Promotional Strategies for The Cat Café: A SWOT Analysis

Running Head: Public Relations
tional Activity and
Management)
Essay
System04104
12/4/2018

Public Relations
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Introduction
‘The Cat Café’ is one of the favourite destinations in Singapore for those young and
working people who want to enjoy their free day with a cup of tea and the small cute cats. It
is always a fun and relaxing way of chilling out there and spending sometimes with the small
cute creatures. The location of ‘The Cat Café’ is at Victoria Street in Singapore. ‘The Cat
Café' provides socialize and relax environment to its patrons with premium coffee, pastries,
and a cup of tea. However, it was launched on the 22nd June 2014, and were running well its
business, but from last few years ‘The Cat Café’ is facing problems regarding a heavy decline
in its visitors, because of some rumours and negative news analysis about the other Cat café
in Singapore (Tristram, 2018). Therefore, before analysing the actual problem of the café, it
is essential to analyse the Café on SWOT parameter because it helps us to provide the
different external and internal factors surrounding of the cat café. The SWOT analysis helps
to formulate an effective promotional campaign for the Cat café and display a better
understanding of problems of the Café
SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT analysis helps to understand the overall business and identify the key factors
such as Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). Its strength and weakness
based on internal factors, such as its services and product, how it can gain competitive
advantages over its competitors, or identify its USP (Unique Selling Point). While the
opportunities and threats belong to external factors and help to understand the uncover
opportunities for the organisation in near future and eliminate and minimize the threats which
are posed by the external macro-environmental factors (Khan, 2014).
Strength and Weakness
According to research conducted by Huang, Yeoh, & Toyota (2012), employees and
workers of Singapore are doing their job in the longest working hours in the world. It has
been stated in the above research of the Regus company that more than half of employees of
Singapore working more than eight hours in a day, while one out of five employees working
more than 11 hours in a day (Huang, Yeoh, & Toyota, 2012). If we consider other cat Café in
regards to ‘The Cat Café’, it provides more facilities to its patrons in compare to other cat
café. The Cat Café Singapore facilitates its visitors to interact with Cats with enjoying

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favourite coffee or well-baked pastries, with a cup of tea. This can be considered as its
strength as it provides unique services to its visitors and enjoying their day with small cute
Cats, making one feel relaxed, comfortable, and helping in stress relief of people. Thus, we
can say that ‘The Cat Café' provide relaxation and stress-free environment to the people,
because people are facing stress and anxiety because of the heavy competitive environment in
Singapore and long working hours of job. One another strength of the café is that it is located
in Victoria Street, thus it can target and react out the working class populations because this
area is the focal point of the city and surrounded by large numbers of commercial and
business centres.
However, the weakness of the café lies in its brand awareness among people and
customer awareness. As it was established in 2014, very few people know about it and one
could say that the majority of the general population do not have any idea or information
about its existence and services.
Opportunities and Threats
The Cat Café is the only café in Singapore that provides adoption of cats in the
premises. Its cats were previously adopted by Kittycare Haven, a non-profit shelter, which
provides houses for lost and reckless cats. As the number of Stray cats are more than 60000
in the Singapore, Cats Café convert this social issue into a business opportunity by showing
people that caring of cats is the essence of their well-being and people relaxed with these
small kittens and cats (Channel News Asia, 2016).
Although the major threats for this café have come from some misconception,
negative perception, and fake viral news spread by people about other cat café located in
Singapore, which poses threats for the survival of The Cat Café. For example, according to a
newspaper report in Straits Times by Hussain (2014), blamed on ‘Caddle Cat Café' that their
staff were not trained enough to handle the cats and this could be identified as a serious case
in declining the number of visitors in the Cat Café (Hussain, 2014). People perceive after this
news that they care for cats only because of commercial purpose.
Proposed Solution and Promotional Strategies for ‘The Cat Café’
If we consider the SWOT analysis, we found that the major problem with the Cat
Café is brand awareness and the misconception and negative perception of people about the