Blue Ridge Coffee Case Study

A recent primary research survey has found that 70% of occasional coffee drinkers view the Mr. Coffee brand as an inferior or budget coffee brewing device that does not make a superior cup of coffee (Appendix, Opinion survey). Brands such as Keurig, Cuisinart, and DeLonghi inspire more thoughts of quality coffee than Mr. Coffee. Other consumers are opting to spend several dollars per cup of coffee at coffee houses such as Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, Dunkin Donuts, and even McDonalds (Appendix, Opinion survey).

The “Coffee Wars – The Big Three: Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts” article focuses on the company analysis of the Starbucks brand and how its main competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts, has affected their brand and driven competition higher. Even though there are many companies trying to enter the specialty coffee market, these three companies own the majority of the market share. With Starbucks’ top quality and above average prices they hold a different market than the fast coffee/food market of Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks; yet the competitive moves Dunkin’ Donuts has made over the years in order to compete with Starbucks and surpass McDonald’s has driven competition up between all three companies. The competition has stiffened ever more in the past ten years due to the changing economy. This led to “the big three” to come up with different techniques to gain competitive advantage over the other. Although the competition between these companies is to gain most of the market share, consumers are still loyal to a certain brand; this makes it difficult to gain each other’s clientele. McDonald’s continues to appeal to customers who want value and speed, Dunkin’ Donuts focuses on the middle-class, while Starbucks a customer who desires a higher quality product along with being recognized for using the brand.

This Essay will deal with the Four P’s of marketing as it relates to Folgers Coffee. It will be demonstrated how the marketing function is visible in these four areas. It will also be shown how the coffee giant had lost its lead in market share and then recovered it in the mid 1990’s. We will explore how now that Folgers is being operated by Smuckers, the coffee giant has used some clever marketing schemes.

Marketing is a competitive field that companies outdo each other to make a profit. Café Campesino is a retail-based company that assists farmers to sell their products in a fair and profitable trade. The American coffee industry is that which is on growth with more than 64% of American drinks an average of a cup of coffee a day. The coffee industry just like other agricultural products is affected by a host of factors from climatic variations to fluctuation of prices. This paper seeks to look at Café Campesino's marketing plan in the coffee industry. The paper appreciates the effect

Starbucks Corporation, generally known, as Starbucks Coffee is the leading retailer and a brand of world’s forte coffee in the world, with more than 15,000 retail locations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim, wherever in this world where premium quality coffee is in demand. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with 20737 stores in 63 countries and territories, including 11910 in the United States, 1496 in China, 1442 in Canada, 1052 in Japan and 772 in the United Kingdom. The first Starbucks was open in 1970. The name was inspired from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a definitive American novel regarding the 19th century whaling industry. The nautical name matches seamlessly for a store that imports the world’s finest coffees to the cold thirsty people of Seattle. In May 1998, Starbucks have finally successfully entered the European market through its acquirement of 65 Coffee Company stores initially originated from Seattle in the UK. Both companies shared a common culture, focusing on a great commitment to customized coffee, similar company values and a mutual respect.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR) was founded in 1981 as a small café and combined with Keurig in 2006 (About GMCR, 2004-2009). GMCR produces specialty coffee and coffee makers; Keurig is the maker of a single cup coffee maker as well as specialty teas and coffees. Keurig was founded in 1998 on the concept that one should be able to make coffee one cup at a time rather than one pot at a time (Coffee.org, unknown). Today, GMCR has acquired and merged with several specialty coffee brewers and Keurig

Competition in the Canadian coffee market was intense. More and more new competitors entered into the market, such as some specialty retailers. As the leader of the market, Kraft should consider to adjust its current strategy. The company should not only dominated traditional ground and whole bean coffee segment, but also invested in other niche market, like coffee pods segment.

Costa coffee founded in 1971 in London, UK. Now, it has become the biggest top coffee shop chain in UK. However, Costa should be prepared for danger in times of peace. In this report, some suggestions will be proposed to improve Costa coffee’s marketing mix over the next three years. We begin with a brief description of the data we collected, then go on to analyses coffee shop market environment in UK; the next section looks at Costa coffee’s current statement of marketing mix, and finally we give recommendation of the marketing mix in the next year for Costa Coffee. Section 1 Primary research method Primary data was collected in the form of questionnaire with 15 questions, which was posted on the Internet. Also,

Conscientious capitalism underscores the importance of aligning stakeholders’: employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, community, and the environment, interests into the company's decisions by refocusing on purpose instead of profit, which incidentally results in a successful bottom line (Sacks, 2009). The operating philosophy of conscientious capitalism incorporates three assumptions: interconnectedness, holistic wealth, and traversing time through multiple generations. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) has integrated this ethical continuum into their operational strategy, which has led to their current success.

According to Exhibit 8, the profile of the customers retained had changed. The brand image was not as strong for the newer customers (first visited in the year prior to date of exhibit) as it was for established customers

Starbucks’ lead in the specialty coffee industry exemplifies the result of deftly executing a well-planned business strategy. Moreover, Starbucks is well positioned for what is expected to be a continuing rise in the popularity of specialty coffee products. The question before Starbucks’ leadership, however, is what avenues will lead to Starbucks’ goal of remaining true to its core, the highest quality coffee products while providing a “total coffee experience” for its customers?

As a well-established coffee retailer and over 35 years of success, Starbucks is at the maturity stage in the product life cycle. It is in this stage that Starbucks needs to shift gears and focus on marketing program modifications by increasing the number of customers and customer visits (Kotler, 2009, pg. 185). While improving service will attract first-time customers and retain current ones, further marketing modifications will need to be made if it wants to continue to grow. More advertising, distribution, sales promotions, and personal selling are a few of the ways to modify the marketing program.

In conclusion, the Broadway Café faces a strong buying power and rivalry among competitors due to the large volume of shops offering the same products and services. The threat of new substitute products and alternatives is also high for the same reasons for buyer power. The Café also faces the threat of new entrants due to the lack of insignificant entry barriers. One upside is the relatively weak supplier power. The coffee industry is huge as stated above and vendors are more than ample. With this information we can conceive our business focus. The Broadway Café is best suit for a focused differentiation strategy. We plan to achieve

The context change in form that Starbucks found itself competing with smaller chains that resembled its former pre-expansion model with competitors focusing in creating symbolic-expressive value and fast food restaurants that had started to offer specialty coffee with more aggressive advertisement at a lower cost. The competitive context changed for Starbucks because it’s focus in mass distribution channels and its retail footprint strategy stated its product within a standard performance product value; this affected the value perception of the product.

Off course, they knew the product was great, but it would take a little time people understand the product. So some of the strategic they took; were the markets they will attack first, to understand the coffee consumer, to create a consumer service more personalized, and to create a status on the product.