Integrating Marketing Communications: Alain Ducasse's Australia Entry

This report analyzes the potential for the French restaurant chain Alain Ducasse to enter the Australian market. It presents findings from a market survey conducted in Greater Sydney, focusing on consumer behavior and the dining industry. The study identifies key target segments, including consumers aged 18-31 and women, and highlights the influence of social media, particularly Instagram, on consumer preferences and brand attitude. The research reveals that consumers in Sydney show enthusiasm for restaurants similar to those in Paris, suggesting a strong opportunity for Alain Ducasse. The report examines the impact of destination types, image types, and consumer characteristics (foodies vs. non-foodies) on consumer responses like envy and desire. It concludes that social media marketing, especially targeting foodies and young women, can effectively enhance brand attitude and loyalty. The recommendations include maintaining an active social media presence and leveraging consumer envy as a marketing tool.

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INTEGRATING MARKETTING COMMUNICATIONS
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Executive summary
Given the fact that the foodie consumers in Australia have been steadily increasing, the French
restaurant chain Alain Ducasse intend to enter the market in Australia. The paper discusses the results of
a market survey to provide insights regarding the existing scenario of the dining industry in Greater
Sydney. It was found that consumers in age group between 18 to 31 years, and women could be of
particular interest as targets of the marketing strategy. Also it was seen that consumer in Australia active
over Instagram found restaurants in Paris appealing thus indicating possibility of strong response. It was
also felt that given the amount of time consumers spend on social media, building brand attitude via
interaction online could serve to further Alaine Ducasse’s agenda of expanding into the Australian
market.

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Evaluation of the findings
A growth in the dining market has been observed in Australia corresponding to a growth in the
foodie consumers in the country, following which, Alain Ducasse having expressed interest in
expanding itself into Australia, sought out insights into the market to help plan their campaign.
Analytics is a powerful tool for providing just that. This paper utilises statistical tools to understand and
interpret data collected regarding the condition of the Australian dining market and how it compares
with that of the market back in Paris, where Alain Ducasse is already well established. It focusses in
particular on the role of social media, specifically Instagram as an influencer of consumer response and
outcomes of marketing communication, and how images and destinations may affect them over the
platform. Additionally, the influence is gauged taking into account the different consumer segments,
such as segments on the basis of age group (18- 31 years and greater than 31 years) , gender( Male and
Female) and whether the consumer is a foodie or not.
The data collected consisted of responses from 853 participants, 50% of whom were men and
the rest were women. The age range of the group was set to be between 18 years and 61 years, however
it was seen that most of them were in the age group 18 years to 23 years with average age all the
respondents being 27 years (Pitt et al., 2018, Figure 2, p. 5). More than 70% of the respondents were in
the age group 18 to 31 years (Pitt et al., 2018, Figure 3, p. 5). It was seen that the participants spent 3.6
hours on an average on social media each day and hence anticipating the influence of social media on
the participants the opportunities of marketing through the platform Instagram was considered (Pitt et
al., 2018, p. 6). Furthermore approximately 43% percent of the participants and based on that 38.2% to
48.1% of the total population of greater Sydney was estimated to be passionate about food which makes
for a considerable market for the dining industry (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 3, p. 8).26.4% of the
participants in the sample were found to be have at least slight feelings of envy upon seeing another
Instagrammer enjoy fine dining experiences .Again, based on the sample data 19.4% to 30% of the

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population was estimated to feel at least slightly envious of the destinations and images that others may
post on Instagram (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 4, p. 9).. Envy can be taken to be an indicator of interest thus
feelings of envy could be compared to potential for attracting the customer. 53.9% of the participants
reported that they immersed themselves while viewing images on Instagram and based on this it was
estimated that 46.8% to 61.2% of the population immersed themselves in images, suggesting that
images do have quite an influence over consumer’s perception of a restaurant or destination (Pitt et al.,
2018, Table 5, p. 10).
Upon scrutinizing the effects of destination types and image types on consumer responses it was
seen that destination has significant influence on consumer behaviour. Additionally, between the two
destinations Paris and Sydney, it was seen that consumer responses, desire and envy were both greater
in Paris compared to Sydney (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 6, p. 11).Hence it is suggested that consumers in
greater Sydney depict enthusiasm and anticipation for the kind of restaurants that are present in Paris
and thus it is suggested that the Alaine Ducasse could make draw upon such interest among the
Australian consumers. Consumer response was not found to be as influenced differently by any of the
two types of images and thus image was found to be as significant as an influencer (Pitt et al., 2018,
Table 7, p. 11).Again it was seen that those in age group 18 years to 31 years displayed significantly
much more envy than those in age group greater than 31 years (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 8, p. 12).Again
women displayed significantly more desire than men after viewing the experiences of others on
Instagram (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 9, p. 12). Hence the 18 to 31 year old females could be considered as
the key target segment for the marketing campaign. Aside from that foodies showed significantly
greater envy, desire, immersion, brand attitude and source familiarity than those who don’t categorize
themselves as foodies (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 10, p. 12).Coupling this with the fact that at least about
38% of the population of greater Sydney is expected to be passionate about food, the marketing
campaign could reasonably benefit through social media marketing (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 2, p. 7).

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Drawing upon these findings, the effect of desire, time spent on social media and hunger on
envy which implies potential for attracting interest, was scrutinized and it was found that all three had
significant positive effect on envy, that is, increase in envy was found to correspond with increase in
these predictors and together they explained 8% of the variation in envy (Pitt et al., 2018, Table 11, p.
13). Additionally, it was seen that for foodies, desire, envy, total immersions, attractiveness of the
source, pre-existing attitude towards destination and hunger all had significant positive effect on their
brand attitude, with the predictors explaining 17% to 18% of the variation. Envy and hunger were
however not found to have significant impact on brand attitude among non-foodies (Pitt et al., 2018,
Table 12, p. 13).
Recommendations
According to Ashley & Tuten (2015) and later Taylor(2017) social media marketing and online
ads have a significant effect on invoking feelings of envy and desire among consumers leading them to
share more about their experiences on social media to show off. This gives a suggestion that social
media has the power to not only reach out to consumers but also spurs them to further the brand’s
marketing through the consumers themselves without any additional expenses. Again Ferreira (2018)
discussed how benign envy serves to increase brand attitude among consumers. Thus envy can be used
as a marketing tool and a metric to gauge customer curiosity and interest. Therefore based on the
findings of this study it can be said that targeting foodies, especially women and those under 31 years of
age would serve to be of benefit. Also, it would be of interest to keep a constant active presence on
social media since that has been seen to augment brand attitude and hence brand loyalty (Hudson et al.,
2016).

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References
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of
branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27.
Ferreira, K.S.C., 2018. Do they deserve it? The effect of consumer envy on brand attitude and
choice (Doctoral dissertation).
Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S. and Madden, T.J., 2016. The influence of social media interactions
on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing
behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.
Pitt, J., Singh, C., and Ang, L. (2018). MKTG204 Investigating the effects of Instagram profile with
branded information on consumer responses: Assessment Task 2B, Session 1, 2018 Consumer insights
survey results. North Ryde: Macquarie University.
Taylor, D.G., 2017. (Don’t You) Wish You Were Here? Narcissism, Envy, and Sharing of Travel
Photos Through Social Media. In Marketing at the Confluence between Entertainment and
Analytics (pp. 821-824). Springer, Cham.