In the long term, if the business was to spend the £250,000 then this could mean that there business would expand. By doing the promotional campaign it will increase the awareness leading to more customers, then increasing sales and altogether increases the profit of the business.
Will the Promotional Campaign Be a Success?
Thinking through the promotional campaign that I produced, I have come to a conclusion that I feel if it was to be used by the business that it would not be a success.
With the constraints to the money that we were able to spend I feel that this was a big disadvantage when trying to produce the promotional campaign. When having to make decisions about what promotional activities to include in the promotional campaign it was very hard, as I was restricted in what I could choose to do. With these restrictions set the types of activities I chose might not be best suited to achieve the two aims given by Oi! Bagel. The amount of advertising allowed with the budget wasn’t efficient enough to interest more people. With this I feel that the campaign wasn’t very strong it would be accurate to say that having more advertisement around train stations would enable Oi! Bagel to create a greater awareness for the business. I was restricted to advertise in a small amount of train stations this was due to the low budget that I was given (£200,000). Bigger brands for example McDonalds they set aside a much bigger budget to be spent on the advertising, this means that they have high competitive advantage over Oi! Bagel. McDonalds have advertisement all over the country this means they create a huge awareness for their store. Compared to McDonalds adverts Oi! Bagels are much weaker. Also throughout London there are millions of Brands advertising their products. With the low budget given Oi! Bagel can’t match the amount that the bigger brands offer. So passers by are less likely to notice them, but notice the bigger brands advertising that they’ve already heard of.
It is hard to tell weather the customers will want to respond to the promotional campaign. Spending all this money on a promotional campaign might not create awareness to more customers than previously. This means that there is no guarantee that the promotion will be a success. People might see the advertising and still not want to go and try there products. People who work in London are more likely to stay loyal to the company in which they usually buy there lunch from this is because they are usually very business and rushing around to different places, so they want to get something that they trust will be a good quality, and they know that they’ll receive there food quick. People might also feel that they want to respond to the campaign if they have a voucher in which they can use, but after their first purchase they go back to their original loyalty.
I thought that placing the sampling stand in a busy part of London (for example Liverpool Street Station) would be the best place for the stand to be situated. For the reason that it’s busy and a lot of people will be passing by. But in fact being the busiest part of London many people are rushing about trying to get around London, this means that they don’t have the time to stop and try the samples.
Alternative Methods
I feel that there wasn’t anything majorly good about my promotional campaign, some of the ideas would have worked but with the budget I couldn’t produce masses of promotional activities. If there were to be no constraints restricting what I could do in the promotional campaign then I may have done things a little bit different.
Development of Franchises: I could have invested the money in development of franchises. This would increase the awareness of the shop for example with subway they are a well known food chain but they lack advertisement, they may have a few signs and leaflets but they rarely have big advertisement, and never advertise on TV. Due to the high amount of shops that they have in most towns they don’t need the advertisement for people to know about them, as people see them all the time.
There are many different advantages and disadvantages for them starting to develop franchises. An advantage of this is that they make money from people paying them a franchise fee to have the name of the company. A disadvantage towards this is that Oi! Bagel will only receive a percentage of the sales and profit meaning that they’d lose out on the other money. Another disadvantage is that it would take ages for loads of shops to be opened
Opening New Stores: With the 200,000 budget that we were given opening up new stores may be a good idea. With a franchise Oi! Bagel only gets a percentage of the profit, an advantage of open the shops themselves they would get all of the profit to spend in any way they want. A disadvantage of opening there own shops is that with the 200,000 budget given they would only be able to afford to open about 3 stores. This would not create much awareness of their brand.
If Oi! Bagel was to put these ideas into place then they would have to reduce what they want to do in other areas. The main one would be advertising; this could be a disadvantage for the business as they aren’t creating any extra awareness for their business. Also if they don’t advertise they can’t create awareness of the positive properties of their company (For example the health advantages). There are also other alternative activities that could be used e.g. aiming the campaign at offices or they could just carry on with the original promotional campaign.
Before deciding to use any of the alternative promotional activities you have to consider the short term and long term consequences. Both of the ideas would change the aims and objectives of the business but still create awareness and hopefully helping the business to increase its market share and profits. The money would not be spent on sampling as they stated in the brief but would be spent on the development of new stores either owned by them of franchises.
In the short term for a business to start developing franchises it could cause the business to fall drastically. As the wont be making much profit as the new stores will take a couple of years to hit off. But they’ll receive the franchise fee paid by people who want to open a franchise store. In the long term the effects should be positive, if within a couple of years many new branches have opened this could increase the profits within the business. With subway as they have stores in every town there awareness is increased without the use of advertising, I believe that Oi! Bagel would be able to achieve the same thing with there franchises.
In the short term for a business to open 3 new stores there would be a cost of £200,000. This means that they might need to take out a loan, hoping that their business will increase in profit and be able to pay it back. In the long term if the 3 new stores open market share for Oi! Bagel should increase therefore increasing profit in the long run.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that the best way for Oi! Bagel to succeed is to develop a franchise programme. The first promotional campaign I planned had many faults, and I believe it wouldn’t be the best way for the business to move forward. Adverting can be very strong, but having many shops located all over the country will create a wider awareness than advertising can do. People can also go in and try the food whereas advertising wouldn’t do that. The smell as you walk past the store will also entice more customers to come in and buy the products. With the many stores people will also not have to travel very far to find one making it more convenient than it was before. When people try their products if people like them then hopefully they’ll make recommendations to people, word of mouth is a very strong way of awareness, as people usually trust the people that give the recommendation.
If the business is then successful doing these things I would recommend that they then begin the advertise more, as they’ll have more money to spend on it making the advertising bigger and better. Creating a wider product range bringing out new types of bagels and fillings will also help to make the business more successful as they’ll be targeting a larger customer base.
I believe that my recommendation will but this company in a competitive advantage over a lot of other companies helping them to achieve their aims and many different objectives although it may take a couple of years to reach this goal.
