Hospitality Marketing Report: Costa Coffee London Marketing Plan

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Costa Coffee London's marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to the role of marketing and its interrelation with other functional departments within a company, focusing on the finance, production, human resources, and research & development departments. The report then delves into the 7Ps of the marketing mix, comparing Costa Coffee London with Starbucks across product, price, place, process, people, and physical evidence, and promotion. Finally, the report develops a marketing plan for Costa Coffee London, outlining the company's vision, mission, marketing objectives, and the application of the STP approach, including segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies. The report concludes with a discussion of the findings and recommendations for enhancing Costa Coffee London's marketing efforts.

Hospitality Marketing
Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................1
Role of marketing and its interrelation to other functional departments in a company..............1
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................3
Marketing Mix of Company with help of 7Ps............................................................................3
ACTIVITY 3....................................................................................................................................5
Development of a Marketing Plan for Costa Coffee London.....................................................5
CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................10
Books & Journal............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a function which is among most important function of companies. This is
the function which is very important for companies to perform their marketing function with
appropriate research and planning. As this function affects all other functions of company.
Hospitality is a very wide concept and this is present in various different industries such as food,
transportation, lodging etc. this report Costa Coffee London has been selected as a base
company. This brand was founded in 1971, in London. Since then it has successfully able to
expand it in 31 countries and have presence of 17,412 employees. This report consists of roles of
marketing functions in a company in inter-relation with other functional departments of
company. Marketing mix of Costa Coffee London and then marketing plan is developed which
can help cost coffee in conducting their marketing functions in more effective way.
ACTIVITY 1
Role of marketing and its interrelation to other functional departments in a company
Role of marketing:
 Marketing and finance: Marketing department is related to finance department of
company such that this department has to coordinate with marketing department of
company to monitor and analyse trends of business prevailing in market. There must be
proper coordination maintained between these two departments of company. In Costa
Coffee London, marketing department is required to undertake various campaigns and
promotional activities to promote their products. Here, comes the role of finance
department that they carefully analyse budget required by marketing department for these
campaigns.
There is always an attempt by finance department to use cost effective techniques in company's
operations. So, whenever company is planning a campaign they have to contact with finance
department and plan budget only after that they are able to plan their operations(Pricilla, 2019). Marketing and production:Marketing and production department is related in a way that
production department of a company want to maximize their effectiveness in amount of
production they are doing. There is also a effort to minimize inventory as excessive
inventory leads to increase in cost for company(SHUKLA, 2016). Marketing department
is actually in touch with external market so, they can forecast amount of sales and in
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accordance to this production department can plan quantity of their production. In Costa
Coffee London also, marketing department will properly coordinate with production
department so that adequate and effective planning can be done by company.
 Marketing and Human resource:Marketing and human resource department are always
related to each other, when a person is trying to attract profitable customers to increase
their sales. Costa Coffee London is a big brand of coffee and they believe in providing
best products to their customers, for this they need to attract competent people who are
able to work up to a level required by Costa in its operations.
Marketing department is interrelated to human resource department in a way that through
marketing activities company will be able to analyse the needs of type of employees in their
company. According to requirements human resource department will prepare job description
and job specification. These all activities will help in forecasting the requirements and further
hiring & selection process takes place.
 Marketing and Research & development: Research and development department is
responsible for generation of new ideas, creative products and innovations in company.
This department is always driven by concept of marketing. Needs of their prospective
customers are identified and then according to that further marketing strategies are
formed. Manufacturing process of a company must always be researched and then
according to decisions on aspects of marketing mix have to be made(Puddle, 2015).
In concern with Costa Coffee London company makes attempts to do adequate research of their
target market and then according to those outcomes and results of research marketing strategies
of costa are decided by company. Costa Coffee London focuses on millennial age group who are
between 15-45 years of age, this necessitates need of innovation as this generation is attracted
towards brands which offer something different and unique. Marketing is a function which leads
to attracting more customers for this they need new innovations, which can be provided by
research and development department of Costa Coffee London(Simkin and Dibb, 2013).
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ACTIVITY 2
Marketing Mix of Company with help of 7Ps
Marketing Mix is a tool which is used by companies to analyse their brand, based on
various different aspects. 7Ps of Marketing mix includes seven aspects such as Price, product,
place, promotion, people, physical evidence. Analysis of these 7 P's help company in analysing
them and then they can form their strategies of marketing. This actually helps them in making
strategies related to pricing, distribution and advertising for companies.
Basis Costa Coffee London Star Bucks
Product Costa Coffee London deals
with coffee as their core
product. They offer lot of
varieties and flavours in
coffee. Most famous products
are coffee cream, Lemonade,
Mocha cream and many
other(Pike, 2015).
Star bucks believes in
providing unforgettable
experience to its customers in
terms of its products. They use
dark coffee and whole bean
from places such as Sumatra,
Kenya, Costa Rica & Ethiopia.
These all made its products
different from other brands
offering similar products.
Price They have a diverse pricing
strategy, Costa Coffee London
has a belief that price is not a
matter of concern for their
prospective customers instead
they prefer taste and quality of
their products.
Starbucks tries to price their
products in accordance with
value they are providing. They
want to equal value received
by their customers and price
paid by them.
Place Costa Coffee London has 3300
outlets which are present in
approx 31 countries. 1200
outlets are present across
borders. They mainly target
Starbucks uses direct supply
chain strategy for distribution
of its products. They have
chains present all over world.
Which leads to increase in its
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upper class and upper middle
class of society. They believe
in modification of their
products according to country
in which they are operating,
this leads to higher
customization and increase in
liking of its products(Nirschl
and Steinberg, 2018).
brand image in different parts
of world. When a company is
having Wide presence, People
are able to recognize it and this
leads to increase in their
productivity.
Process Costa Coffee London believes
in providing best quality
products and they want to
have uniqueness in terms of
freshness of their products for
this they use a process to
ensure that freshly made
products along with minimum
time usage is being delivered
to its customers.
Each process of business in
Starbucks has a process. For
example in case of customer
service, interaction of brand
with customer begins when
they enter a outlet and they
receive greeting, further order
will be placed and payment is
done. This is way various
process takes place in
Starbucks.
People Costa Coffee London focuses
on its customers and
employees in a way that they
train their staff to make them
highly professional & ensure
politeness in their
behaviour(Muralidharan and
Raval, 2017). Their employees
always interact with their
customers in regional language
Starbucks has a large
workforce. It is planning to do
recruitment of 240,000 people
by 2021. This means that they
have huge workforce. People
are core of this process of
marketing mix in Starbucks so
they always encourage their
employees and keep them
motivated so that they can
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with English as their base
language. People as strategy of
marketing mix have been very
important in success of Costa
Coffee London.
work to increase productivity
of their functions.
Promotion Costa Coffee London is a
brand which does not uses
print media or electronic
media, instead it focuses on
using samples as their
promotional strategy to attract
customers and get their
feedback(Steven, 2016).
Starbucks do not invest much
in advertisement. In 2007, they
had a investment of only 16.6
million dollars. They spend
extra money on acquisition and
finding out of places for
opening their outlets.
Physical evidence Costa Coffee London believes
in providing best experience to
their customers in their stores,
in terms of relaxing colour,
warm welcome by their staff,
comfortable sitting area,
unique taste and many more
such features.
Physical evidence in Starbucks
is not limited to their physical
stores or coffee cups, but they
have a unique strategy in
which they try to make every
store more customized
according to local culture of
that place.
ACTIVITY 3
Development of a Marketing Plan for Costa Coffee London
Marketing plan basically denotes to a document which marketing department of company
makes. Main aim of this plan is to focus on increasing overall sales of company, this plan is
made for a specific period of time and it covers some aspects of marketing such as goal,
objectives and actions. Main aim of this plan is to guide employees in company to achieve
success in achieving goals set by company(Larson and Draper, 201).
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Company overview: Costa Coffee London is one of largest coffee chains of UK, there are
around 2000 restaurants and approx 6000 vending machines present all over world. Major
competitors of Costa are Nero, Starbucks and coffee republic.
Vision: Costa Coffee London has a vision that it wants to become best hospitality
company in terms of hotel, restaurant, clubs which is highly preferred by people of UK and they
want to become leader in market.
Mission: Costa Coffee London has a mission set in their mind that they want to save this
world from mediocre taste of coffee.
Marketing objective: Main objective of Costa Coffee London is to seize market of
foreign students and wants to expand their category of products.. They find that teenagers and
students can be their major target customers for this company is willing to design marketing
strategies so that company can get successful in this goal(Boschetti and Massaron, 2015).
STP approach: STP approach emphasises on a strategy that best way of identifying
segments or customer groups is that posses similar requirements and needs.
Segmentation: Demographic segmentation is done by Costa in which they try to segment market
based on characteristics of their target population. Three main factors which Costa Coffee
London uses to segment its market is age, professional level and social class. They try to divide
their potential customers into various age groups and then according to that they decide on
flavour and various coffee choices. Costa does behavioural segmentation in this they segment
market based on people's preferences for coffee.(Lane, 2016).
Targeting: Costa Coffee London is targeting to capture half of UK whole market in future, they
are planning to develop a model which can help them in capturing whole UK's market. Costa
Coffee London has a biggest strength in targeting of market is that they have a policy that they
try to cater needs of all segment which they have formed. They don't use a concentration strategy
as they feel that it can become risky for company to just focus on one segment, as they might
loose control over other market. This will lead to competitors getting advantage. They are
involved in development of different types of marketing mix for various market segments. Costa
Coffee London also believes that targeting upper class of customers is more profitable for
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company because this is the class which is brand conscious and they are ready to pay price if
they perceive value and quality from a product.
Positioning: Costa Coffee London has successfully launched various advertising campaign to
position themselves in mind of their customers. This advertisement focussed on way coffee is
made perfect by Costa. They showed on this advertisement that a perfect coffee can only be
created by their passionate and highly trained employees of Costa. Main motive of this
advertisement was that Costa wanted to build a position different from its other
competitors(Griffitts, 2016).
SWOT analysis: SWOT analysis is a useful tool to analyse company's strength, weakness
opportunities and threats. Below mentioned table
Strength Weakness
 Costa is one of largest coffee chains of
UL and it has highest turnover
 It has large customer base and biggest
strength is that it is a very popular
brand
 Costa adopts a strategy of member ship
sales, which aims at having large
margins of profit.
 They target upper class people of
society and their brand symbolises to
luxury and excellence this has helped
Starbucks to keep prices of their
products high and increase their profit
percentage.
 Company has various attractive
launches such as coffee club cards
which leads to innovation and helps
 It is having a single product line only
there store layout in comparison with their
competitors may be weak sometimes.
 Other competitors of Costa Coffee
London such as Starbucks are also
giving a competition to them in terms
of experience they are providing to
their customers.
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company in tracking their customers.,
Opportunities Threats
 Coffee has become very famous
moreover it has become a trend for
coffee drinkers which provides a large
segment of prospective customers for
Costa.
 New development in technologies can
be used by Costa Coffee London in
increasing quality of their coffee band
also make certain improvements in
roasting process of coffee beans which
can enhance their coffee's taste.
 Carbonated drinks are also getting very
popular among teenagers in countries.
 New developments in technology must
be quickly adopted by company so that
they are able to survive in this
competitive market.
Financial Budget:Marketing plan is developed and then it is always approved by top
management of company(Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2018). Also, other functional
departments play a role in this process of approval. It is responsibility of marketer to develop this
plan and then final approval is made. In this marketing which is developed above there will be
approx £1.6 million required to implement this plan. Finance department and marketing
department must together coordinate at this stage. They must mutually agree to a budget which is
feasible for company and at same time is enough in smooth running of marketing activities of
company.
Monitoring and control:From above discussed marketing strategy Costa Coffee London
can easily build a database of their target customers, which is most simple way to manage data of
their customers. Every marketing plan prepared by companies may not always generate results
for which it was actually formed. It is responsibility of marketers to monitor all activities of this
marketing plan. This will help in keeping a check whether set goals of this plan have been
achieved or not. In cases when company is not successful then loopholes must be identified so
that they preventive measures can be taken from from future point of view. In this function
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analysis is conducted on basis of budget, resources, time, activities and risk of overall marketing
plan of company(Baker and Saren, 2016).
CONCLUSION
Above report deals with marketing essentials of companies which are present in hospitality
sector, there are various conclusions which can be made based on this report. Marketing is most
essential and key factor which affects all different functional departments of company. This
report has covered basic role of marketing function and how can it be related with other
functional departments of company. Further, marketing mix of two different companies who are
competitors of each other. Lastly, a marketing plan has been made which can help company in
formation of their marketing strategies and increase overall effectiveness of their marketing
functions.
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REFERENCE
Books & Journal
Baker, M.J. and Saren, M. eds., 2016. Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.
Boschetti, A. and Massaron, L., 2015. Python data science essentials. Packt Publishing Ltd.
Campbell, R., Martin, C. and Fabos, B., 2018. Media essentials: A brief introduction. Bedford/St.
Martin's.
Griffitts, M., 2016. Human resources marketing and recruiting: Essentials of internship
management. Handbook of Human Resources Management, pp.103-118.
Lane, P., 2016. Human resources marketing and recruiting: essentials of employer
branding. Handbook of Human Resources Management, pp.23-52.
Larson, J. and Draper, S., 2015. Internet marketing essentials. Idaho Falls, ID: Stukent
Incorporated.
Muralidharan, K. and Raval, N., 2017. Six Sigma marketing and productivity improvement. A
Quarterly Journal of the National Productivity Council, 58(1), pp.107-114.
Nirschl, M. and Steinberg, L., 2018. Einstieg in das influencer marketing: grundlagen, strategien
und erfolgsfaktoren. Springer Gabler.
Pike, S., 2015. Destination marketing: essentials. Routledge.
Pricilla, D., 2019. The Marketing Essentials. Pdf.
Puddle, T., 2015. Marketing essentials for veterinary practices. In Practice, 37(5), pp.259-261.
SHUKLA, P., 2016. Essentials of marketing research.
Simkin, L. and Dibb, S., 2013. Marketing essentials. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Steven, P., 2016. Destination marketing: essentials.
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