Marketing Report for Ms. Janet Bradley Keeping in view the increasing obesity rates in Australia and finding the spicy and high-calorie fast foods as the major reason for it, Ms. Janet Bradley has planned to establish a low-calorie fast food restaurant chain that will serve as an alternative to McDonald's, Red Rooster, KFC, and other fast food chains. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the micro and macro environment for the new fast food chain in order to recommend strategies which can help it in becoming successful in the industry. The major micro environmental forces which will impact its business are consumer behaviour, suppliers and intermediaries, publics, and competitors. The buyer behaviour has been analysed using cultural, social, personal, and psychological dimensions -- all having a significant impact on the purchase decisions and preferences of the consumers towards fast food products. The restaurant chain will also take a big impact from its top industry rivals which include both direct and indirect competitors. The macro environment consists of demographic forces (i.e. age group, gender, life preferences, etc.) economic forces (income groups, industry growth, inflation, etc.), technological forces (high-tech machinery and systems), political forces (governmental behaviour and regulations) and cultural forces (eating habits, health consciousness, and choice of foods). All these forces will drive the performance of the new low-calorie fast food restaurant chain in its industry.

Marketing Report for Ms. Janet Bradley

Based on this analysis, the paper recommends marketing strategies to Ms. Bradley which will help her in presenting the products to their potential target customers in the most effective and profitable way. The paper recommends that Ms. Bradley should primarily target the health conscious consumers with age group of 26 and above; belonging to the lower and middle income groups, and residents of urban areas of the country. She can achieve competitive advantage in the industry by adopting an effective positioning strategy; designing unique value proposition; and following product differentiation strategy.

Page i

Table of Contents

Executive Summary i

1 Introduction 1

2 Market Analysis 2

2.1 Buyer Behaviour 2

2.2 Microenvironment 4

2.2.1 Suppliers and Intermediaries 4

2.2.2 Publics 5

2.2.3 Competitors 6

2.3 Macroenvironment 12

3 Marketing Strategy 15

3.1 Target Market 15

3.2 Positioning and Competitive Advantage 17

4 Marketing Mix 18

4.1 Product Strategy 18

4.2 Pricing Strategy 19

4.3 Distribution Strategy 20

5 Summary of Recommendations 21

6 Conclusions 23

Reference List 24

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to recommend marketing strategies to Ms. Bradley for her new fast food restaurant chain on the basis of micro and macro environmental analysis. The analysis of micro environment has been done in the light of buyer behaviour associated with fast food consumption and the impact of suppliers and intermediaries, public groups, and top industry competitors on the new business. The macro environment section discusses how demographic, economic, technological, political, and cultural forces will affect the strategies, business operations, and performance of the new fast food restaurant chain.

The next section of the report presents a couple of core marketing strategies for the new fast food business. These strategies are: identification of the target market (on the basis of geographic, psychographic, demographic, and behavioural segmentation) and positioning and competitive advantage (in the light of positioning theory and value proposition). Section 4 of the report recommends the way Ms. Bradley should design the Marketing Mix (product, price, and distribution strategies) for her fast food business. The final section summarizes all the recommendations from throughout the report. The report concludes by highlighting the major ideas from its important sections.

Market Analysis

The obesity rates are showing an increasing trend in Australia. Considering the excessive use of spicy and high-fat fast food as the major reason for obesity, Ms. Janet Bradley has planned to open a new fast food restaurant chain in the country that would serve as an alternative to the traditional fast food restaurant chains like McDonald's, Hungry Jack's, KFC, Red Rooster, etc.

This section presents a comprehensive analysis of the business environment which the new fast food restaurant chain will observe in the Australian market. It includes buyer behaviour associated with fast food consumption and the analysis of micro and macro environmental forces that will impact the fast food business in a positive or negative way. Market analysis is important for the company in order to understand the business environment and industry before actually becoming its active participant. Failing to understand the market can result in unsuccessful business strategies, negative consumer response, and poor operational and financial performance. An effective market analysis will help the company in offering its products to the most potential customers in the most competitive and efficient fashion.

Buyer Behaviour

The following table explains the different dimensions of buyer behaviour; their definition, and the major characteristics of consumers of fast foods and low calorie food products.
Table 1: Overview of Buyer Behaviour

Influences

Definition

Characteristics of consumers of fast food and/or low calorie food

Cultural

To adopt cultural values

Eating habits

Tendency to adopt modern life style

Finish food quickly and move on Social

To be a part of the society

Social gathering

Share common societal values

Enjoy getting together

Outing with friends and family

Fun and excitement

Personal

To live a modern life style

Save time

Individual food preferences

Fast food lover wants to live a modern life style. They enjoy high-spiced and peppery fast foods.

Others are health conscious and demand low-calorie foods

Psychological

Enjoy delicious foods offered by top quality fast food restaurant chains

Fulfil basic life need (hunger) in a cool and trendy way

Enjoying top quality food

Expect value for the money spent on food

Fast food lovers are generally brand conscious; they only want to spend money for top quality fast foods.

Microenvironment

Microenvironment constitutes all those factors which can impact the operational cycle and profitability of the company (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel 2012). It primarily deals with the role of supply chain members and intermediaries, public groups, and competitors in influencing the business operations and financial performance of the company in one way or another (Blythe & Megicks 2010). This section explains the microenvironment for the new fast food restaurant chain by discussing the role and impact of abovementioned stakeholders.

Suppliers and Intermediaries

The new fast food restaurant chain will have to find suppliers from the Australian market that will provide all types of raw material and ingredients to produce high quality food products. Irrespective of the interest of Ms. Bradley in introducing low-calorie fast foods, the raw material and ingredients will be the same as they are for McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, and other high-spiced fast food product manufacturers. Therefore, she will not face any difficulty in finding suppliers for her fast food restaurant chain.

The second most important supply chain member is the distributors and business development firms in the fast food industry (Jenny & Scammon 2010). Ms. Bradley will have to take their services in order to promote her business and deliver the products to the ultimate consumers. In addition to hiring product delivery workforce, she will have to make sure that her fast food business has an effective distribution network across all the potential markets in the country. The business development and promotional firms will introduce the business to new investors, supply chain members, and other key stakeholder from the industry -- making it easier for Ms. Janet Bradley in establishing the brand image of her fast food business in the Australian market (Ellwood 2002).

The challenges which this new business may face in regard to supply chain include; high prices for top quality raw material, high commission by large scale distributors, and time period required in building strong relationships with these suppliers and intermediaries (Mu-hlbacher, Dahringer, & Leihs 2006).

Publics

In addition to the suppliers and intermediaries, there are certain other public groups which are likely to impact the new fast food business or get impacted by it. These groups include regulatory authorities, food associations, and the society as a whole. Regulatory authorities include governmental and semi-governmental bodies that regulate the fast food companies, impose laws and regulations, and oversee the fast food industry participants for their ethical and legal business practices. In order to operate in the industry in an ethical and effective way, Ms. Bradley's fast food restaurant chain will have to adhere to the laws and regulations imposed by the local regulatory authorities (Pride & Ferrell 2012).

Secondly, the new fast food restaurant chain will have to become an active member of the local and national food associations which act as a liaison between the Australian government and the domestic and multinational fast food companies operating in Australia. These associations play a vital role in keeping its members on an ethical track in their business practices as well as in dealing and negotiating with the government on different matters.

The biggest impact of this new fast food restaurant chain will be taken by the society members. In contrast to the traditional fast food restaurants that offer spicy and high calorie fast foods, Ms. Janet Bradley's fast food restaurant chain will offer low calorie food for the health conscious people. She will also have to run awareness and promotional campaigns to…