Marketing Plan: Phase I
During week two, Learning Team B will take a thorough look at the Olive Garden Italian Restaurant chain. Team B has decided that a new appetizer item should be added to the restaurant menu. The appetizer item being considered is cheese filled breadsticks served with Marinara sauce. The team will begin this marketing plan by giving an overview of the Olive Garden Restaurant, along with a detailed description of the new menu item being considered. They will also explain why marketing plays an important role in the restaurants success. A SWOTT analysis will be given to introduce all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends that should be considered prior to introducing this new appetizer to their menu. Finally, a marketing research approach will be decided upon and used to develop the marketing strategy and tactics for this new appetizer item.
Olive Garden Restaurant
General Mills originally created the Olive Garden restaurants in 1982. In June of 1995, General Mills moved the Olive Garden division to its newly developed Darden Restaurants, Inc. Olive Garden has quickly become the largest casual dining restaurant company in the world. Olive Garden uses Italy as its basis of inspiration and attempts to focus on hospitality and a pleasing dining experience. In 1999, Darden Restaurants, Inc. established its cooking school in the Tuscany region of Italy known as the Olive Garden’s Culinary Institute of Tuscany. Olive Garden creates all of its principles from two specific ideas: hold us to high standards and treat us with respect (Darden, 2011).
Olive Garden believes there are five essentials to good, hospitable Italian cooking: olive oil, pasta, cheese, bread, and wine (Darden, 2011). With these ingredients in mind, what better product could be made than combining some of these? We propose to combine cheese and bread to create a new appetizer menu item. Olive