as original as the old days of Aamp;W before. Besides that, in order to satisfy their customers and Aamp;W need to provide products that are suitable with the taste of their customers and giving more choices of products for them to choose. Since Aamp;W restaurant target various kind of market, there will be many kinds of customers will eat at their restaurants and other outlets. So for their restaurants they need to provide foods that comfort customers with families. For example, they can serve and provide foods and drinks that can be enjoy by the whole family from parents to their children. By giving these kind of products, it shows that Aamp;W improving their products and at the same time can increase customer loyalty towards their brand. Place In every business we should find a good place and a good price in Aamp;W since it is a fast food chain many people are going and eating there. Even if Aamp;W have a good promotion, Aamp;W should also find a good place for their store. Aamp;W can find a place near school and colleges because nowadays many students are patronizing all kinds of fast food chain because of its affordable price and the quality of the food. It can increase the sales of Aamp;W because there are a lot of students who like to eat fast food. In addition, Aamp;W can also create partnership with Cinema and provide special hamburger and hotdog that only can get at Cinema. So, customer can enjoy Aamp;W in most of the cinema while they are watching movie. Besides that, having Aamp;W outlet at petrol station and highway rest area is also one of the good ways to expand Aamp;W. Aamp;W can provide a drive-through service that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars. This service can benefit for those customers that are in rush and cannot find the car park. Besides, Aamp;W can have small stalls in shopping center that only selling dessert and wafer. Aamp;W will available at hundreds of easily accessible outlet located throughout the country. This ensures that there will always be an outlet close to where you work or live. Price There are aspects that could allow Aamp;W to have a slightly lower price to their products. A lower, competitive price will likely increase Aamp;W sales volume and cause their profits to increase. Aamp;W can set a price that is above their cost yet not so high that consumers would not be willing to pay for it. Based upon the various demographic, behavior and geographic segments identified within their target markets, Aamp;W are looking to appease young and middle aged adults from lower middle class income levels and up. Furthermore, Aamp;W will offer student price during the lunch time hour for those student who show their student card when purchasing. Students can enjoy a set of meal cost RM5. 99 instead of original price RM9. 25. Because of its affordable price and the quality of the food, there will more students to buy it and can boost the sale of Aamp;W. If a product is too expensive there are lesser people to buy because students are not affordable to the price. Offering volume discounts to customers will also add incentive for greater volume and in turn, higher profits. Convenience Based on survey, students will more like to go nearby restaurant having their lunch. It is because they have a short break time and sometime they need to rush for attending class. Therefore, Aamp;W open at nearby school and colleges can convenient for students to buy from them. In addition, most of the customers will like to buy products without leaving their car when they are busy and there will be traffic jam in rush hour time. So, Aamp;W provide drive-thru service at petro station are very convenient for customers who are in rush and cannot find the parking. Also, there are very awesome that customer can enjoy fast food when they are watching movie in cinema. Because cinema are not allow customers to bring in fast food so Aamp;W have gain the market share of those who like to eat fast food when watching movie. Moreover, Aamp;W will available at hundreds of easily accessible outlet located throughout the country. This ensures that every corner there will always be an outlet close to where you work or live. Customers like convenience so easily accessible can get their attention and buy from Aamp;W. Customer cost In student perspective, they will more willing to buy Aamp;W instead of Carls Junior. Because a set of meal of Carls Junior will cost more than RM18 and this is too expensive for a student and they are not able to afford it. So, students will more prefer the food what they are affordable and good quality of the food. In addition, nowadays people are seeking for products that are more value than what they need to pay. The more value a company’s goods or services have the more likely the customers are to continue paying for them. Most of the companies take customer cost and customer value into consideration when marketing their products. Conventional marketing and microeconomic theories assume that the consumers intend to maximize benefits and minimize costs. Consequently consumers choose the product with the highest difference between expected benefits and costs. Promotion Pocket Bike Contest This pocket bike contest result is based on the amount of Double Fortune Burger customer eat during the contest period, and posted up all the receipt in Aamp;W website, the highest number of Double Fortune Burger consumed will win a pocket bike. This event concept to give away goods is very good, but the prize is not attractive enough. For example, KFC they also have contest to give away prizes but their biggest prize is a car, so Aamp;W should think out of something that is attractive to target people to join the contest, most importantly to target those non-lover of Aamp;W in order to create a new market from there. Besides, the contest period is too short, the actual date was from 2nd March till 14th March 2012. The contest does not even last for 2 weeks’ time, before the contest could catch the attention of public it has already end. One thing good about this promotion is that the rules and regulations are well-stated. Here, we suggest that if Aamp;W do not have enough budgets or cannot find a good sponsor might as well save the cost and cancel the contest rather than wasting money for only a little return. But if Aamp;W really have enough budgets for this contest or could get a better sponsor for prizes, like a car, it would be better to attract more participants. Hence, the period of the contest is too short, Aamp;W should extend it for at least one or two months for the public to aware of this contest and have time for them to decide whether to participate. Simply XXXcellent Golden Aroma Chicken Combo This promotion included 2 Simply XXXcellent Chicken, 1 regular size refillable Root Beer and 1 regular size French Fries with the cost of RM 9. 90. This promotion has lasted for two months and it ended. The biggest problem in this promotion is that Aamp;W has lose their signature burger and hotdog instead they putting chicken as their main dish. If people who really want to have chicken they definitely will go for KFC and not Aamp;W. Such as Mc Donald’s, they always have their burgers in every promotion set except for breakfast. Besides, compared to others fast food like Mc Donald’s and KFC, their set is more costly to them. Therefore, Aamp;W should make a little bit adjustment, put their main dish, the burger or hotdog together with the chicken into the promotion set. And, the amount of the chicken will be lower down to only one chicken. In order to profit the company some adjustment need to be made, like the Root Beer can change it to be non-refillable because after having the whole meal and the Root Beer, consumer should feel filling. Most of them refill their drink not because they feel thirty, the purpose is to enjoy it at somewhere else or they will bring it home. Hence, the price could stay the same as RM 9. 0 as they are still profiting the company too because some adjustment has been made. The return of investment on one sale might be less but this promotion could attract more people to purchase and from there it could boost up the sale very quickly. Moreover, this promotion can be a long term promotion instead of just two months because it is still profiting the company. XXXtra Hot Sauce Combo This promotion required customer to do a video recording of him or herself in 3 minutes time to finish up every bite and every drop of hot sauce and it should be no intake of any liquid within the 3 minutes.