Marketing Management Report: Foodpanda's Competitive Advantage

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Foodpanda's marketing management, focusing on its strategies for gaining a competitive advantage in the global market. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of effective marketing tools and market analysis for Foodpanda's success. The report delves into Foodpanda's target market, primarily young, tech-savvy individuals and office workers, and its current market position, emphasizing its strong presence in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The marketing objectives, including revenue targets and market share goals, are clearly outlined. The core of the report examines the marketing promotion plans, including collaborations with restaurants and payment gateways, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media content strategies, influencer marketing, online reputation management, and advertising on Google and social media platforms. Each strategy is discussed in detail, with specific recommendations for entering and succeeding in the Australian market. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and recommendations for Foodpanda's continued growth and market dominance.

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Marketing Management
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Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to highlight that how using specific marketing tools the
management of Foodpanda can gain a competitive advantage in the global market. It is seen that
by implementing effective marketing tools and by analyzing their position in the market, the
management of Foodpanda can determine their exact position in the global market and that
would help them to strategize their upcoming activities to capture the majority portion of the
market.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Target market...................................................................................................................................4
Current market position...................................................................................................................4
Marketing Objectives.......................................................................................................................5
Market promotion plans...................................................................................................................5
Current Value Analysis....................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
In recent global market Foodpanda has gained a huge popularity being a reputed global
mobile food delivery organization. The business organization is currently headquartered at
Berlin, Germany and operates in more than 22 countries throughout the world. As stated by
Parker, Van Alstyne and Choudary (2016), the business organizations provide their users the
freedom to choose local restaurants and order food via their application that runs on any types of
smart phones. The business organization currently has collaborated with more than 27000
restaurants throughout the world and still counting more and the management of the business
organization has recruited more than 16000 people for delivering products. The organization was
founded by Benjamin Bauer, Ralf Wenzel and Felix Plog in the year of 2012 and subsequently
the business of Foodpanda expanded into the global market acquiring the most of the service
industry related to the delivery of food. Foodpanda gets orders from the target customers via
their mobile applications and websites and forwards the orders to the concerned restaurants.
Then the organization sends people to pick up the order and delivers to the customers, this is the
way how the business of Foodpanda runs. According to See-Kwong et al. (2017), In the web
pages of the restaurants Foodpanda has a review section where the customers can give their
feedbacks so that the management of the organization can improve in concerned areas. Currently
the management of Foodpanda wants to acquire the majority portion of the market of operation
eliminating threat of rivalries from the rival organizations. Thus, the management of Foodpanda
needs to ensure a great and effective marketing plan to increase the sales numbers of the
organization. This report will discuss the targeted market of the organization and its current
position in the market along with discussing its objectives and the marketing promotion plan.

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Target market
The target customers of Foodpanda are the young generation who are techsavy and wants
enjoys meals from different types of restaurants nearby. According to See-Kwong et al. (2017), it
is seen that the management of the business organization wants to make sure that they can attract
the attention of the young crowd. Apart from that the target customers of the management are the
office goers who on a regular basis order food in their workplace and in most cases Foodpanda
gets a huge order as it are most likely that in workplace at least more than one people order food
at a time. As stated by Parker, Van Alstyne and Choudary (2016) it is also seen that the
management of Foodpanda wants to attain the trust of elder individuals who does not want to
visit stores to get food; and nowadays they are getting inclined towards to attract this older
population.
Current market position
Currently Foodpanda has a huge customer base in the global market. It is seen that the
management of the organization has immense popularity in the global market and they are
operating in the market of Asia, Europe, Latin America and Middle East. The organization
Foodpanda currently acquires the majority of the market leaving behind competitors like Tiny
Owl, Just eat, Zomato, Swiggy and many more. According to Ahmed and Ahmed (2016), the
management of the organization aims to grab the majority of the market to eliminate the rivalries
in the market. Competition is huge in the market of operation of Foodpanda and the management
needs to have appropriate marketing plan if they want to sustain their business and the growth of
the business for a longer period of time.

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Marketing Objectives
The objectives of this market promotion plan are:
 The delivery segment will lead to gain the major revenues by the year 2019 and it is
expected that the organization will start gaining profits from the new market.
 Foodpanda is also expected to engage itself in the Australian domestic and retail market,
so that it can occupy around twenty percent of the online delivery market.
 Earn around $40 million by the end of 2020.
 By the end of 2018, the company is also expected to capture around 15 percent of the
entire food delivery market in Australia.
Market promotion plans
Foodpanda has around 2 million followers on social media sites. As stated by Parker, Van
Alstyne and Choudary (2016), has indicated that the brand has set itself apart from the
competitors in the global market and gained a competitive edge in every country by customizing
itself according to the targeted customer base and specific customers in each country. Foodpanda
has always set its marketing plan in accordance with specific countries. This marketing plan has
targeted the Australian market of online food delivery. Entering this new market can be difficult
for the organization; therefore the brand requires a well-structured marketing and promotional
strategy.
As the target customers of the organization are those who are more inclined to try various
numbers of new restaurants and access several new cuisines, Foodpanda mostly targets the
young population in the country. According to Hamid and Khalid (2016), it provides an easy
access to the regular needs for the young population by providing inexpensive food at home. In

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order to enter the Australian market, the company can use several marketing promotional
strategies. The major strategies to follow will be:
Collaborations with various organizations
In order to enter the food delivery market, the first job will be to collaborate with a wide
range of local restaurants in the country. As the restaurants would want to increase their
customer traffic, they will be more than interested to tie up with a brand like foodpanda. As per
Carovillano (2016), the organization can also tie up with the grocery stores in order to attract
more customers and increase the net revenue. Foodpanda can also collaborate with the payment
gateways and increase their payment partners and provide cash-back offers.
Email marketing strategy
Email marketing strategy is one of the major marketing promotional strategies in the
contemporary business world. It helps the organization in building relationships with the
customers, not only the existing ones, but it also helps building direct relationships with potential
customer base as well. Habib (2015) opined that, Foodpanda can come up with several email
marketing campaigns that will satisfy more than one objective of their promotional plan.
According to Ahmed and Ahmed (2016), the emails can be sent to the customers for notifying
them regarding their order delivery or providing them new offers. It can also inform them about
the newest features and offers of foodpanda. Therefore, this will eventually help the organization
to foster the sales and drive the traffic to the official website, mobile application and further
increase the customer engagement.

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Search Engine Optimization Strategy
This is an integral feature of the digital marketing strategies all over the world. This
strategy helps the rankings of search engines on the result pages of the search engine. If a brand
wants to rank high and increase the customer involvement, it is quite significant for them to find
a good strategy for search engine optimization. As per Singla & Apoorv, (2015), a considerably
good search engine optimization strategy involves significant and satisfying attributes such as
catchy keywords, H2 tags, social media integration, back links etc. In most of the case, the
experts have identified that the search engine content analysis of foodpanda does not contain H2
tags which are a major way of communication to the search engine and inform the customers
regarding the content of the page. Along with that, it has also been found out that the back links
are not enough for the website of the brand. As stated by Parker, Van Alstyne and Choudary
(2016), if the organization can increase the number of good quality back links, it will help to
define the credibility of the domain and improve the ranking of the website. Therefore, the
marketing promotional plan of foodpanda should include more good quality back links and H2
tags for performing better with the search engine optimization content.
Social media content strategy and media campaign
Within a very short span of time, foodpanda has become one of the most popular brands
in the food delivery market. The brand has around two million followers on social media.
Foodpanda has always been one of the exceptional services all over the world, along with its
outstanding social media strategies; it has made its way through the new markets. According to
Hamid and Khalid (2016), therefore, it is necessary to understand that the social media strategies
and food delivery services are closely related. With the local and international competitors in the

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market, the organization should come up with different social media campaigns which will make
the customers engaging extremely with the brand; therefore it makes it easier to have the
interactive sessions with the customers. There should be highly appealing posts on social media
websites. The contents should be of good quality and based on simple humor. Habib (2015)
opined that, Foodpanda can start social media campaigns with catchy and appealing hashtags.
With such campaign, the brand can convey different agendas. For instance, with the hashtag
#eattheveggies, they can promote healthy eating habits along with communicating with their
target customers through healthy humors and puns.
Other than the social media strategy, the organization should also have a well-structured
content strategy, as it also plays a major role for increasing the online reputation of the brand.
Foodpanda can create different kinds of contents such as videos on different recipes or topics
related to food, blogs on famous bars and restaurants. As per Carovillano (2016), they can also
write blogs on making money through food photography and food blogging. These contents are
quite easier for consuming and relevant to the target customer base of the brand. The young
population will love this specific idea and it will be easier to communicate with them.
Influencer Marketing Strategy
This is another strategy that can be looked up to, as this is one of the newest strategies in
the market. There are several brands in the markets that approach the influencers for marketing
their products due to their existing power for creating a long lasting impact on the target
audience. According to Ahmed and Ahmed (2016), there are several famous food bloggers and
food photographers all over the Australian territory. Foodpanda can collaborate with these
influencers and can promote itself to a broader customer segment.

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Online reputation management
This is another promotional marketing strategy that can define the credibility and
authority of the brand. It also helps the management to monitor the online image of Foodpanda.
The exceptional service of foodpanda helps gaining positive ratings and reviews on the social
media websites. According to Hamid and Khalid (2016), the brand should make its online
reputation management better to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Foodpanda can
collaborate with the famous websites such as Tripadvisor or Huffington Post so that they can
reach more customers and create an authentic online image.
Advertising on Google and social media
There is always provision for paid advertisements. The brand already pays a large amount
of money for advertising on facebook. However, to reach more audience and increase the traffic
on the websites and mobile applications, they can run carousel advertisements in order to
showcase the services they provide or offer coupon codes and discounts (Ahmed & Ahmed,
2016). These advertisements will help the brand to secure a position in the new market.
Current Value Analysis
Foodpanda was launched in the year 2012 in Singapore and within a span of few years
the brand is now operating in more than forty countries across different continents. Habib (2015)
opined that, the company has been expanding in an aggressive way in different cities with a wide
network of more than ten thousand restaurants. Within the third year of its active operations, the
brand had a turnover that indicated a 98.37% growth from the last year revenues of the company.

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The employee cost is the most significant cost like any other food delivery companies. As per
Carovillano (2016), The expense of employees explains around sixteen per cent of the entire
sales cost. The surplus and reserves tend to stand at the level of around 20 million which
provides the financial backbone of the company. According to the financial experts, the brand
has also managed the leverage ratios as the organization has nt served any outside debts. The
burn rate of the financial year 2016-17 of Foodpanda stays at around 30 million (Singla &
Apoorv, 2015). This is quite high as compared to the reserves and cash of the company.
However the company has also lost millions of dollars in the last few years, it has been
successful to keep the financial backbone of the organization strong.
Conclusion
Thus to conclude, it can be said that the management of Foodpanda has effectively
implemented some marketing tools like search engine optimization, social media marketing,
word of mouth publicity by celebrities, email marketing strategy and many more to ensure the
organization’s profitability. The management of Foodpanda wants to capture the majority of the
market of operation and thus they have come up with a strong marketing plan in order to satisfy
the objective of the organization. Foodpanda is currently one of the leading companies in this
food delivery industry and aims to sustain their growth in near future. It is seen that the
management of the organization has somehow raised a sum of 318 million US dollars as capital
of the organization and are making further investments so that they do not face any financial
problems in the business operations. This report discusses all the marketing plans that the
management of Foodpanda had opted for and shows how these plans can effectively influence
the productivity along with the profitability of the business organization. It is seen how the rival
organizations of Foodpanda who are operating in the same market have used marketing tools to

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improve their reputation in the market and they have rightly established their business. Now the
most vital task is to make a brand value of Foodpanda in order to get the competitive advantage
in the global market.