Strategic Marketing Report: Costa Coffee's Romanian Market Entry

This report provides a strategic marketing analysis of Costa Coffee's planned expansion into Romania, focusing on the introduction of a new product, Affogato. The report begins by defining strategic marketing and highlighting the importance of adapting the marketing mix to the local market conditions. It then delves into the Customer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model as a tool for building brand strength and consumer loyalty. The study further explores integrated marketing communication strategies, including the communication mix elements such as advertising, personal selling, and public relations. The report also outlines methods for measuring the success of the new product launch, emphasizing the need for setting measurable targets and comparing actual performance against these standards. The conclusion underscores the necessity of strategic marketing for achieving competitive advantage. The report references key marketing concepts and models to provide a comprehensive overview of the strategic marketing approach for Costa Coffee's market entry into Romania.

STRATEGIC MARKETING

Table of contents
 Introduction
 Adaption and standardization
 CBBE model
 Integrated communication mix
 Measurement of success
 Conclusion
 References

INTRODUCTION
Strategic marketing can be defined as an activity or the process through
which the company carries on planning and developing for the purpose
of differentiating from its competitors by way of working and
capitalizing its strengths and to provide its customers with better value
products (West, Ford and Ibrahim, 2015). The present report is based
on company Costa coffee. It is British multinational company founded
in the year 1971 by Bruno Costa and Sergio Costa. The company is a
coffee house which is headquartered in Dunstable, Bedfordshire in
United Kingdom. Costa coffee is planning to expand in Romania by
launching a new product AFFOGATO which is a simple dessert coffee.

Adaption and standardization of
marketing mix
 Marketing mix can be defined as combination of different factors
which are very necessary for the development of product in to the
market. The elements of marketing mix are called 7 P's of
marketing which includes components like price, place, promotion,
product, people, process and physical evidence.
 Adapting to marketing mix is very necessary for the
company in order to make its product successful. This is because of
the reason that marketing mix includes all the elements which are
necessary for the product or services to be successful. Adaption
refers to as the strategy wherein the company has to adapt to the
marketing condition of the country where the company wants to
launch its products into that country.

CBBE model
 Just entering into the new market is not enough it is also very
necessary and important to maintain the brand image in front of the
consumers so that the company runs successfully. For building a
strong brand in the market the company Costa coffee house is using
model named Customer Based Brand Equity model (CBBE model).
The underlying concept behind applying this model is to build a
strong brand so that the consumer base increases (Hollebeek,
Conduit and Brodie, 2016). This model assist the company in
knowing what the consumers will feel about the products and
services provided by the company and what the consumer
experiences by using the product or service.

Integrated communication mix and
methods
 Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a process or
an activity which ensures that all the different forms of
communicating a message is closely and carefully linked with one
another. For marketing a product or service communication is the
key because without communication it is not at all possible to
promote the product into the market. So it is very necessary to have
proper and clear communication.
 For improving the marketing communication the company
uses communication mix (Amirkhanpour, Vrontis and Thrassou,
2014). A communication mix can be defined as a combination of
specific tools which are used to or medium which are used to
communicate the products and services within the market. The
elements of communication mix are like advertising, personal
selling, internet marketing, public relations and many other ways
(Gerritsen and van Olderen, 2014).

Measurement of success
 Just making plan and implementing it is not enough rather it is very
necessary and crucial that there are some measures through which
the success can be measured. It is also applicable to the case of
Costa coffee house where it expanded in Romania by way of
launching a new product. But just launching the product is not
enough (Lovelock and Patterson, 2015). It is the duty of the
company to make sure that the new product is a success. And for
this the company needs to have some success criteria on which the
company can check that whether the company has achieved what it
wanted to achieve. For the purpose of measuring success the best
method is to set some target or standard and when the actual
performance is done then to compare it with the standard set and if
there is deviation between actual and standard then corrective
measures can be taken.

CONCLUSION
 On the completion of the report it was found that strategic
marketing is very necessary for the business to be successful.
Strategic marketing can be defined as planning a marketing strategy
which is made in order to face the competition so that the company
can avail a competitive advantage over its customers. The report
started by analysing the fact that whether the company needs to
adapt to the environment or needs to standardize its marketing mix.
At this time it was concluded that Costa coffee house needs to adapt
to the marketing mix prevalent in Romania.

REFERENCES
 Books and journals
 Amirkhanpour, M., Vrontis, D. and Thrassou, A., 2014. Mobile
marketing: a contemporary strategic perspective. International
Journal of Technology Marketing 5, 9(3), pp.252-269.
 Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of
strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of
Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
 Gerritsen, D. and van Olderen, R., 2014. Events as a strategic
marketing tool. CABI.
 Hollebeek, L.D., Conduit, J. and Brodie, R.J., 2016. Strategic
drivers, anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of customer
engagement.

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