Introduction
Costa is the largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain in the U.K and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Whitbread PLC. By controlling the whole coffee-making process from start to finish, they aim to “save the world from mediocre coffee”. They have over 1300 coffee shops in the U.K with more than 600 additionally worldwide. Costa Coffee originated in London in 1971, founded by the Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops before it was acquired by Whitbread in 1995.
Marketing Concept
“Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumer’s requirements profitably”
There are 3 key concepts of marketing; Product, Production and Selling. These are shown below.
Product Concept - This concept holds that consumers will favour those products that offer the most quality, performance, or innovative features. Managers focusing on this concept concentrate on making superior products and improving them over time. They assume that buyers admire well-made products and can appraise quality and performance. Management might commit the “better-mousetrap” fallacy, believing that a better mousetrap will lead people to beat a path to its door.
Production Concept - This concept is the oldest of the concepts in business. It holds that consumers will prefer products that are widely available and inexpensive. Managers focusing on this concept concentrate on achieving high production efficiency, low costs, and mass distribution. They assume that consumers are primarily interested in product availability and low prices. This orientation makes sense in developing countries, where consumers are more interested in obtaining the product than in its features.
Selling Concept - this is another common business orientation. It holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the selling...