Tea Case Study

MUDRA INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATIONS, AHMEDABAD | MARKAGAON: VIKALP | TEA CHAIN CASE STUDY: CUTTING CHAI |

TEAM: BEATNIK
MEMBERS:
ANJALI DAS: 9724922889| [e-mail]
SANKETA KAPSE: 9725013788| [e-mail]
SAUMYA TEWARI: 8980357691| [e-mail]

CREATE A BRAND NAME AND A SUITABLE TAGLINE
Brand Name: Cutting Chai
Tagline: Brewing Reminiscences
Since the theme of the tea house is Nostalgia, we intend to make every customer relate to his or her life's reminiscences once they set foot into “Cutting Chai” tea house.
DESIGN A PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY
The promotion strategies that we would adopt are:
OUTDOOR PROMOTIONS * India is famous for its grand celebration of festivals. These festivals are the heart and soul of the country. Of these, Uttarayan or Kite flying is one that stands tall. The fascination associated with kite flying cuts across age groups, class and communities. Due to this, manufacturing of kites is a serious business. It attracts big names of the corporate world as kites provide for the most cost-effective opportunity for branding. Keeping this aspect in mind, we intend to manufacture kites representing our brand logo and theme. This will go a long way in establishing our brand presence and creating consumer mind space. Also, manufacturing kites could serve as an additional source of income which can then be used for further expansion of the tea chain.
This similar strategy can be applied to various other festivals.

* For the purpose of selling, we intend to create our own stalls, which are to be decorated in a manner that incorporates the festive mood of the people. The stalls could be located at malls, at open spaces where foot traffic is high, even outside cinema halls and in public parks. The agenda is to choose places which are frequently visited. In this way, people would be able to buy kites in their leisure time while they are moving around and having a good time with their families. Using kites as a medium of promotion, will serve the purpose of attracting consumers at the initial stage while fulfilling our main focus of establishing the presence of Cutting Chai.

* Selected products from our range at “Cutting Chai” would be available at the stalls for tasting, which would spread the word and popularize our products. Through this, our aim is to reposition tea, from a drink that is had once or twice in a day to a beverage that is considered more of a juice, a health drink or as a supplement to cold drinks, more as a thirst quencher.

ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA * Music is the language of the heart. It is something that instantly connects to every single person irrespective of their age, class, social status, gender, etc. This is precisely why our promotional strategy is a musical. We plan on facilitating a tie up with a local musical band and a team of amateur video makers who might not be very well established but who have a good fan base on the internet and social media. This musical band and video makers can help us come up with an excellent musical video that would revolve around the theme ‘I love tea’ with visuals that complement the setting of the tea house which is ‘nostalgia’. At the end of this video, the “Cutting chai” tea house’s logo can be mentioned along with the address and catchy lines like, ‘Revive your love for tea, come to Cutting Chai’. This music video can then be shared on YouTube and all social networking sites like facebook, twitter, Google+ etc for massive publicity online.

* Furthermore to make our online presence felt at a larger level, we aim at creating a special page for ‘Cutting Chai’ with exclusive pictures of the tea house and also details of the menu and special varieties that we serve. Also provide various coupons and combo offers through this page. This page can then be largely advertised on various other pages like Cityshore on facebook that promote various restaurants and eateries.
PRINT MEDIA
We aim at conducting a print advertisement campaign in the newspapers of both regional language as well as English. This campaign would contain a series of print advertisements that would be featured in the newspaper for 5 days of the week prior to the opening of the tea house. Each advertisement would contain a unique approach containing the setting and features of Cutting Chai tea house without actually mentioning the brand name or logo of the company. This would generate a curiosity in the minds of the customer before the final 5th advertisement, containing the complete name and details of Cutting Chai tea house, is featured on the cover page of the newspaper.
TIE UPS WITH CHARITABLE ORGANISATIONS
As an effective promotional activity we will be joining hands with charitable organizations. Not only that, we will be accepting various art and craft works like paintings, handicrafts, simple accessories and the like by the inmates of these charitable organizations to decorate the teahouse and also make them available for sale to the local customers who visit the tea house. Thus we hope on helping these organizations increase their funds by help from Cutting Chai as well as give the customers a feel of having contributed for a good cause.
OFFERS AND FREEBIES * Customers who walk in to Cutting Chai in the first two months from the date of opening will be given attractive discount offers and coupons like ‘Buy one item and get any other item which is half the price of the first item, for free’ and combo offers like ‘Get any variety of tea with a snack for reduced rates’. We will also provide an early-bird free customer membership cards in which points would be added every time a purchase is made and after the points reach a certain threshold, customers can redeem any item on the menu for the value of the points. * Additionally, we also encourage the customer to trade his old books and magazines to increase our library collection in return for attractive discount offers and membership points.
IDENTIFY THE TARGET SEGMENT (EXPLAINING THE REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE PARTICULAR SEGMENT)
The segment that we intend to target for the tea chain is based on the following factors: i.) Demographics: * Age Group 20-35 years
Primarily known as the youth or the young generation, these are the people who love varieties and are open to new products which in this case are the new varieties of tea. In addition to this, another reason for choosing this particular target segment is that they form a large chunk of the city’s population owing to the fact that it is a hub of colleges. Further, since there are not many well known tea houses in Ahmedabad, in comparison to the numerous coffee shops, this tea chain aims at attracting the youth by also portraying the fact that tea drinking is healthier than coffee drinking.

* Age Group 35 and above

This target group consists predominantly of the working population that would want a serene place for a small talk or maybe even a good evening.

ii.) Psychographics * Business Class
The reasons for targeting this particular business class is the fact that trade and business has been one of the primary occupations of residents of Gujarat and during many instances businessmen face a lot of difficulty when it comes to choosing a place for an informal meeting with a client. Hence through the tea chain we aim at giving these businessmen the perfect ambience to sit and have an informal business conversation over a cup of tea.
DEVELOP A PRICING STRATEGY THAT SUITS THE SEGMENT

The pricing strategy adopted is Penetration pricing. We believe that our product, the tea chain, is of the nature that can gain mass appeal fairly quickly. Keeping this in mind, the prices charged will be in such a way that people find it affordable. The price range would be between, Rs 50-200/-
Another reason for adopting penetration pricing is to be able to target a large segment of the society; this section consists of people from different age groups and from different strata of life. The pricing decision is also based upon consumer expectation, market and competitor pricing. The consumers generally associate tea as a brand with low to medium prices, also in Ahmedabad the trend of tea chains has not yet set in, so the main competitor for Cutting Chai are the existing coffee chains in the city. To counter these coffee chains, the price range at Cutting Chai has deliberately been kept on the lower side.

THE THEME OF THE CAFÉ

The theme that we intend to showcase for “Cutting Chai” is “Nostalgia”. Bringing back your own home brew tea customized to your taste as well as with various other options to choose from, we intend to bring back the era of drinking tea as before. Being the largest consumer of tea, our love for this beverage has never been less but what changed was the way it is consumed. With the advent of coffee as well as other beverages in the form of popular chains around the country, tea became more of a homely drink. Also the cravings for tea were not fulfilled due to insufficient options available outside the home. Thus, we at “Cutting Chai” intend to bring you your own flavour of tea customized to your taste. Not only that but for all those cool drinkers we offer our “Take a Chill Pill” range of ice tea with various flavours to look out for. Also not to forget is our “Drink to Trim” range which offers a specialised menu for the health freak drinkers be it Green tea with antioxidants or Peppermint tea which builds up immunity, we have it all including the ones you would not know of. The setting of “Cutting Chai” keeping in mind our customer base would be of two kinds: * At the entrance we would have a lawn for that laid back evening that you desire and enjoy your favourite tea. * Also an inner closed space which provides you the right ambience for a small talk, formal or informal. To keep the theme intact we would have Solid Oak Wooden Furniture inside as well as outside. In the lawn we would also have Porch Swing in which people could relax in the evenings

Service: We plan to provide our customers with the comfort of serving their tea at their table and that too in our range of authentic teapots. And to add spice to it our waiters will be dressed in the traditional attire of the state. For example for Ahmedabad, the traditional dress of Gujarati men is the kurta (called zabbho) and pajama (called lehanghas) so we would make the waiters wear it.

The aura that we intend to create in our café also relates to the nostalgic feel as we would draw up a flowchart to showcase the history of tea in India. Adding to that would be basic information about the various kinds of tea available with us to highlight their ingredients as well as health benefits if any. We also want to satisfy the inquisitiveness of our customers about how tea is manufactured so we provide you an insight into tea manufacturing process by few of our innovative entertainment options

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SUGGEST THE KINDS OF PRODUCTS (SPECIALLY THE KINDS OF TEA) TO BE SERVED. Types of tea-
• Drink to trim-
No time to exercise??
Are you looking for a healthy alternative??
This is your one stop destination…

Green tea, Black tea, White tea, Oolong tea, Pu-erh tea
• Herbal tea-
Herbal teas make for wonderful, low calorie, relaxing drinks.
Try these options for their fragrance and appeal…

Nettle, Chamomile tea, Ginger tea, Peppermint tea, Lavender tea, Lemon balm tea, Rosemary tea, Milk thistle, Hawthorn

* Indian tea-
Taste the chai of India, relish the amazing zeal and vigour it offers… Assam tea, Nilgiri tea, Masala tea, Badam tea, Kadak chai, Malai maar ke chai * Flavoured tea-
For the person of many choices,
We present you our variety of amazing flavours…

Earl Grey tea, Lapsang Souchang, English breakfast tea, Irish breakfast tea, Jasmine tea

* Snacks –
Don’t content yourself with only tea,
We offer you much more…
With a heart warming TWIST…

Samosa, Daal Dhokli, Dhokla, Fafda, Farsi Falafel, Ganthia, Khaman, Khandvi, Lilva Kachori, Muthia, Khakhra, Sev Khamani.
Also, Bajri no rotlo, Bhakhri, Dhebara and Thepala…
The twist in this case, is that our palate of snacks is different from the conventional one. We offer the same products with a healthier approach.
For instance, the samosa offered will not be the regular aloo samosa, it will be a healthier version, stuffed with vegetables and cooked in olive oil.

Also, the snacks we have decided upon are specific to Ahmedabad. On similar lines, different products will be offered in different cities, depending upon specific likes and dislikes.

IN HOUSE ENTERTAINMENT OPTIONS

• LIBRARY

For all those bookworms who love to read over a cup of tea, we hope to provide a mini library at the Cutting Chai tea house. This library would contain books and magazines of various genres as per availability and the collection is subject to increase since we provide an excellent trade offers for old books. However we will not be offering books for subscription since we would want the customer to come back to Cutting Chai to get the feel of reading the book in the excellent ambience that we provide and even better tea that we serve.

• BOARD GAMES

For those who come to Cutting Chai just to ease their minds off the disquiet of the mind, we provide board games like Chess and Scrabble. A fun game with a partner over a cup of favorite variety of tea always helps ease one’s mind and feel light.

• WiFi CONNECTION

We will also be providing free WiFi connections as well as electrical outlets under each table to serve the needs of all those netizens who would come to Cutting Chai.

• ORCHESTRA

While we cater to your taste buds with our great varieties of tea and other delicacies, we also provide u with a visual and audial treat by hosting live performances of various local bands and orchestras, every evening at Cutting Chai.

* CROSSWORD One wall just near the entrance of the closed space from the garden would have a huge crossword which will relate to the tea history as well as kinds of tea available in the café. This would build up the interest of the customers as well as add up to their knowledge, giving them an edge over their peers( Yes they can flaunt it too).