Excerpt
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
About the Company
Situation Analysis
SWOT Analysis of Cinnabon
Marketing Goals
Marketing Objectives
Marketing Strategy
Marketing Implementation
Evaluation and Control
References
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Presence of a well-designed marketing plan holds a pivotal position for the success of any product or service supplied in the market. It entails all the necessary arrangements ranging from the 4 Ps of marketing management to overall management of the products involved. The paper tends to bring forward the goals and objectives of marketing for the company, while also analyze the overall marketing strategy of the company. Nevertheless, coming up with a well-structured marketing plan is a way more challenging job, which is easier said than done. It can be considered as the backbone of profit making for any business, and ensures its long-term survival within a market. With the simultaneous transitions in global business practices, market trends, consumer behavior and Information and Communication Technology, survival in within a highly competitive market is becoming more and more difficult. In order to cope with these rising challenges, scholars and researchers have devised several analytical tools that enable a great deal in establishing a profit-yielding marketing plan.
This marketing plan has been developed for the Cinnabon Company’s signature Cinnamon Rolls. It tends to bring forward the marketing strategies, underlying problems and their potential solutions for the product. It aims at establishing a comprehensive marketing plan for the company, whereby a complete situation analysis is conducted which is followed by the determination and identification of the company’s marketing goals and objectives; and the difference between the two from the perspective of Cinnabon Inc.
Furthermore, the paper highlights the company’s key strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, while elaborating its marketing mix and position statement.
About the Company
Cinnabon is a private limited company headquartered at Atlanta Georgia, United States, founded in the year 1985 by Kat Cole. It specializes in the production and retail of American baked goods and is generally located in the vicinities with high volumes of traffic. The company inaugurated for the very first time in Federal Way, Washington on 4th of December, 1985 in the Sea Tac mall. The primary motive of the company was to provide customers with the best cinnamon rolls in the world, which is why the company hired Jerilyn Brusseau who finally came up with the recipe that made the company earn a global repute. The company was purchased by AFC enterprises for 65 million dollars in 1998, while it was sold to the Focus Brands Group in the year 2004 for a price of 30.3 million US dollars.
Today Cinnabon works a chain of more than 770 franchised prepared merchandise outlets well-known for their cinnamon rolls. Other than the United States, the company’s prominent outlet locations include Pakistan, Cyprus, Canada and Cairo. The eateries, found generally in shopping territories, airplane terminals, and other high-activity areas, likewise serve pecan moves, finger-accommodating Cinnabon Stix, and smaller rolls called Cinnabon Bites, alongside an assortment of enhanced espresso beverages and different drinks. The Cinnabon chain has stations all through the United States and in more than 40 different nations. It is a piece of FOCUS Brands, a multi-idea restaurant franchisor and offshoot of private limited firm Roark Capital Group. The key line of products of the Cinnabon company have largely been divided into three categories – food, beverages and CinnaPacks – that are further divided into subcategories as follows;
- Foods: Cinnabon Classic, Caramel Pecanbon, Minibon, Minibites / cinnabites, Chocobon, Cinnabon Stix, Churro, CinnaPretzel, Center of the Roll
- Beverages: MochaLatta Chilli, Lemonade, Chillatta, Lemonatta, Raspberry Lemonade and Cinnabon Vodka
- CinnaPacks: These include pre-packaged take-away boxes with cinnamon rolls
Situation Analysis
Operating in the restaurants and food-service industry means firms face almost similar challenges in the market, and encompass almost similar characteristics (Spencer, n.d). Firms in this industry operate on easily understandable business models. However, there are various unique factors that contribute to the restaurant industry that can be segregated in terms of the following;
Internal Environment Analysis
Analysts and managers are broadly found to misinterpret the meaning of internal environment analysis; taking into account only the factors present within the company, within the country it operates and within the culture it operates only. In order to conduct a comprehensive internal environment analysis of a company, there is a need to analyze it from a global mindset. By a global-context, it means the ability of firms to analyze the internal environments in ways that do not restrict the analysis to a single culture, country or context, rather extend it to a more diverse analysis. The advantage of having a global-mindset while making an internal environment analysis is the fact that it enables the companies to acknowledge the need to have capabilities, capacities and resources to prepare for an affirmative response to the competitive situations that underlie (Hitt, Duane & Hoskisson, 2007). Moreover, it is essential to examine and evaluate the company’s portfolio of resources and the readiness of the heterogeneous resources created by the company officials. From the internal perspectives, companies are usually found struggling with the brand recognition for their products (Mplans, 2014). This is generally because of the fact that their products fail to attain enough visibility across the various regions. Moreover, restaurant and food services pertain to a growing market where there exists a need to promote the products such that the entire target market is aware of the products. Another key contributor of the industry in terms of internal environment is the presence of a strong distribution network. Companies that have a strong distribution network perform more efficiently, and are able to fulfill the rising demands accordingly.
The analysis of internal environment assists the companies and firms in creating value. It does so by enabling firms to identify their core competencies or competitive advantages and exploiting them so as to rise up to the challenging standards of global competitors.
The Challenge of Internal Environment Analysis
The biggest and most pertinent challenge to the analysis of the internal environment is the fact that majority of the firms fail to conduct an effective decision making process. This is because of a wrongly applied internal analysis of the firm; implying that either the managers have identified the wrong core competencies which do not lead to a competitive advantage, or the managers have not identified the core competencies at all. While a majority of these errors are not intentional, the core reason behind such errors is the situation of uncertainty facing the managers in terms of technological advancements, variations and economic and political trends, customer demand shifts and transformation in social values or demographics of the target market.
Secondly, environmental uncertainty creates a great deal of complexity in the factors that need to be analyzed as a part of the internal environment, consequently resulting in an ineffective internal environment analysis. Finally, the intra-organizational conflicts also act as a major challenge in the analysis of the internal environment of a firm.
Customer Environment Analysis
Customer environment in itself is a major component of a company’s operating environment (Fleisher & Benoussan, 2007). Analysis of the customer environment can be considered as a part of the plan design phase, or the business model design phase. It calls for the description of the customer scenario; defining the main and potential customers of the business model and describing the customers’ activities scenario i.e. the consumer buying behavior (Gervasi, 2005). This analysis also involves a thorough evaluation of the buyer’s decision making process. There exists a high level of differentiation among the various products offered in the food-services sector because of the prevalence of a wide variety of product offerings, and changing customer tastes and trends in the market. Cinnabon’s main customers are the people who utilize the busy transits, airports or visit shopping malls and other busy locations, while its potential customers are those outside its current market presence. The customers belong to a mixed context of incomes, occupations and ages and do not have any specific differentiation because of the nature and affordability of Cinnabon’s products.
Snacks have become one of the most vastly consumed products across the globe, particularly because of the busy schedules of people and their hassle-free usage. These are preferred by individuals at the office, or on their commutes to a business deal, or may be even on their way home. People tend to buy bakery items for their friends and family on a frequent basis. While many customers might stay loyal to a brand like Cinabbon for the quality and taste of its products offered, others might switch to substitutes just as a status symbol. Products in this sector are not usually very high-priced; hence customers show a minimum differentiation on the basis of price. The company’s CinnaPacks product has been specifically designed to cater to such individuals, and to those who are short of time in general because of their hectic routines.
External Environment Analysis
An external environment can be explained as a set of conditions outside the organization that affect its performance. It is basically divided into three major segments; general environment, industry environment and the competitor environment (Duane, Hoskisson & Hitt, 2009). The external environment analysis can very well be used to gather information that would be adequate to formulate a marketing strategy. For instance, it allows firms to understand and decide whether to capitalize a particular opportunity or to refrain from it so as to avoid any underlying damages. When talking about the external environment, one can never ignore the significance of competition. The restaurant and food-services industry has a highly saturated market in the United States, as well as in many other regions of the world. This implies that there exists a high level of competition within the market, making survival difficult for the companies. Another major concern is the possibility of a new-entry in the market due to easy business operations in this sector and low barriers to entry. Local, small scale brands can be introduced in the market very easily, while they can dominate the market with the least amounts of efforts if they have a well-planned marketing strategy in place.
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