Cold Stone Creamery has been serving superior ice cream, cakes, cupcakes, smoothies and shakes for over 20 years. Their Mission Statement expresses “We’re fully committed to embracing diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our business. That’s why we’re developing a workforce that reflects the changing marketplace, while building and sustaining external relationships with multicultural markets, suppliers, and the communities we serve. ” I decided to pick Cold Stone as the company to focus this project on because l’ve been an ice cream enthusiast ever since I was a little girl.
I can emerge new arketing ideas, making an already successful brand into a well rounded forever growing corporation. There are 4 locations in my target market: Los Angles, California and 1,450 locations all over the world. I’ve chosen to place my Franchise right next to the University of California, Los Angles right on the corner of Westwood plaza and Strathmore place. I used Google maps to select this location. Cold Stone Company headquarters are based in Scottsdale, AZ and is owned and operated by Kahala Franchising. Unfortunately, Cold Stone has seen a drop in sales over the last few years due to the rough economy.
Therefore, Cold Stone is quite costly to the average customer. However, Cold Stone believes what they provide is worth the cost. Customers are getting more than just ice cream; they’re getting an unforgettable experience! Two of Cold Stones biggest strengths are all the strategically placed store locations and the customer experience; both provided a history of financial success. Cold Stones weaknesses include price, lack of healthy options and wait time. Los Angeles, California can bring many opportunities to Cold Stone Creamery and could create new strengths for the company.
My marketing plan is to implement ew marketing strategies to increase consumer awareness throughout Los Angles. My plan is to increase website interaction, and revenue at my franchise by 15% during 2017, to create a sponsorship with University of California Los Angeles, and a sustain a customer loyalty program to increase the number of repeat customers by 15% though a member card program. The marketing plan includes saving coupons, free samples, customer member card, UCLA student promotion, senior citizen afternoon, ice cream Sunday happy hour and a monthly customer prize drawing.
The total investment required to obtain a Cold Stone franchise is approximately $400,000. Product Analysis Industry professionals have introduced Cold Stone ice cream as “super premium” for the reason that it is made fresh every day in each store. Each ice cream order is labeled as a “creation” for the important reason that the “ice cream artist” employees use a frozen granite stone to mix any toppings the guest desires into any ice cream flavor. It has been noted that there are over 11 million creations possible!
And after years of practice some of the fan favorites have been named “Cold Stone signature creations”. For ice cream admirers who love a good frozen desert but don’t want to consume the calories, cold stone offers Healthy Indulgences”. These health conscious guests are provided with non fat and no sugar added ice cream and sorbet flavors, as well as non dairy smoothies. Cold Stone’s Creations are sold in three sizes: 5 oz, 8oz, and 12 oz. In Cold Stone language they are referred to as sizes, “Like it” $3. 39, “Love it” $3. 79 and “Gotta have it”.
There is also a kid’s size available for the young Cold Stone lover that is priced at $1. 69. The guests that want lager portions than the normal offerings, guests can order to-go sizes called “mine”, “ours” and “Everybody’s” sizes (small, medium and large). These prices ange from $6. 99 to $9. 99 and toppings start from 30 cents each. Cold Stone’s signature flavors are cake batter, chocolate, coffee, mint, strawberry, cheesecake, French vanilla, sweet cream, and sinless sans fat. On top of these flavors, all stores offer seasonal flavors such as pumpkin and candy cane.
Cold Stones topping are almost endless. Varying from nuts, marshmallows, syrups, and candy bars, chocolate chips, a variety of cereal, and fruit the toppings are endless. For guests that would rather purchase a cake, ice cream cookie sandwich, smoothie, shake or an ice or blended coffee, Cold Stone has al f these options. Environmental Analysis Micro and Macro-Environmental Factors Cold Stone’s macro environmental factors range from political, legal and regulatory trends to technological, economic, and cultural factors. An example of a technological trend is the use of a marble slab.
There are plenty of companies striving to become one step ahead of everyone else in the ice cream industry. In specifics, Marble Slab Creamery was the first company to use frozen granite to mix their ice cream. Frozen granite is a great tool to use while mixing ice cream because it has a non-porous surface and can remain at five degreases Fahrenheit. This process has been trending all throughout social media in 2016 and now 2017 as a more exciting way to purchase your ice cream. This technological trend is an opportunity for Cold stone to gain more popularity.
Economic Factors are huge in terms of how they will affect my franchise, specifically income levels, unemployment and tax. These factors are a threat to my Cold Stone Franchise. Specifically, the ongoing availability of sugar is essential to making the superior ice cream that Cold Stone provides to their customers and there has been a concern of anticipated sugar shortage. In extension o the possibility of a sugar shortage there is a possibility that legislators could impose a “fat tax” on foods and beverages high in sugar content. The micro environmental factors that affect Cold Stone are customers, distribution channels and supplies.
The customer basis for Cold Stone is for the customers/ guests to have a personalized experience. Cold stone is meeting the demands of its customers and turning the casual experience of buying ice cream into something much more than a commodity. Creations would be strenuous for someone other than the user to pick out because they are based up to personal taste and what the user ants. This specifically is benefiting and bringing more opportunity to the franchise and providing the freedom to the customers to create their own “creations”.
There are 9,818,605 people living in los Angeles, two dominant races reside in La and it breaks down to be 50 percent white and 47 percent Hispanic or latino. The Hispanic Culture has influenced some ice cream flavors, such as “dulce de leche”. The Hispanic population in Los Angeles almost populates half of the city and if correctly marketed, will spend money. Customer trends such as demographic factors give us the opportunity to understand arget markets in better terms. For example, Generation Y, also called “millennials” born between 1979 and 1990 are known as the most technological savvy generation yet.
This generation is seen to believe money stands for success and spending more than they make can result in low bank account balances and higher debt. They tend to eat out often and lead busy lifestyles. SWOT Analysis SWOT Name of Business: Cold Stone Creamery Strengths: Opportunities: Store Locations and Growth. The Hispanic Market. Customer experience. University of California, Los Angeles. Premium ingredients. Heath Conscious consumers. Advertising campaign. Smaller ice cream shops are going out of business. Product offerings. Consumers that eat organic.
Website quality and Facebook page. Laeatz. com (allows consumers to order Cold Stone online and get it delivered in 1 hour. Weaknesses: Threats: Price Waiting Time. Bad Economy. Franchise Training. Competition. Limited Expansion in saturated market. Health conscious movement. Volume limited to employees. Credit Crunch. Large portion sizes. Lacking Resources. Competitive Analysis Cold Stone’s Primary competitor is “Ben & Jerry’s. The have approximately 500 locations in The U. S. They had $240 million in sales in 2008, making up 18 percent of the leading ice cream shop market.
There are 7 locations in my target market area, making it challenging for the now 5 locations of Cold Stone in the Los Angeles Area. This company uses limited time offers of particular flavors and also sells whole sale items in grocery stores. Our Secondary competitor is “Dairy Queen”. They combine ice cream and fast food under one roof. There are only two Dairy queen locations in the Los Angeles area. However, in 2013 Dairy Queen had $2,550 million in sales, making up over 50 percent of the top U. S. ice cream shop chain market. Other competitors include Marble Slab Creamery, Haagen-Dazs and Baskin Robbins.
Cold Stone also competes with Generic Competitors such as generic name brand ice cream’s sold in grocery stores, smoothies, Italian ice, frozen yogurt, gelato, coffee and juice. Marble Slab Creamery was the first shop to use frozen granite to blend toppings into the ice cream by choice of a customer. This company seems like it would be the most likely to impact this business because of the similarity to our products. However, there are only 391 locations around the United States and there are zero sites in the location of my franchise.
Marketing Analysis Major Demand Generators Cold Stone is connected with a variety of demand generators such as the network E Entertainment, Make a wish foundation and also occasionally participating in major food shows all over the world to create product awareness and provide sampling. For the E! Entertainment network’s 20th birthday party, Cold Stone provided a special exclusive custom blend ice cream named “E Entertain-mint”. Cold Stone also partners up with Make a wish foundation to grant wishes all around the country to terminally ill children.
Most recently, Kate an 11 year old with a life threatening condition, wished that cold stone would create the worlds largest ice cream social. Cold Stone granted her wish and created an exclusive flavor for her and on September 30th from five to eight pm, customers could receive Kate’s creation for free. The location of my franchise is perpetually surrounded by UCLA owned buildings, then making the school a major demand generator. Not only is it a student dense area, but also students are traveling to classes and taking lunch breaks in the same location.
Also, the school hosts numerous fraternities and sororities that live on the same street as my franchise, making it easy to partner up with those types of communities for social events. The school also hosts large sporting events such as football, basketball and baseball games. This will generate a higher volume of foot traffic compared to other franchises located in Los Angeles County. Target Markets The Target markets are geographically segmented for the Los Angeles Area and include the following counties: Santa Monica, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, West Wood, and Hollywood.
Los Angeles has a total population of 9,818,605 people. My primary market consists of 249,985 customers who are 15-34 years old. The first demographic segmentation I’m going to focus on is age. In 2009 it was reported that 44 percent of 18-24 year old respondents had visisted an ice cream shop in the past 3 months. Consumers aged 15-17 were not mentioned in this particular study, but are part of the primary target market because teens are known to likely visit ice cream shops.
