Marketing Plan Assignment: Analyzing Business Case of Liho Bubble tea

Question

Task: The marketing plan assignment requires a 2500 word comprehensive marketing plan for a brand/product/service of your choice. Ideally the product/service or brand may be facing a problem or challenge or undergoing change, you are required to develop a marketing plan which could be fully implemented by the company.

Answer

Introduction
Liho Bubble tea, selected in the present context of marketing plan assignment has been signified as the most famous beverage brand. The organization aims at provision of high-quality beverage products to its customers from all walks of life together. Besides this, the organization also hopes in achievement of bringing smiles with every drink. Moreover, the organization also assures that the beverage (tea) products are smooth and aromatic as only premium tea leaves are brewed. Through the exploration and researching flavors, the organization believes in bring exciting and unique experiences for the customers. The present study sheds light on development of marketing plan for Liho Bubble tea. The marketing plan would include competitor analysis, STP and marketing strategy formulation. Some crucial aspects of business such as price management, product management, distribution management and integrated marketing communications management have been addressed in the plan.

Analysis of the company and the competitors
Liho bubble tea is a famous beverage industry in Singapore. People residing in the nation believe in search for perfection. The organization was established in the year 2006. The top products available at the organization comprises of: Fresh lemon juice, Vitagen and Peach and golden Yuzu juice (Akter, 2019). There are total 95 outlets of the organization in Singapore that comprises of three locations within the shopping center of Suntec city.

The beverage industry in Singapore is gaining significant importance due to the dedication of the functional operations and performance of the organization. Liho bubble tea had easy launch of its brand. The top competitor of Liho bubble tea is: Gong Cha. The organization aimed at replacing Gong Cha. Irrespective of putting a dampener on the debut of its brand, specific conversation concerning replacement of the brand was done to get its name out.

The unwavering quality of Liho bubble tea was found to be similar to Gong Cha. Besides this, the introduction of Cheese tea also left the public confused towards following the specific brand. Liho bubble tea was found to be one of the staple in malls around Singapore.

Marketing objectives and strategy formulation
The marketing objectives of Liho bubble tea are as follows:

• To acquire the position of home grown tea brand in Singapore
• To expand significantly since 60 stores across the nations (Chenand Voigt, 2020)
• To introduce new flavors in the Singapore’s market
• To achieve the overall satisfaction of the customers

The marketing strategies adopted by Liho bubble tea can be understood as follows:
The key marketing strategies adopted by Liho bubble tea are: expansion of its franchise stores, implementation of investment strategy, and adoption of funding strategy and launching of new products respectively (Hajra, 2017). Adoption of the mentioned strategies assisted Liho bubble tea in achievement of popularity and ground breaking responses from its customers. Besides this, the business functional operations conducted by Liho bubble tea in the market franchises into different locations of Singapore. In addition to this, the organization also focused on concentrating on gaining exposure and attraction of new customers.

Liho bubble tea also conducted various promotional activities and functions in Facebook page. The promotional activities were adorable and filled with bright colours which provide eye-catching illustrations. Eventually, through this social promotion medium, Liho bubble tea was able to gain more than 1, 00,000 followers. Therefore, Facebook promotional measures are considered as inexpensive and efficient way towards marketing the brand and engaging their audience respectively.

STP and rationale based on marketing strategy
Liho bubble tea has expanded its overall marketing output by reaching its customers across every parts of the nation. Besides this, availability of availability of social networking sites assisted the organization in delivering required information of the availability of the products for enhancing engagement of the customers and observing interests in the present situations.

SWOT Analysis

Marketing strategy formulation: Branding and internal branding
Objectives of brand management
Internal branding strategy is one of the significant marketing strategies that motivates and enables employees towards keeping their brand promise. Besides this, the external and internal brand must relate to one another.

Tactics of managing identification of the brand
The beginning of the functional activities of the organization was not easy. Although both Gong Cha and Liho bubble tea provided similar beverage products and menus, yet there were lots of complains that were registered (Mohammad, 2020). Besides this, there were certain skeptical views of the signature of the brand of the organization.

Rationale for adoption of tactical approach
The brand of Liho bubble tea gained success and have successfully been able to open third outlet in Hong Kong within 6 months of official launch of its products. In addition to this, with the help of strong online presence, the social media platforms permitted its brand to live in the social consciousness (Oktaviana et al. 2017). The brand of the organization speaks for the products supplied and provided to the customers. Adoption of significant branding strategy assists in broadcasting the brand of the organization. With the help of strong services and product experience, the brand story and the brand of the products of Liho bubble tea becomes more authentic and appropriate.

Product management
Objectives of product management
The objectives of product management of Liho bubble tea are as follows:

• To design effective strategies for development of the products offered by Liho bubble tea
• To identify significant marketing opportunities for products and services of Liho bubble tea (Otlesand Sakalli, 2019)
• To formulate and implement new strategies considering various stages of the lifecycle of the product
• To innovate new and improved ideas associated with development of new products of the organization.

Tactics for management of the product
The main tactics followed for effective management of the product are as follows:

• Having proper knowledge of the market situations of Liho bubble tea and fulfillment of the demands of the customers
• Giving an extension to the beverage products of Liho bubble tea towards offering of high-quality of products
• Making regular evaluation of needs and demands of the customers for fulfillment of their satisfaction
• Promoting its products through advertisements and social media websites.

Rationale for adoption of tactical approach
Development of effective tactics for management of the products requires increased time, resources as well as commitment of the employees of the organization (Raimo et al. 2020). It assists in focusing on allocation of resources towards achievement of huge benefits. In addition to this, Liho bubble tea is supposed to take care of various critical issues for strengthening the market position of the organization in the market. Effective management of the product creates a forum towards development of shared vision. Besides this, such approach also provides proper understanding of the dynamic and complex processes associated with the management of the products of Liho bubble tea. The organization also provides strong platform for creation of collaborative environment that assists in maintaining balance between revenue and expenses.

Pricing management
Objectives of pricing management
Objectives of pricing management of Liho bubble tea are as follows:

• Development of customer focused and information based pricing strategy for beverage organization in Singapore (Suyama, 2018)
• Achievement of significant position towards utilization of pricing medium as a competitive benefit through various segments of client and market

Tactics followed for effective management of pricing
The pricing strategy adopted by of Liho bubble tea has been connected with the valuation of their services and products by various clients. Liho bubble tea has replaced conventional pricing strategy with the implementation and application of holistic form of information based approach that comprises of behaviors, preferences and costing of the customers.

The comprehensive pricing strategy and information based strategy adopted by Liho bubble tea that created more value towards maximizing its volume of beverage products and reducing its variables. Liho bubble tea has proper understanding of the importance of expanding business liquidity.

Rationale provided for tactical approach
Liho bubble tea is one of the most favored products made especially for bubble tea consumers. In the year 2020, 69% of the tastes towards purchasing the product and 61% stated price of the beverage product turned out to be an important factor (Wang, 2020). The price of Liho bubble tea increased over the years that are compared with Starbucks. Earlier it was noticed that Liho bubble tea was mostly sold at 2dollars per cup. The annual revenue of the organization appeared to be 30 million dollars.

Distribution management
Objectives of distribution management
The main objectives of distribution management are:

• To offer wide variety of beverage products to the customers
• To ensure that the products of the organization are smooth and aromatic so that maximum customer satisfaction is achieved.

Tactics for managing distribution
Liho bubble tea has various channels of distributing its products such as: establishment of food and beverage products, setting up of convenience stores and making arrangements for vending machines.

Liho bubble tea has been gaining importance due to production of variety of products with the implementation of creative ideas. The social media strategies adopted by the organization assists in effective distribution of its products. Implementation of such strategies will assist the organization in reaching out to its customers easily.

Rationale for tactical approach
Liho bubble tea operates its functional operations through various channels of distribution with the expectations that the customers can conduct its business operations through both offline and online platform. However, it has been noticed that the citizens of Singapore has made significant investments towards conducting online promotional services.

Integrated marketing communications management
Objectives of marketing communications management

The main objectives of marketing communication management are as follows:

• To have proper understanding of effective outcome from the campaigns of marketing of general mass, reasons for reducing opportunities of revenue and compromising the market position of Liho bubble tea (Waring et al. 2020)
• To develop effective strategy of communication with the customers of Liho bubble tea so that the organization can gain exposure towards meeting the expectations of the customers.

Tactics of management of marketing communication
Liho bubble tea was established in 2009 and is served by the members of Royal T. Group. The organization has more than 100 branches under F&B ventures. This comprises of tea brand of the organization. The main motive of Liho bubble tea is to inspire and connect with people through drinks and foods.

Rationale for adoption of tactical approach
The organization is targeting its customers based on provision of variety of products. The founder of Liho bubble tea of Singapore entered into a partnership with Shopee to roll out the kit of bubble tea. Besides this, the customers will also have the facility of purchasing the products of the organization through online shopping website. As per Liho bubble tea, the kit of bubble tea also emerged from the law of circuit breaker for not permitting the stores to remain open (Weberand Saunders-Hogberg, 2018). Hence, Liho bubble tea also decided to bring and provide high-quality products for the customers that serves as a temporary remedy for consumption of beverage products.

The managing director of Royal T Group developed certain ideas concerning making improvements in the branding ideas where consumers gets engaged with the company based on social media platforms. Besides this, Liho bubble tea also monitors the feedbacks given by the customers so that they can enhance improvement in their performance for gaining significant competitive advantage.

Based on the complying with the rules enforced by the government, Liho bubble tea launched a new product named “Bubble team DIY kit campaign”. Through the development of the product, the organization aimed to encourage consumers for attempting to make bubble tea. The campaign was launched in 24th April and as per Liho bubble tea, the products were supplied and sold to the customers within 30 minutes that proved to be convenient. The organization received improved positive responses to the kit of Liho bubble tea which encouraged the organization to add more variations and improvements in the features of the product in the upcoming future.

Implementation and control
Identification of an implementation plan
Liho bubble tea aimed at achievement of future development of its products so that it can achieve customer satisfaction. In addition to this, the organization also developed various innovative ideas towards adding variety of products. There are several ideas that have been implemented by Liho bubble teathat became famous in Singapore with the motive of serving beverage and food in food centric and fast paced society (Wang, 2020). In addition to this, the organization also makes arrangements for provision of online delivery of the food products. The strategic location of Liho bubble tea is compatible with fulfillment of its objectives. Besides this, the organization also ensured to establish its branches in the shopping malls in catering towards the needs of domestic consumers and maintaining a good balance of stores. Depending upon the store market and volume of the products, it becomes profitable for the tea business to ascertain its growth.

Responsibility of implementation
The senior management of Liho bubble tea has the responsibility for implementation of plans and strategies that are approved by Royal T group (Weberand Saunders-Hogberg, 2018). The organization focused on bringing the citizens of Singapore from all walks of life and also maintains strong internal control system that allocates power and provision strong platform for creation of collaborative environment that assists in maintaining balance between revenue and expenses.

Cost, measurement and effectiveness
The members of Royal T Group direct the organization towards strong control and management of its price and products. It provides detailed information concerning the requirements of the employees and investments made by the shareholders of Royal T Group.

Control measures
The significant aim of Royal T Group is to enhance control on the risks imposed by its competitors in the nation. Such risks might create potential loss in terms of loss of customer base that was acquired by the organization in provision of quality certified products to them. Therefore, the initiative undertaken by Royal T Group towards the development of bubble kit secured the organization from its competitors.

Conclusion
From the above study on marketing plan of Liho bubble tea founded by Royal T Group, it can be concluded that, with the help of effective marketing strategy, the organization has been able to fulfill its aim and goal towards serving its customers. In addition to this the organization also made certain variations in the product that assisted in achievement of strong competitive edge in the beverage industry in Singapore. Besides this, the executive director of Royal T Group also developed innovative ideas towards enhancing improvements in the branding ideas. This enabled the consumers in getting engaged with the company through application of appropriate social media platforms.

References
Akter, M., 2019.Internship report on a study of Food Products and Beverage Industry.

Chen, X. and Voigt, T., 2020.Implementation of the Manufacturing Execution System in the food and beverage industry. Journal of Food Engineering, 278, p.109932.

Chen, X. and Voigt, T., 2020.Implementation of the Manufacturing Execution System in the food and beverage industry. Journal of Food Engineering, 278, p.109932.

Hajra, N.G., 2017. Organic tea: Global market and forecast sales. Journal of Tea Science Research, 7.

LiHO, 2021.About Us.Available at https://royaltgroup.com/our-brands/liho.html. [Accessed 4 June 2021]

Mohammad, V.M., 2020. Consumer Trust Towards Content Marketing of Food & Beverage Businesses on Instagram: Empirical Analysis of Taiwanese and Singaporean Consumers. International Journal of Business and Administrative Studies, 6(2), pp.73-85.

Oktaviana, N., Masyhuri, M. and Hartono, S., 2017. Competitiveness of tea exports in Asean: A constant market share analysis. IlmuPertanian (Agricultural Science), 1(2), p.088.

Otles, S. and Sakalli, A., 2019. Industry 4.0: The Smart Factory of the Future in Beverage Industry. In Production and Management of Beverages (pp. 439-469). Marketing plan assignmentWoodhead Publishing.

Raimo, N., de Nuccio, E., Giakoumelou, A., Petruzzella, F. and Vitolla, F., 2020. Non-financial information and cost of equity capital: an empirical analysis in the food and beverage industry. British Food Journal.

Suyama, N., 2018. Exploring Business Opportunities in Singapore for Food Business. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 9(3). Wang, B. (2020, October). The Research on the Influence of Virtual Feedback of Beverage Industry on Customer Loyalty and Other Factors. In 2020 The 4th International Conference on E-Business and Internet (pp. 97-105).

Waring, P., Bali, A. and Vas, C., 2020. The fourth industrial revolution and labour market regulation in Singapore. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 31(3), pp.347-363.

Weber, O. and Saunders-Hogberg, G., 2018.Water management and corporate social performance in the food and beverage industry. Journal of cleaner production, 195, pp.963-977.