Cadbury’s Cafes
The market is littered with attempts by food and beverage retail brands to create their own branded cafes. Heinz launched Soup Kitchen in the 1970s, and a decade ago Amoy set up its own noodle bars, while Tetley launched Gaffers tea shops in Manchester.
Where are they now? None expanded beyond two or three outlets and even Unilever, having spent considerable time and money researching and setting up Ch'a tea shops, had to admit failure several years ago.
So the prognosis for the launch of Cadbury's own chain of branded cafes is not good. That's not to say it won't be a success but it will depend on getting many things right. And chief amongst those for a retail brand is marrying up what the brand offers with what the customers want.
There is a fundamental misbelief amongst many that customers will flock to an outlet because of the brand of food or beverage on offer. They can point to Starbucks and claim that customers frequent their coffee shops because of the Starbucks coffee - but the coffee shops are more important than the coffee.
So Cadbury must make sure that they properly understand that customers will visit their cafes for a variety of reasons - the service, the atmosphere, or the opportunity to meet friends for example. The brand of chocolate may not be important to customers.