Innovative Food and Beverage Marketing Ideas Essay

Innovative Food and Beverage Marketing Ideas - Essay Example Rock music usually has a strong back beat. (Wikipedia) In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and Latin music. In the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, blues rock, heavy metal-style rock, progressive rock, art rock, techno-rock, syth-rock and punk rock. Rock subgenres from the 1980s included hard rock, indie-rock and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge-style rock, Britpop, and Indie rock. (Wikipedia) The influence of rock and roll is far-reaching, and has had significant impact worldwide on fashion, film styles, and even the hospitality industry.. This impact is broad enough that rock and roll may also be considered a lifestyle in addition to a form of music. Rock music was the inspiration of Tigrett and Morton's Hard Rock Caf (HRC) that originated in London. (Wikipedia) HRC is a unique genre in the hospitality industry, being a chain of restaurants, hotels, and casinos that is known for its music and memorabilia rather than its food. Customers come to HRC mainly for the experience of the live music event, which is a highly strategic marketing innovation of the caf. It was founded in 1971 by music-loving entrepreneurs Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton. The first HRC opened near Hyde Park Corner in London, in a former Rolls Royce car dealership show room. In 1979 Tigrett and Morton began to cover the walls with rock and roll ephemera. Hard Rock was most popular in the 1980s when some people engaged in the hobby of visiting as many locations as possible and collecting a Hard Rock t-shirt bearing the Cafe logo and the location name. The Hard Rock Cafe's motto "Love All, Serve All" was adopted from Tigrett's guru Sathya Sai Baba. (Wikipedia) The HRC Marketing Mix There are about eight million restaurants in the world and some 300,000 restaurant companies. The restaurant industry is a classic mature market. Companies face stiff competition and low profit margins. (Yahoo Finance) Thus, innovative marketing ideas are necessary for any restaurant business to remain competitive and sustainable. Like many other restaurants and cafes, Hard Rock adapts the descriptive labeling for its menu and more. It has reinvented the menu to become an art cum history book. But more than the artistic menu, what makes HRC sustainable is its marketing mix that combines music, food, museum and merchandising. According to Proctor (2000), positioning products in people's minds and making them attractive to market segments requires careful formulation of the marketing mix. Getting the right blend of the product, promotion price and distribution is essential to put the carefully carried out analysis into operation. The aim is to portray an image for the product or service that will match with how one wants the product to be visualised in people's minds, i.e. its positioning. Image is not only reflected in the promotional messages which are directed towards the target market but also in the pricing strategy, the mode of distribution and in the appearance of the product or service itself. Live Rock MusicHRC has position itself for dominance in a market that caters to customers who love not only