How Costa Coffee would benefit and create additional value for their coffee store clients by using elements of Starbucks marketing strategy?

Contents

Introduction 3

Coffee Market in the UK 3

Market Leading Coffee Shops in the UK 4

Costa Coffee 4

Identifying competition 6

Starbucks 6

Conclusions 8

Recommendations 9

References 11

Appendix 1 13

Appendix 2 14

Appendix 3 15

Introduction

Competitive marketing strategy is described by Kotler and Armstrong (2012) as a strategy which positions company against competition giving it the strongest possible strategic advantage.

I have chosen Costa Coffee as it currently is the market leader in terms of most coffee retail outlets in the United Kingdom as demonstrated on appendix 1.

Kotler and Armstrong (2012) point out that competitor analysis includes assessing competitions objectives, strategies, strengths and weaknesses, reaction patterns and selecting which competitors to attack or avoid. For he purposes of this assignment, I have identified competition based on the market share and customer view.

Competitive marketing strategy is selected on the basis of it creating further value for the customer. Blythe (2009) concludes that competitive advantage is the outcome of effective strategy whereby the company is offering something which the competition is not able to match.

Customers act on perceived value which is customer’s evaluation of the difference between all the benefits and all the costs of a marketing offer relative to those of competing offers (Kotler and Armstrong 2012). Jobber defines customer value as perceived benefits minus perceived sacrifice