In an already cluttered coffee market in India, what is the USP of ‘The Chocolate Room’ that you think puts it in a different league?
We are a chocolate café – one of a kind in India – which serves 16 flavours of hot chocolates. We serve the world’s most famous chocolate shakes, chocolate fondues, chocolate waffles and chocolate pancakes. And we are trying to create a new chocolate culture in India. The crockery that we use is traditional Italian crockery. It has been launched by us in India for the first time.
The coffee market in India is expected to grow by 14% over the next five years and may surpass $410 million in market value by 2017. How do you plan to tap into this potential considering that big players like Starbucks have opened shop in India apart from the other established coffee chains?
More of competition translates into better growth opportunities. If these brands are entering the market it only shows that there is consumer awareness for international brands, and interest in coffee culture is increasing in India. But we are different from the other coffee chains in that we don’t ask customers to come to us for coffee. Instead we let them enter our chocolate world where they can then try some coffee. So I believe that the more the number of brands that come in the better it will be for us. The Chocolate Room is an Australian brand but is popular in several other countries as well such as the US, UK, Canada, Cyprus, and India.
You began operations in India in 2007 as a chocolate franchisee. Has your marketing strategy shifted gears over the years?
In the initial years we did not market a lot as the company was set up on personal finances and not on investors’ money. So we focussed just on word of mouth marketing. But over the years as we have expanded the need to market the product has emerged and we have been trying different ways of marketing every year – from brand marketing to franchise marketing to social marketing. We keep coming up with innovative ways of marketing to get people in India hooked to our concept of chocolate coffee.
Coffee chains have been maximizing the social media potential as a marketing tool. Are you too stepping up on digital marketing?
As far as social media is concerned we have just started our campaign on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. We have understood that to touch the nerves of the youth in India we have to be strong on social media platforms. I believe we have done a reasonably good job as we have increased our fan following ten-fold from where we were initially. People have now started talking about and discussing our brand. And somewhere it has shown growth from the day we implemented social marketing within the company. We keep our customers indulged – with facts about our brand, facts and figures about chocolate, some regular competitions and quizzes – and we reward them for winning these contests and for their loyalty to the brand. So through social media we are doing a lot of cross-promotional activities. Overall, it is the type of marketing that is going to be our main strategy for the coming years.
Many chains selling food and beverages have taken to localising their products as a successful marketing strategy. Do you have plans to make such changes to your products?
We will have to localise the product but in a way that suits the taste buds of our customers. We might look at changing the way our products are served in India – different from how they are served in the other markets. I believe our success mantra lies in keeping 70% of the menu unchanged while localising 30% And we have successfully done so. But yes, localization is one of the important ingredients for any brand’s success.
What are the other issues that you are looking to address?
We are thoroughly into the franchising business but our main strategy from 2013 onward would be to open company stores and explore the market. Next would be to get equity partners to play a major part in getting the brand to the next level. Another important strategy would be to start working on some audit systems to raise the bar of our customer service.
