Marketing in Action MARKETING PLAN

Corporate Connection

Mission Statement

The Humber Room is a full-service restaurant that provides a gastropub as well as a casual dining experience. Located in Humber College's north campus in Toronto, the restaurant seeks to deliver high quality meals and drinks at affordable prices. This is vital for ensuring an unforgettable dining experience for the restaurant's target market, and achieving its overall goals and objectives.

Vision Statement

The Humber Room aspires to be the best full service restaurant in northwest Toronto. The restaurant strongly believes that a certain section of the population yearns for a casual and a fairly relaxed dining environment. The restaurant desires to be the number one choice for this segment.

Situational Analysis

Competitor Analysis

The Humber Room is not the only full service restaurant in northwest Toronto. There are several competitors, but the major ones include Linx Lounge (located on-campus), Desi Spice (located off-campus but within less than a kilometre), and Drupatis (located off-campus but within less than a kilometre). The three rivals also primarily target the Humber College community. With both a bar and a restaurant, Linx Lounge is a direct competitor to The Humber Room. Though Desi Spice includes both a bar and a restaurant, it primarily focuses on Indian cuisines. Drupatis is somewhat an indirect competitor as it mainly focuses on food as opposed to the gastropub design that offers both food and drinks.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Located on-campus, therefore close proximity to the target population

• Offers bar and restaurant -- a world-class gastropub menu

• Focuses on casual dining

• Loyal customers

• Fairly affordable prices

• Significant market share

• Supports culinary and hospitality training

Weaknesses

• Opens only during typical school semesters as well as days of operation

• Menus often change from semester to semester

• Fairly short menu

• Locks out fast food consumers

Opportunities

• Increased campus population

• Open more locations

• New foods and drinks

Threats

• Competitors and new rivals

• Increased health consciousness on the part of consumers, so consumers increasingly eat at home instead of restaurants

• Reduction in consumer purchasing power due to unfavourable economic events such as inflation

Segmentation and Target Market Analysis

The Humber Room primarily targets the Humber College community. This mainly includes students and staff working at the college. Secondarily, the restaurant targets individuals and groups going to the campus to either visit relatives and friends or make important inquiries relating to the college. From a demographic perspective, The Humber Room targets a broad range of casual diners. These primarily include:

• Individuals and families

• Men and women (single, married, and divorced)

• Aged 18-30 years

• College students

• Middle to high income

• Diverse racial, religious, and sexual backgrounds

From a psychographic perspective, the restaurant targets consumers who tend to be health and quality conscious. The restaurant targets consumers who yearn for a well-prepared, healthy meal. These are individuals and groups who tend to dislike fast foods. Also, they are consumers who desire a lengthier and more meaningful dining experience as opposed to on-the-go dining experience offered by quick service restaurants.

Unique Selling Proposition

With a gastropub theme, The Humber Room offers high quality restaurant services. The restaurant serves freshly prepared meals and salads, keen on delivering an extraordinary restaurant experience for casual diners. This is the restaurant's major source of competitive advantage.

This is particularly because of the restaurant's significant market share and unique selling proposition. The restaurant combines both a gastropub and a casual dining experience. This has enabled the restaurant to maintain a loyal customer base and occupy a dominant position within the Humber College community.
Marketing Mix

Product

• Quality and freshly-prepared foods (salads and soups, pizzas, meats, chicken, seafood, vegetables, desserts, as well as hot and cold beverages)

• Beer (Sleeman Cream Ale and Steam Whistle) and Wine (red and white; mainly Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand)

Price

The Humber Room offers quality meals at comparatively affordable prices. Salads and desserts at the restaurant go for $4-6, while main meals go for $12-16 per person. Beer costs $4-7, wine $7-7.50, and hot and cold beverages $2.5-4.

Place

The Humber Room is located within Humber College. This provides an ideal, convenient, and easily accessible location for casual diners within the Humber College community. Individuals and groups interested in a quality casual dining experience can get it without necessarily getting out of campus.

Physical Evidence

The restaurant features an attractive and appealing in-store environment. This is particularly evident from the restaurant's unique furniture arrangement as well as its inviting decor and choice of colour. These touch points represent an exciting dining experience even before the actual encounter.

Process

The Humber Room's service delivery process is quite fascinating. Upon entering the restaurant, guests are received by the waiting staff and led to their preferred table. The waiting staff then notes down their order, which is then submitted to the chef or bar tender for preparation. Once prepared, the order is delivered to the guest. Orders can as well be made via the restaurant's website or phone call. Through a phone call or online reservation, guests provide their details, time of arrival, and preferred meal or drink. When they come, the reservation is served without delay.

Promotional Tool

Promotion constitutes an important element of the marketing mix. It is through promotion that a business reaches out to customers or familiarises the target market with its offerings. Indeed, promotion is vital for driving customer acquisition as well as sales. The Humber Room requires an aggressive promotional strategy if it is to become the number one full service, casual dining restaurant in northwest Toronto, especially within the Humber College community. For the restaurant, the specific objective of promotion is to increase sales by 30% in the next 12 months. This is a fairly achievable, realistic, and measurable target.

The restaurant's promotional tool will primarily comprise a sales promotion initiative. This will specifically include offering free samples, coupons, as well as contests. Sampling is particularly important for promoting a restaurant's offerings. As the old adage goes, "tasting is believing." Offering free samples to the target audience provides an ideal opportunity for attracting new customers. Potential customers get a taste of the restaurant's menu items prior to visiting the restaurant. In essence, they know what to expect once they check in to the restaurant. The restaurant can take advantage of the various events held within the college to offer free samples. Like any other institution of higher learning, the college often plays host to events such as conferences, seminars, workshops, games, as well as student events. All these events require catering solutions, presenting a perfect chance for the restaurant to showcase its menu items by offering free samples.

Coupons can as well be used to accelerate sales. This technique is quite common in the restaurant industry. Coupons in this case may take the form of free desserts, free appetisers, free delivery, buy one get…