Week 6

As the Hot Table campaign progresses, my team and I are working on getting as much background research as possible before we create our 3 creative ideas. One of the things that my team in the last campaign received feedback on was that we did not use marketing concepts and theories enough to back up our campaign. For this reason, when professor Spotts gave us the 4Cs to create a foundation for our campaign, I put them into a document and added information/ models and pictures from our required readings to ensure that I used marketing concepts throughout the project. One of the areas that we need to look at is The Elements of Value for Hot Table. I decided to do this for part of my weekly reflection. 

I believe that Elements of Value are particularly relevant to this campaign because of the way that consumers look at fast casual dining. Consumers are willing to pay a higher price at fast casual restaurants than they are at fast food restaurants because they believe that the food is of a higher quality. This means that proving to customers that Hot Table provides them enough value to make it worth paying a higher price is very important. In addition, once a consumer has decided that fast casual provides more value than QSR, extra value must be shown to consumers to persuade them to select Hot Table as the fast casual restaurant that they actually eat at. The Elements of Value Pyramid deals with creating value in ways other than price so it is a very good fit for this campaign. 

I re-read the article on The Elements of Value and re-watched the video as well. I was able to identify a variety of value elements that can be found in Hot Table as an organization. Here are the ones that I identified:

• Life Changing

• Affiliation/ belonging: Hot Table offers an atmosphere that allows people to come together and socialize. Hot Table is a place where friends get together, colleagues and co-workers enjoy lunch together, or even, business meetings occur. This gives consumers a feeling of belonging and adds value to their experience. In addition, Hot Table's employees are trained to build relationships with all their customers. This also adds to the feeling of belonging and being accepted into a community. 

• Emotional

•  Design/ Aesthetics: Six Point Creative and Hot Table have worked together to create a specific design for the Hot Table locations that is inviting and appealing to customers. They have stuck to a specific color scheme that is both pleasing to the eye and true to their brand. The interior design not only affects the atmosphere and feeling within the restaurant, but also effects the customers experience. 

• Rewards Me: Hot Tables punch system uses this element of value. Every time a customer purchases a panini, they receive a punch (two if its Tuesday). This eventually rewards the customer when they get enough punches to earn a free panini. 


• Wellness: Many fast casual restaurants utilize this element of value. Consumers are becoming more and more interested in healthy, organic, and non-GMO food options. This is one of the reasons that fast casual is becoming preferred over fast food. They serve healthier, higher quality food. Hot Table is one of the fast casual restaurants that does just that. They use fresh, healthy ingredients that a customer can see as soon as they walk into the restaurant. In fact, this sentiment is even part of their core brand promise; "Providing delicious, handmade panini with fresh ingredients and a great customer experience."

• Functional

• Saves Time/Avoids Hassle: Saves time is also a large component of the Fast Casual industry. Consumers are able to quickly get their food, they can even order it from home and pick it up ready to go. This is important because there has been a trend in food preferences towards fastness, especially for Millennials, who are a large target market for fast casual restaurants. However, again it is the combination of the speed and quality of fast casual dining that makes it preferable to fast food for many consumers. I included avoids hassle as well because I think the two concepts go hand in hand. The whole process of getting food from fast casual is much less of a hassle than other options, such as attending a sit down restaurant or making a meal for yourself.

• Quality: I have already referred to it multiple times, but quality is extremely important to the fast casual industry. In general, quality is important to all industries. Consumers want quality food made with quality ingredients at a fast pace. The quality of customer service is also very important. Customer service and "a great customer experience" are part of Hot Table's core brand promise.

• Variety: Variety and the ability to customize/ "build your own" is another stable characteristic of the fast casual industry. This allows consumers to get exactly what they want, which is a huge added benefit. Consumers at Hot Table are able to change up or add things to sandwiches listed on the menu. In addition, they can build their own sandwich from scratch and ignore the menu completely. In addition, Hot Table offers a variety of sandwich sizes, which is helpful for more calorie conscious consumers (ex. women). They have small, medium, and large paninis as well as wraps available.

The next thing that I did was focus on the Consumer Decision Journey and how consumers decide what restaurant to eat at. We talked about this in class as well. I wanted to get my thoughts down in one place, so I created this chart. This looks at the 4 moments of truth (0-3) and how they affect the Consumer Decision Journey. For example, Moment of Truth 0 will be very important to this campaign since awareness of Hot Table is one of our biggest objectives. Another reason that this is so important is that it helps us pick out moments of receptivity where our target market will be open to our message. One example is if we find that workers from local businesses, such as UMASS are a large source of customers for Hot Table, our marketing may be received the best if we put it out at lunch time when employees are on their lunch break and looking to get something to eat. We will also need to look into the platforms that these types of consumers are most likely to be using at that time so that we can effectively reach them.