Marketing Research Assignment: Survey & Market Analysis For Disk Quentinha

Question

Task: Marketing Research Assignment
You will conduct market research on the small business of your choosing from your home country. You will obtain information about the product/service, the purchase influences for the customer - where, how and when they buy the product/service, how they pay and access the product/service. You will create a memo that will deliver five research insights, based on the criteria listed above, about the product/service. In your conclusion, please present a hypothesis regarding the primary challenge the small business faces and propose a recommendation with a focus on a foundational marketing tactic (Price, Place, Promotion, Product) for a focus of the marketing campaign. Your recommendation will be evaluated based on the creativity of your idea, as well as how realistic it is for the small business to implement the idea.

Memo should be no longer than 4 pages in length, Times New Roman 12, 1.5 spaced. Please include the following info in the interview:
1. Small Business (see some information below about the small business)
2. Small Business social media audit
3. 5 Key Market Research Insights
4. Hypothesis re: Primary Challenge for Small Business
5. Recommendation for New Strategy Re: Marketing Tactic & Campaign

Please be sure to up APA citation format both in-text, as well as for the bibliography. Primary and secondary research is encouraged for this assignment.

Small Business:
Disk Quentinha
Disk Quentinha is a small enterprise operating in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; they have been around since 2016 and started with the aim of targeting the boom due to the 2016 Rio Olympics. They are a B2C in the hospitality industry and supply ready packed meals to people looking for an affordable meal, it’s a similar concept that is being popular now where meals are delivered directly from the supplier to the end customer without the intermediation of a third party platform, what’s interesting of this is that another emerging trend become popular that aligns to this business which are the also known as ghost kitchens, which is a professional commercial kitchen that only produces food for delivery and operates from a unknown location to the public.
As many businesses the pandemic had an impact on them, however they thrived as they already had the concept of delivery in place, nevertheless there was an impact: customers started to spend less on prepared meals as they stayed at home and prepared their own meals and Disk Quentinha’s biggest market is office employees who during the pandemic were no longer going to the office.
It’s a very competitive market and constantly new players are joining the game which makes harder to keep thriving; the business concept is easy to start and challenging to sustain and that’s where Disk Quentinha focus is retaining existing customer base and rewarding their loyalty and finally having a signature flavor that it’s almost a trade secret. Budget towards marketing activities is limited, most of the approach is directed into social media and word of mouth. “We value organic marketing, and we always create our own original content and content created by our loyal fans.” (B. Silva, personal interview, November 25, 2021).
Disk Quentinha plans to invest on a beta app that would allow them to manage orders and deliveries.

Answer

1. Small Business
Disk Quentinha is a start-up business to consumer enterprise functioning in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The operational idea of this enterprise as mentioned herein marketing research assignment is that it acts as a food delivery service and supplies its customers with ready food directly from suppliers, eliminating the concept of intermediaries. The business idea originated with the essence of targeting the upsurge in customer food habits of consuming ready foods during the 2016 Rio Olympics.

1.1 Product/Service
As a service provider, the main objective of the operations of Disk Quentinha is providing food delivery service to its consumers. It does not manufacture any product or owns ghost kitchens whose sole motive is to prepare food to meet delivery needs, at an unknown location. Although ghost kitchens are a trending concept and do align with the business model of this enterprise, it hasn’t explored this idea yet. The business operating module of this enterprise utilizes the USP of elimination of intermediaries in the delivery business.

1.2 Purchase Influence
During the pre-pandemic era, the business operations of Disk Quentinha flourished due to the presence of the boom created by the Olympic games of 2016. The international game hosting series influenced the consumer food consumption behaviour and their purchase behaviour to a great extent. However, the sales have taken a hit because of the widespread pandemic and it is trying to revive with full strength.

2. Small Business social media audit
As mentioned earlier Disk Quentinha doesn’t own ghost kitchens rather it is a mere service provider connecting food kitchens to consumers. The marketing strategies adopted by this enterprise are mainly organic, and they highly depend on the word of mouth for their publicity (Tonget al., 2020, p.65). Apart from reliance on word of mouth publicity, the entity utilizes social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to promote its business. It has a dedicated marketing page on all these platforms and the Twitter handle of Disk Quentinha entails an interactive feature that allows the customers to directly contact the administrators of the business, in case of any mishaps or to report bad services. The social media pages contain detailed information about the contact numbers to book a food order and the administrators regularly post on these pages about the offers or discounts being offered (Liet al., 2021, p.69).
Since the start of the business, these strategies have proved beneficial in enhancing the customer base and deepening its roots in the food delivery space. Social media especially has been the major driver of its up scaled operations. The customer feedback section which entails direct customer insights uploaded by genuine customers adds credibility to its operation methodology and has proven beneficial in enhancing the customer base.

3. Key Market Research Insights
The pre-pandemic era starting from the time of hosting of Olympic Games brought a dynamic change in the food consumption behaviour of local people (Jastrzbek, 2020, p.45). This created a demand in the food delivery business and due to the lack of enough players during the initial phase of this business; it started with an up-thrust. Through an online survey conducted on social media by Disk Quentinha, the assessment of Market Profile and market conditions have been done. This has helped the entity in gaining better market insights and the market profile assessment provided the entity with the strategic models in use by its competitors. With thorough knowledge of the Demand Gap present in the market, the Disk Quentinha was able to segment its service location as per the assessment. The present Market Conditions of the food delivery space is very competitive and new players are constantly entering this domain. Also, a presence of a Supply gap on the consumer side has been noticed, due to changed Consumer Behaviour.

With the combination of the after the pandemic effect, the operations has been difficult for all sectors of small businesses.

4. Hypothesis re: Primary Challenge for Small Business
Price: The pricing strategy in use by Disk Quentinha currently is aligned with the major competitors in the same space. Place: The location of the business has been decided based on surveys related to market insights carried out and the upsurge in demand gap created in the market after the Rio De Janeiro Olympics, 2016. The sports event influenced consumer behaviour related to the food delivery business and the lack of any credible service provider created the demand gap. Disk Quentinhautilized this adversity and turned it into an opportunity for growing its operations. Promotion: The strategies used by Disk Quentinha are organic as it has limited budget capacities for marketing its services. The limited amount is utilized in promoting the business through the use of social media (Kauret al., 2020, p.956). Apart from this method it mainly relies on the word of mouth publicity methodology. The lack of a conclusive marketing strategy is affecting the expansion plans of Disk Quentinha.

Product: Disk Quentinha is a mere service provider; it neither manufactures food nor has adopted the idea of a ghost kitchen yet. Hence, it is just a food delivery service provider.

5. Recommendation for New Strategy Re: Marketing Tactic & Campaign
Price: The pricing structure adopted by small businesses like Disk Quentinha must be low as the food delivery market space comprises of several players which have made the market competitive, and since the economical conditions of people have taken a hit, the providence of food delivery service at an affordable price could boost the brand rapport of Disk Quentinha. Place: Disk Quentinha, can explore expanding its business to other locations to increase its market exposure and enhance its customer base in the post-pandemic market.

Promotion: Apart from the use of social media marketing, Disk Quentinha should explore the digital marketing methodology as it has been quite widely in use by its competitors. Increasing its online presence can benefit its plans of enhancing market share in this space. Disk Quentinha, also has plans to launch a beta version of their app to ease the process of managing orders and food deliveries. Product: As Disk Quentinha is a service provider, the induction of a beta app to ease the order and management processes could prove beneficial in increasing its service quality.

References
Jastrz bek, J., The economic impact of postponing the Olympic Games. Summer Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Facing the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic, p.45.
Kaur, J., Arora, V. and Bali, S., 2020. Influence of technological advances and change in marketing strategies using analytics in retail industry. International journal of system assurance engineering and management, 11(5), pp.953-961.
Li, F., Larimo, J. and Leonidou, L.C., 2021. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Marketing research assignmentJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), pp.51-70. Tong, S., Luo, X. and Xu, B., 2020. Personalized mobile marketing strategies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), pp.64-78.