Marketing strategy fundamentals and applications

Marketing Strategy

The Assemblage is a restaurant in the casual dining segment. As with any restaurant, there is both a product and a service offering at the Assemblage. The product will consist of the menu. As a point of differentiation in the industry, the menu will be geared to foods that reflect the increasing diversity of tastes found in America. As the primary market for the Assemblage is going to be New York, the chefs will have considerable leeway in the creation of a menu. One element that will be a focus is on the types of foods that people love to eat -- luxury and comfort foods. Examples of comfort foods would be a macaroni and cheese made with asiago and gorgonzola. A luxury food would be a burger with artisan bacon and shiitake mushrooms. The menu will have a greater focus on ethnic and ethnic-fusion fare and will in general be more adventurous than the offerings of Assemblage competitors. This will allow the Assemblage to be fully diversified in the casual dining segment without veering into the fine dining segment. Increased pricing power is expected to accrue from the premium menu. The drinks menu will be similarly innovative without being over the top -- microbrews, good wines and innovative cocktails will all be featured, but in keeping with the price points of a casual dining establishment.

In terms of the service offering, the Assemblage is seeking to attract a target market of 35 and under high income earners. The atmosphere will be oriented more towards fun than towards family as a number of competitors are. Music and decor will be contemporary and the staff will be immersed a fun-oriented corporate culture. We believe that our take on casual dining will be more contemporary than that of our competitors, who seem oriented towards an older demographic.

Supporting the product will be the product branding strategy. The industry is highly competitive and the most successful firms have established their brands through marketing and through the careful cultivation of an image associated with that brand. At the core of the branding strategy for the Assemblage will be youth and fun. The Assemblage can refer to a gathering of friends, or it can refer to a gathering of great ideas (on a menu, for example). This mixing of great things is something that we wish to convey in our branding strategy. For the message to be effective, it needs to be simple and easily understood. This is the brand proposition -- an underlying offer that defines every message the company sends the target customer (White, 2010). Youth and fun is the brand proposition associated with the Assemblage. We feel that in the casual dining sector, this proposition is relatively unique, and is something that customers will respond to since most casual dining restaurants are geared to a different demographic.

The branding strategy will be comprised of several components. The first is the design off the brand itself. The logo must convey the sense of contemporaneousness that the target market will immediately recognize. For this a graphic designer with a keen eye for a logo that is modern yet relatively timeless (so it does not need to be changed too often is critical. The second element of the branding strategy will be the message. It is important to entice customers to the Assemblage before they can spend their money -- they must be convinced before they have even seen the product. Thus, it is important that the message focus on a promise that is easily understood and that appeals to the target market. For the Assemblage, the simplicity of the message will be its attractiveness -- this is a casual establishment that is solely focused on delivering a great service experience and unique, excellent food. The message need not be more complicated than that -- this is an introductory branding exercise and the messages conveyed during this process will be associated with the Assemblage brand forever.

The product line at the Assemblage will be comprised of the small bites, large bites, desserts and drinks. Dividing the product line in this manner is more contemporary. Small bites will be the largest category. The intent of this tactic is twofold. Smaller dishes encourage more sampling, which enhances the social utility associated with the restaurant experience. This category is also associated with higher margins in accordance with this increased utility. The small bites part of the menu will be rotated more frequently and give our chefs more room for experimental, which will add to the value of this part of the product lineup to the consumer who loves to try new things.

The large bites, desserts and drinks are more conventional categories. The Assemblage needs these categories in part as recognition that the casual dining category must always be accessible to a mainstream audience. They provide a comforting experience, with variations on staples that will appeal to a broad audience.

Within the industry, this product line will be high end, differentiated by innovation. Most casual restaurants today are differentiating on the basis of price or sometimes by serving size (Cheesecake Factory, for example). The Assemblage will differentiate by providing a high quality offering at a reasonable price. Ample use of low-cost flavors such as garlic and chilies will help to provide this differentiation.

The service component of the offering will also be differentiated within the industry by its quality level. The fun component will be emphasized and will be reinforced by the corporate culture. The emphasis on service also functions in response to the incursion of fast food into the casual dining segment with its "fast casual" trend (Quenqua, 2007). Most casual dining operations have moved downmarket to combat this threat, but at the Assemblage we are aiming to take advantage of this decline in the service function in casual dining by emphasizing it.

There is limited breadth to the service element of the product line, but the menu element has more breadth than that of our competitors. The reason for this is that our proposition to the customer is a unique, innovative experience -- something people in their 20s understand as a matter of fact in their daily lives. Our target market -- especially in a multicultural city like New York -- is adept at moving through different cultures. They are the first generation to have been raised entirely in the time of increasing culinary adventurousness that began in the 1980s but has caught fire in the past ten years (Long, 2004) and they can be bored by other casual dining restaurants. Having a broader product line -- different cuisines from all over the world -- is congruent with our target market's view of their dining operations. The same theory is applied to the lineup of beverage as well. Our customers have grown up exposed to small wineries, microbreweries and exotic cocktails. These are things that they are willing to seek out, and the lack of these drinks turns our target market off of other casual dining establishments. The breadth of product line is matched by a lack of breadth in the service component. This will be consistent every time -- fun, professional and stylish.

The product and target strategies fit with the organizational strategy. The organizational strategy is to enter into what is believed to be an abandoned niche in the casual dining segment at the high end. We believe that as casual dining has moved downmarket, a gap has opened between casual dining and fine dining. Our target market of under 35s has disposable income and likes to go out, but may not be interested in the fine dining experience; yet is not sufficiently attracted by the downmarket and family-oriented approach taken by many casual dining operations.