OUR CLIENT

Kotak food is a humble Indonesian restaurant strategically located between the famous Restaurant Gold Chili and brand new Buttermilk Kitchen in Subang Jaya, SS15. The eatery serves Halal Indonesian Cuisines with a modern concept. One of the unique features is that the restaurant has some parking spots reserved so customers could come forward without any worries about getting a parking space. In terms of popularity, Kotak is significantly recognized as the restaurant that sells the all feared - 4 different levels of Spicy Ayam Geprek. One year before, it was a sensational challenge for an interval of time. Moreover, famous Youtuber Jinnyboy featured it in the “Hot Guys” Episode 5 with another 2 of his crews.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strength

High Exposure Location

The restaurant provides a high accessibility and parking convenience to provide food and service. This aspect contributes to one of the few keys to profitability and location influence. Besides, such attraction offers a level of visibility to receive a better deal of walk-in business.

Firm Brand Image

Kotak has a strong brand image where the cuisines are focused on Indonesian style flavours and menu. Customer’s perception of the brand also relates to the Ayam Geprek levels of spiciness, which was one of the iconic reputations that reflects the restaurant’s signature dish.

Adaptive to Trends and Changes

Due to recent global pandemic and economic downfall, Kotak is able to modify their business concept by adding delivery service and devices to test temperatures. The business accommodates to the changing ‘new-normal’ where the customers could still enjoy their food from Kotak at comfortable home and working offices. They also increase digital marketing for their brand to engage with customers online.

Localized Taste with Specific Concept

Kotak successfully localized its product to fit into Malaysian’s market, creating suitable Indonesian palatable dishes for tastes. Although the food concept is still Indonesian style, the representation of the mix of traditional food with modern structure eatery brings a whole new dining experience to local residents.

Less Active Online Engagement

Social media wise, Kotak has under 10,000 followers on Instagram and around 3,000 subscribers on Facebook. This pinpoint them as not the most popular eatery in Subang Jaya, even though they have been promoted on Fun N’ Taste, Food Advisor and youtube channels for their dishes. Kotak updates its social media status timely, but there is still a lack of active engagement from the users. At most, there are on average about 15 likes on an instagram post.

Wide target range of audience

Kotak focuses on a group of psychographic consumers through digital marketing techniques. It is reasonable to determine the return on investment (ROI) but not useful in evaluating groups of users and their communication efforts. Kotak does not have a specific age group with demographics to accurately measure the best marketing channels for each segment. This might result in added efforts which are time-consuming.

High Investment on Digital Marketing

Kotak allocates more financial investments to promote its brand on social media marketing and other digital sites. While it may be an efficient move, it is not exactly an effective marketing integration. Kotak’s target audience is basically based on psychographic and geographic segments. This is not able to reach out to a semi-targeted audience with various offline advertising and marketing tactics.

Weakness

THREAT

Intense Competition and Oversaturated Market

Speaking about authentic and most-loved Indonesian dishes in Kuala Lumpur, there are more than a dozen popular chains that fall under the competition radar. Restaurants like Bumbu Desa, Naughty Nuri’s, Ayam Penyet Ria, Anggrek Kuring and others. In general point of view, however, the F & B industry in Kuala Lumpur has always been an eye to eye competition standpoint. In this case, there are more than a handfuls of themed cafes, localized restaurants, home-cooked style eateries and service-friendly diners.

Ever-changing Food Trends and Consumer’s Taste

From year to year, there are always trends and paradigm-shift food innovations that rock the industry. The trend will continue and grow to develop in the additional menu to the F&B industry. One of which is organic, superfood and health foods because a healthy lifestyle has become one of the popular trends. Kotak might be at disadvantage because their menu is mostly fried, spicy and greasy dishes. Moreover, they do not have an earth-friendly or plant-based approach in packaging and production wise, which is also a trend which consumers look upon.

Recent Economic Situation

The F&B industry was observed with a noticeable impact from the situation of global pandemic COVID-19. As the economy went through the steepest fall, the policies and regulations are deemed not sufficient for the SMEs businesses. There is a need for Kotak to undergo temporary change to remain a positive income or at the very least maintain the balance of revenue with expenses.

Expansion Into New Geographic Location

Geographic expansion is able to increase the accessibility to new markets and talent pools. Kotak can further develop in terms of community and business growth by operating franchises to additional geographical sites.

Regional Recognition

This acknowledgement is similar to regional marketing strategy which is designed to target more specific prospects - regional, local or neighbouring states. Kotak has a business plan to expand its territories to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia through digital marketing strategic approach.

Product Differentiation

Specific Cuisines and Menu Concept - Indonesian

The brand falls under the categorisation of non beneficial but evident product differentiation. The restaurant offers some values and seeks to promote insignificant features where its cuisines are mainly Indonesian-based flavours. Unlike many eateries outside, Kotak featured vibrant and colourful Indonesian cuisines that taste both palatable and exciting.

Vertical Differentiation - Superior Taste and Quality

Kotak is a humble brand that focuses more towards the food quality and price rather than the quantity of food choices. The measurements for the “better” option can be significantly objective, but the value which customers place on the eatery might vary from each other. For example, it could be better food quality or cheaper price, incentives or complements given from time to time.

OPPORTUNITY

PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

Specific Cuisines and Menu Concept - Indonesian

Vertical Differentiation - Superior Taste and Quality

CUSTOMER EVALUATION

Consumer Make-up Approach

Psychographic

Based on consumers’ lifestyles, interests and habits, Kotak targets a specific segment of Muslims who love spicy food and Indonesian cuisines. Moreover, it also includes the consumers who value fast and easy concepts, eat-to-go options, food quality and affordable prices.

Geographic

Consumers who are the local residents in the Subang Jaya area and prioritise location convenience when making their food choice purchase decisions. It also applies to spontaneous consumers who stroll past Kotak and game to try new food options.

Consumer Typology

Kotak segregates its customers based on active engagement and a number of attractions. The types of consumers that they expected to maintain are the loyal consumers who come often for their food, discount consumers who visit for the incentives or promotions and need-based consumers who are tolerant against spicy foods. Nonetheless, the customers who are more likely to be targeted are the need-based consumers as they are more attracted towards the flavours of cuisine which Kotaks serves.

Consumer Characteristic

The traits that influence consumers’ buying decisions to Kotak are plausible to be defined as convenience-driven and connectivity-driven respectively. For convenience-driven, it is much related to customers who are time-restricted and want to go with the quickest available options. So, it is all about fast, simple and easy. On the other hand, connectivity-driven customers are more towards wanting to be part of a community and feel connected. Kotak is able to build relationships with these customers through active engagements where mostly are online. Kotak has always actively updated its social media status to keep customers in check with their recent stories or news.

SPECIFIC TARGET MARKET

Primary

The primary target audience is consumers which have the greatest opportunity or can be easily converted by the business. However, the target audience would not be the largest nor the most obvious group (Cameron 2019). The consumers who are most likely to buy from Kotak would be Muslims who love spicy food and live in the Subang Jaya area. There might be a high chance that they become returning customers or even loyal customers to Kotak.

Secondary

The secondary target market is the group of consumers which most appeals to the business’s promise and potential (Cameron 2019). The group of people who are the second most likely to purchase from Kotak will be consumers who :-

are student living in the Subang Jaya area
are working adults who like their food fast and simple to get
love Indonesian cuisines
prefers halal food
Indonesians who are Malaysia residents
visitors of Kotak’s website
followers of Kotak’s social media pages
friends of the Kotak’s online community
foodie trend chasers - Ayam Geprek Spicy Challenge

These customers might not be readily engaged in sales transactions and require more credibility and convincing compared to the primary market.

Positioning

Kotak is associated with positioning, identifying and advertising a feature of their product (Indonesian cuisine) which meets the needs of a specialized group of consumers. The objective of Kotak’s market positioning is to establish itself as an identifiable and perceivable brand to its audiences. In this case, Kotak has positioned itself as a modern Indonesia fast food concept. The restaurant also emphasizes on its unique feature as a provider of authentic and flavourful Indonesian food variations.

Section C : Marketing Goals

Short Term

Increase engagement rates on social media

Create valuable content to increase the engagement on social media. For example, shares, likes, comments, hashtags and tags.

Gain new followers on Instagram

Get 10 new followers on Instagram every month in 1 month.

Increase brand awareness

Invite 10 micro influencers to do review posts on their social media platform and include hashtag and tag to the posts.

Long Term

Increase sales of Kotak

Sales play a key role in the building of loyalty and trust between customer and business. Trust and loyalty are the main reasons why a customer would choose to recommend your company to a friend or family member or write a great review of your product or service online.

Improve local search ranking

Local search rank helps to position the restaurant to potential clients on search engines or other digital marketing platforms. Manage and respond to google reviews is the best way to improve it. Increase the numbers of google reviews, collect 10 google reviews every week.

Expand Kotak

Expansion business helps to reach out to new groups of customers. The planning of Kotak is to expand to other states in the next 5 years by having 3 new branches.