Marketing Paper

Teniesha Biagas Mike Brown Gbenga Onayiga Brittany Churchill Vusumzi Kempele

Café Du Monde 11/20/2008

Café Du Monde also known as the Original French Market coffee stand has earned nationwide appeal for their beignets. The fried fritters covered in powdered sugar have become a favorite of tourists that frequent the City of New Orleans. Although the beignets are a favorite, so is the company’s other product, coffee. The long-standing company opened its doors in 1862. Hubert Hernandez purchased the coffee shop from Fred Koeniger in 1942. Today Café Du Monde can be found on the same street it has always been on. Café Du Monde and many other companies use a marketing mix. The marketing mix uses four elements to satisfy exchanges between consumer and service provider. They are product, promotion, place, and pricing. The product strategy is the first element and the starting point of the marketing mix. It is also the product offering and product strategy. For example, the beignet is the product, but the packaging, the name, and other product elements are also part of the product strategy. Place strategies are concerned with making products available where consumers want them. Café Du Monde is accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week for the consumer’s pleasure. The last product element is the promotion strategy. Promotion includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling. In this report, three of the four elements of the marketing mix will be discussed and made evident at Café Du Monde. Product Strategies Café Du Monde is known around the world for its famous products. While they only consist of a few items, these products are cherished years after their consumption. At Café Du Monde they serve chicory and coffee, beignets, white and chocolate milk, iced coffee, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

The coffee at Café Du Monde is unique because it contains chicory, the root of an endive plant. The Acadians brought this idea to the United States during the civil war. The chicory softens the bitterness of the dark roasted coffee and adds a kind of rich chocolate flavor. They usually serve their coffee Au Lait, which means mixed with milk. Their coffee beats out any competitor’s coffee because it is made from natural ingredients. Beignets are probably Café Du Monde’s most famous product because they are unique to this coffee shop. Other large chains of coffee shops do not sell this product. The Acadians, a group of French, also brought beignets to the New Orleans area. Beignets are fried square fritters covered with powder sugar. This sweet treat became so popular that Café Du Monde now sells beignet mix so consumers can make them at home if they are outside of the New Orleans area. At two dollars, the mix provides great value and fun to the customers. The iced coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and milk are compliments of the famous beignets and hot coffee. If you are not a coffee drinker, you can still enjoy your beignets with milk or juice. This makes the Café Du Monde Experience great for the whole family. Place (Distribution) Strategies Café du Monde is a coffee shop that is open 24 hours, 7 days a week and it is located in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is best known for its café au lait and its Frenchstyle beignets. The location at the upper end of the French Market was established in 1862. In 1985, the Fernandez Family opened a second Café du Monde in The Esplanade Mall located in Kenner, Louisiana. In 1986, a third Café Du Monde was opened in the Rouse Co.’s River walk Marketplace. The River walk is located on the Mississippi River next to the New Orleans Convention Center. There are seven Café Du Monde coffee stands in the New Orleans Metropolitan area. As of May 2002, there are 56 Café Du Monde coffee stands throughout Japan.

In Chapter 2 of the textbook, Marketing, Café Du Monde has a niche competitive advantage and it seeks to target and serve a single segment of the market. Café Du Monde is a company that uses niche strategy that only serves a limited geographic market. Although the company has companies in Japan, in recent years, the company has restricted its operation to the greater New Orleans metro area. The company is a direct channel in which it interacts with its customers with no intermediaries. Promotion Strategies Café Du Monde focuses on advertising, point of sale, and word of mouth to promote their restaurant and the products they sell and serve. The restaurant does a lot of its advertising by posting ads on newspapers and handing out flyers in the French Quarter and other nearby locations. The cafe also has a website where people can go and get information like the location, contact information, business hours, and products they have available for customers on the business. The website features a 1-800 number that also provides immediate customer service. If you are a true lover Café Du Monde, the company offers club access. This component of the company will deliver four to eight cans of coffee and chicory to your residence every three months. Cafe Du Monde has also appeared in multiple fictional depictions of the city including the Dave Robicheaux series of novels by James Lee Burke, and novels by John Connolly, Poppy Z. Brite, and Nancy A. Collins. The café is featured in two scenes in the movie Runaway Jury, which exposes the cafe to an even wider range and variety of customers. Another aspect of marketing the restaurant uses is point of sale where the store has flyers available for

customers to pick up inside the store. The restaurant also has available souvenirs you can buy like t-shirts, cups, and many more other items with the restaurants logo and name on them. Another aspect of marketing the cafe uses is word of mouth. The store thrives to have one of the best customer service experiences in the industry so that customers can go out and advertise the company by word of mouth. This is a reference to the passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner therefore attracting other customers. In conclusion, Café Du Monde offers the consumer a sweet treat for a low price. An order of beignets comes in three’s. The coffee and beignets are accessible to consumers. The internet brings the product to consumers across the globe. The company’s locations are widely dispersed throughout the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area for the consumer’s convenience. All these factors add to the significance of The Café Du Monde brand. The brand exemplifies a quality product and service at a low price.