Creating a new and exciting brand - Cafe Cadbury A Cadbury Schweppes case study

Introduction

Everyone knows about Cadbury and what it represents. The Cadbury Masterbrand is the flagship for a variety of well known distinctive products including Flake, Dairy Milk, Crunchie and Roses. Each of these products has its own place in the public imagination because we have grown up with them and they have associations for us with events in our personal histories.

Since 1990, Cadbury has developed and implemented an expanding programme of presence marketing as an effective way to promote the Cadbury Masterbrand in the UK. The strategy has been to select high profile sites in theme parks, shopping malls and airports to communicate Cadbury values and increase the availability of products.

This case study examines the creation of a new and exciting brand - Café Cadbury - which shows how detailed thought has been applied to making this a successful venture which extends the Cadbury reputation by providing a high profile presence and by giving consumers even more reasons to choose Cadbury.

The pilot Café Cadbury was opened on 8th October 2000 in an attractive three-storey 18th century Georgian building in the centre of Bath, a busy tourist destination and World Heritage City. The location was carefully chosen to position the new brand as a premium experience for the discerning customer. Café Cadbury is an exciting all day premium café and gift experience also offering a take-out service on the ground floor.

Brand positioning

Brand positioning involves creating a position in the market place for a product. Café Cadbury involves providing consumers with a 3D experience of the brand in which they enjoy a premium offer. Consumers are able to experience the brand in a real physical environment. Café Cadbury provides a warm, contemporary, friendly environment where customers can indulge themselves with Cadbury's chocolate.

To secure this premium position, Cadbury set out to differentiate the experience from coffee shops and chocolate retailers on the high streets or in shopping centres/malls. The total Café Cadbury experience exposes the customer to chocolate indulgence. The emphasis is on chocolate, offering the customer a range of products and experiences they cannot find elsewhere.

The illustration across highlights that the heart of the offer is the chocolate experience delivered within the theatre of a premium café location. Supporting this is a retail offer including chocolates and gifts as well as takeaway products

Brand values

Brand values are those things that a particular brand stands for - eg reliability, quality, etc. In selecting values for Café Cadbury, a prime consideration was to select values which reinforce the message to customers 'choose Cadbury'.

The key values are:

• Premium - A premium catering and shopping experience for indulgent chocolate and non-chocolate products in a quality environment.
• High quality - The best coffee, unique cakes and fresh baguettes.
• Friendly service - Café Cadbury staff are trained to treat customers as guests and to welcome them from the first minute they enter the Café
• Novelty - The emphasis in product development at the Café is on innovation eg. spiced chocolate or a full size chocolate football.
• Celebrating Cadbury Chocolate - A variety of dark chocolate is used, but all of the milk chocolate delivers the real taste of Cadbury's chocolate.
• Adult appeal - The emphasis is on catering for adult taste, but because children love Cadbury's chocolate they are also provided for with a children's meal packed in a Yowie gift box.
• Relaxing - The Café provides a relaxing atmosphere as a result of the friendly service, the interior decoration and general ambience.
• Contemporary - The design and atmosphere of the Café is modern, innovative and dynamic.

Delivering business objectives

In carrying out any business strategy it is first necessary to create a set of objectives to provide a clear direction and to monitor success over time.

Four objectives were established in setting up Café Cadbury. These were:

1. to communicate Cadbury's Master-brand values, projecting a modern and relevant image
2. to change public perceptions by associating Cadbury with premium 'special' chocolate as well as everyday products
3. to reduce Cadbury's dependence on traditional retail channels by developing alternative routes to market
4. to generate incremental income.



A number of measures were chosen to track performance in meeting these objectives:

• the number of customers who walk through the door
• the number of diners
• the media value of the site
• quantified attitude measurements for Café Cadbury customers and the local population to assess perceptions of the Cadbury's Masterbrand.

Cadbury Schweppes | Creating a new and exciting brand - Cafe Cadbury

The target market

It is essential to have a clear picture of the type of people that make up your core target market. Armed with this information you can then select how to best reach and appeal to this market.



Following Cadbury's research into the Gifting market, the company analysed market research into the coffee bar and cafémarkets. Cadbury's then carried out its own research which confirmed that the café concept would particularly attract ABC1 women aged 25-45. This research has been confirmed by experience.

Currently, 75 per cent of customers are female and 74 per cent of customers are ABC1.

Cadbury Schweppes | Creating a new and exciting brand - Cafe Cadbury

Choosing the right location

Knowing the target market, Cadbury was then able to research the right locations to attract 25-45 year old females with high disposable incomes who were regular café users.

In addition, it was necessary to take into account a number of business and practical criteria the location must have:

• a prime site location in the main shopping area of a city with 100,000 people and an upmarket populative mix
• a double shop frontage for maximum visibility
• a high number of shoppers all year round - average weekly footfall of 50,000, peaking 5,000 per hour during the week and 10,000 per hour on Saturdays
• a size between 2,000 and 2,500 square feet
• planning permission for catering and retailing.

The building required a prestigious location and character to support the luxury and indulgence of the experience.

Getting this right was vital because retailing and catering support each other, for example:

• the customer's experience of high quality, indulgent catering reinforces the premium image of the retail products they buy
• restaurant-quality cakes and chocolates can be sold at higher prices in this atmosphere
• when customers try products in the café's seating area or Cadbury Lounge, they may wish to buy them as gifts and take home purchases.

Cadbury's aim is for customers to aspire to eat and shop in Café Cadbury, so the view of the shop frontage is important. A double frontage is ideal so that people can see, at a glance from the street, the range of products and services by looking in. Outside seating also draws attention to the food and drink offer.

Design guidelines

Design is always important. The design of Café Cadbury seeks to make sure that customers enjoy a unique, shopping and catering experience as they make their journey around it from entrance to departure. Efficient links between back of house facilities, support and the front of house are needed to service the needs of customers.

Once the customer enters the retail area, the counter and its displays are clearly visible serving both the retail and takeaway products. The counter is designed to appeal to adults and is sophisticated and modern, made of warm cherry timber and trimmed in clean stainless steel. As the customer walks over the timber floor, their footsteps add to the hard-edged, busy sound in this part of the Café Cadbury. The customer moves on to browse the retail display fixtures. These show premium chocolate and non-chocolate offers.

From the retail area, clear signage encourages a visit to the café area upstairs. A recording of café noise is played at the foot of the stairs to reassure customers that there is activity on the first floor. A range of music plays in the café including jazz and soul to reflect the tastes of the target market.

At the counter the customers choose from a tempting range of cakes, savoury food, ice- cream and drinks, served by friendly employees. Most customers stay in the café area for 15-20 minutes.

When the customer wants an even more indulgent experience, signal points are to the lounge area. The furniture is the strongest demonstration of the lounge's distinctive identity. A combination of the soft chairs and low tables creates a special, related feeling of being in someone's lounge at home.

When the customer leaves Café Cadbury, their purchases are packed

Corporate identity

As a flagship for the Cadbury Masterbrand the interior and exterior of the Cafés are designed to communicate the brand's distinctiveness, that it is part of the Cadbury family.

The Café Cadbury corporate identityis made up of three related design elements:

• Cadbury's Masterbrand
• Café Cadbury logo, colour palette, typographic style and image palette
• Café Cadbury icons which help to illustrate and signpost the total offer.

These design elements are used carefully within the café environment to provide a strong and consistent image.

Positioning the brand

Everything about the café needs to reflect the requirements of the target market. For example, the menus are carefully tailored to the requirements of the target audience at different times of the day. The savoury menu contains freshly baked baguettes with innovative fillings and hot panini. The cake menu includes a range of fresh cakes and there is a wide choice of ice-creams all served with Cadbury's chocolate.

There are all sorts of categories of retail products including:

• Traditional/familiar eg Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Roses and Milk Tray
• Chocolate experience eg liquid chocolate fondue and truffles
• Indulgence/gifting eg champagne hearts
• Self-eat eg fudge ranges and ice-creams
• Novelty/kids eg full size chocolate footballs.

Prices charged in Café Cadbury are slightly higher than in coffee shops like Starbucks to reflect the premium positioning of the brand.

Operating Café Cadbury

Café Cadbury is not run by Cadbury. Instead Cadbury pays a fee to an independent operator to run and staff Café Cadbury.

This means that Cadbury are able to control the quality of the café without being drawn into the day-to-day operation. An Operator's Agreement was drawn up which includes the performance criteria which guarantees that the café will meet with the objectives established by Cadbury.

Conclusion

Cadbury is one of the best known brands in the world today. It is a brand which is associated with high levels of quality and customer satisfaction.

The ongoing growth of Café Cadbury provides a flagship that further helps to enhance the reputation of the Cadbury Masterbrand. At the same time, it provides customers with the opportunity to indulge themselves in the enjoyment of high quality products in a welcoming environment.

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