Cold Stone Creamery Marketing Plan

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Business Summary
Goals
References

The present marketing plan is developed to provide the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee with the clear road map of actions connected with ratifying the franchise agreement and carrying out all the branding, promotion, and advertising activities connected with it. This marketing plan inquires about the industry background, outlines the main activities the franchisee should adopt, establishes the people responsible for them, and specifies timeframes and budget for those activities. Finally, success evaluation techniques are also stipulated in this marketing plan.

Introduction

Cold Stone Creamery is one of the leaders of the United States market of ice cream and food (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). Therefore, it is a potentially profitable step to franchise the company and obtain the right to produce and distribute the goods under the label of Cold Stone Creamery. For us, as a new company in the ice cream market, it is a chance to develop and establish our market share in the ice cream industry of the US (Franchise Direct, 2009). For these purposes the following marketing plan is designed as the comprehensive tool for developing our further activities as the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee.

Business Summary

Market Background

Cold Stone Creamery operates in the US food market, whose ice cream division is a rather developed one, and presents wide opportunities for franchising. Cold Stone Creamery was acknowledged as the #1 franchiser in the US market in 2007, and has been developing its positions since that time (Daszkowski, 2009). The main competitors of the Cold Stone Creamery in the market are Ben & Jerry’s, Dunkin, and Marble Slab (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). The market is overall characterized by the strong competition and progressive advertising and marketing techniques implemented by the above stipulated market players to compete in the ice cream industry.

Costumer Base

The ice cream market has the wide and permanently increasing customer base that amounts to over 3 million people around the country. Cold Stone Creamery alone enjoys the loyalty of over 200,000 customers according to the most recent data provided by its official web site in 2009 (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). The customers in this market always look for the best quality and are attracted by familial offerings made by the major market players. Franchising Cold Stone Creamery allows the franchisee to increase the customer base by relating its products to the worldwide famous brand (Franchise Direct, 2009).

SWOT Analysis

Drawing from this, a company aiming at franchising such a famous brand as Cold Stone Creamery needs to be aware of the main strengths and weaknesses this step might bring it, as well as the opportunities and threats it might face in the ice cream market (Table 1):

Table 1: SWOT Analysis for Cold Stone Creamery Franchisee

Strengths	Weaknesses
Firm market position of Cold Stone Creamery and associated benefits for its franchisees	Considerable franchise fees and other related expenses
Increased customer base attracted by the Cold Stone Creamery brand	Excessive focus on Cold Stone Creamery products in the franchisee’s goods
Opportunities	Threats
Establishing the company as an independent force in the ice cream industry	Strong competition in the market
Developing the partnership relations with Cold Stone Creamery	Excessive dependence on Cold Stone Creamery products and lack of original ideas

Target Market Considered

The US market of food on the whole and ice cream in particular, the target market for our company, is rather highly developed. According to Cold Stone Creamery (2009), the ice cream industry reports annual joint sales of over $21 billion and the figure is on the permanent growth. The market also is one of the key employers in the USA with currently over 500,000 people being involved in ice cream industry manufacturing and trade. The customers in this market demand the high quality of goods based on the strong competition observed, and the task of out company is to use the advantages of franchising Cold Stone Creamery for its development in such market conditions (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009).

Goals

Logo and Branding

The first point in developing the franchisee of Cold Stone Creamery is to create the logo of the new company and conduct the branding thereof. The logo of the franchisee should integrate the elements referring to Cold Stone Creamery but at the same time be original not to confuse the loyal company’s customers. The branding should be carried out using the assistance Cold Stone Creamery provides for its franchisees, according to Franchise Direct (2009), including the staff training, advertising help, and Internet promotional activities. Creation of the logo and branding of the franchisee should be carried out in strict compliance with the franchising agreement.

Advertising

Advertising is an important point for both the branding of the new franchisees and the overall development of this company’s market position. Cold Stone Creamery provides respective services to each of its franchisees and includes the payment for those services into its franchise fee that amounts to $42,000 (Daszkowski, 2009). The advertising policies of the franchisee should include local advertising, extensive advertising that includes local and countrywide advertising, branding, and promotion, and grand opening advertising. Initial advertising fee Cold Stone Creamery established is $5,000, while each franchisee has to allocate 3% of its annual sales to the company for its subsequent advertising assistance.

Web Presence

Web presence is another important point the in the franchisee branding as far as the Internet is the most accessible and influential information source of today (Franchise Direct, 2009). Drawing from this, the goal of the franchisee of Cold Stone Creamery is to develop an easily accessible and attractive web page from which both the list of the company’s offerings and its affiliation with Cold Stone Creamery should be obvious. The web site of the franchisee should be simple in operation and should provide its visitors with full information on the company, its product range, and online order options.

Marketing Strategies

The marketing strategies needed for reaching the above outlined goals of the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee should include the following items:

Use the franchisee brand and the logo of Cold Stone Creamery to develop the joint logo of the newly established franchisee in 2 weeks;
Carry out the competition among logo designers to ensure the selection of the best logo for the company;
Conduct the joint, with Cold Stone Creamery, branding and advertising campaign by launching media promotion;
Develop the properly designed web page of the franchisee to provide the customers with online order options and access to the full company’s profile;
Carry out an attractive grand opening ceremony.

Implementation Tactics and Timeframes

The following specific steps should be taken to practically implement the above listed marketing strategies. The timeframes and people responsible for the tasks also should stated (Table 2):

Table 2: Implementation Tactics and Timeframes

Task	Person responsible	Timeframe
Announce the logo design competition with the established best logo winner prize through media	Marketing dept. head	1 – 5 October 2009
Carry out the competition	Marketing dept.	5 – 19 October 2009
Decide the perfect logo	CEO and Marketing dept.	20 October 2009
Launch media advertising	Marketing dept. & Cold Stone Creamery	25 October – 12 November 2009
Meet with TV station and radio broadcasting stations’ officials to discuss promotion of the new brand	Marketing dept.	12 – 25 November 2009
Design web page	IT dept.	12 – 25 November 2009
Task	Person responsible	Timeframe
Carry out the promotional campaign	Marketing dept. & IT dept.	25 November – 25 December 2009
Carry out the grand opening ceremony	Marketing dept.	25 December 2009

Budget

Respectively, the following financial details of the marketing activities discussed above should be established (Table 3):

Table 3: Marketing Plan Budget

Task	Assumed Cost
Announce the logo design competition with the established best logo winner prize through media	$12,000
Carry out the competition	$25,000
Decide the perfect logo	–
Launch media advertising	$32,000
Meet with TV station and radio broadcasting stations’ officials to discuss promotion of the new brand	$5,000
Design web page	$17,000
Carry out the promotional campaign	$65,000
Carry out the grand opening ceremony	$50,000
Total	$206,000

Evaluation of Results

The results of the proposed plan will be monitored according to the sales rates of the franchisee as traced in dynamics over 6 months after the franchise agreement is signed and the marketing plan proposed is implemented. The mark of the success of the plan will be at least the 20% growth of sales rates observed. The monitoring of the results will be carried by the marketing department very 6 months through the documentation review and surveys of the customers’ opinions on the changes, either positive or negative, they observe in the franchisee’s work over the period.

References

Cold Stone Creamery. (2009). Making Wishes Come True.

Daszkowski, D. (2009). Cold Stone Creamery Franchise Review. Web.

Franchise Direct. (2009). Cold Stone Creamery Franchise Profile. Web.

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