Mo'men Repositioning

Course: Instructor: Submitted by: ID:

Marketing 575 CaseWriting Dr. A. Tolba Mostafa Saad 800-08-0584

Outline

Introduction Company background Industry background The Market status in 1988 Marketing Strategy Mo'men performance Mo'men future Exhibits

Introduction: Mo'men first sandwich: 1988 2000 Mo'men started in 1988 as a small sandwich maker. Food was served either in a Dine in manner or car service ( 25% then). Although back then it was neither clearly thought of nor spoken; their strategy was differentiation. At the same time they tried to maintain a fresh, big sandwich with big fillings, these attributes were considered as a position. They targeted A and B class, especially men at the age bracket of 22-35 years old. Back then, restaurants were categorized into the following: Kebab/Kofta restaurants which typically serve a variety of grilled beefs and meals. Foul / Ta'ameya shops, that serve the oriental Egyptian bean sandwiches. Shawerma shops that serve beef and/or chicken shawerma in wrapped sandwiches. Food carts that served different types of sandwiches in a takeaway/car service setting. (at the time, "takeway & car service : dine in ratio was 7:3)

Mo'men decided on a model that takes a part of most of the previous. They served food in a shop that served customers in a takeaway/ trendy car service setting; they served grilled sandwiches (Shish tawook), shawerma and shrimps. This has made them popular especially among their target who liked the trendy car service experience. Two year later they introduced chicken panee and a la grec sandwiches which later became stars of the brand. They also focused in achieving a good value for money ratio to their customers. Communications at that time were limited to the special offers they provide in Momen stores. At the time there were no marketing efforts per se. The brand name was the family name and the brand criteria were as little as making a good sandwich with real food. Starting from 1993 and until the year 2000, Mo'men's followed a product oriented strategy. They focused on their sandwiches, its content and filling, its big size and freshness and its customization. These attributes composed to a large extent- their market positioning. Up until 1993, the management concentrated only on operations, setting up the kitchen and arranging for inbound and outbound logistics, and by the beginning of 1994 they had their own bakery. Later in 1994, they shifted their attention to building a strong back office and administration to support the operations. They started hiring people with different backgrounds and experiences in finance, accounting, purchasing, sales...Etc. Also in 1994, Powerful competitors like McDonald's entered the Egyptian market. As much as it was a big disadvantage to Mo'men, this has made them realize the vision of

becoming the Mcdonald's of the Middle East. Mo'men started pursuing this vision of becoming a global brand (especially in the Middle East) and so they started with updating their machines and internal procedures to cope with this vision. By the end of December 1994, and realizing that it would be difficult to pursue such a vision by their own, Mo'men authorized their first franchise in Alexandria using a product and training manual on a "He owns, we operate" franchising model, to try to maintain consistency among all of their branches. In 1995 they franchised their second branch in Nasr city, 1997 franchised a branch in Maadi and another in Kuwait, in 1998 franchised a branch in Shubra and so on until they reached a whooping 80 branches in Egypt alone. During this period, Mo'men invested in human capital. They created an HR team to enhance their employees quality and quantity, introduced several training programs (example "the positives of right management") and started MBA's to their top management employees, this reflected positively on sales by an increase of 15% and a very good impact on marketing. In the year 2000, in the companys efforts to shift into a global brand, Mo'men group hired a new and international CEO; Robert Bucanon. It was the first time to have a CEO that is not one of the original owners of Mo'men. Bucanon had several successes among which was his superior budget squeezing and auditing efforts that led to cost cuts of 20% in his first year and 15% in his second year alone.

And as quoted by all team members Im Momen, I can

2001 2005/06 (Mr.Nael Habib) Momen targeted B and C class for Dining and A class for Delivery. This was the industry norm, however also Mo'men didn't attract the high spending A class aged between 16-24 years old whose lifestyle is outgoing and thus has a very high purchasing power. Branding In terms of branding, Momen wanted to convey the change happening inside Mo'men to the audience so in 2001 he started with Changing the logo . also Momen changed all the packaging used for serving the sandwiches in the stores into a more modern and youth like type of packaging. After that they went into the atmosphere and decorations of the stores to better suit the higher image they wanted to convey. Of course they couldn't do the whole job right without tweaking the marketing mix towards the same objective.

Product: They started with a thorough menu mix analysis eliminated all dogs and focused on stars. they ended up removing about 25% of the menu which made it easier in terms of resource allocation and concentration on Mo'men's successes. Also focusing on quality, they upgraded the product quality levels which was aided by the start of Three Chefs automated production lines in 2004 supplying Mo'men stores with all its needs. Price: After conducting a full study of market prices, they decided to maintain the same price level (market prices) although the product and brand quality have increased. This was done by decreasing the bottom line and by weeding out the unnecessary items through menu re-engineering. Location: Mo'men team tried to pick prime locations all over Egypt that would promote the higher image that they were seeking. They did a mapping system to find the gaps In their stores dispersion, the concept was to have the stores scattered in a way that keeps the delivery time radius 15 minutes. Accordingly the number of branches has doubled to arrive at 22 branches in 2003. Promotion: One of the major factors in delivering Mo'men's new message and thus they started with redoing all the food shots in Europe by professional freelancers. And so they changed all the packaging with the new photos, this enhanced packaging dramatically. Overall there was a very good and noticed change in Mo'men image, advertising, and quality. However this was still not enough to attract the B class especially in teenagers who have a high purchasing power due to their lifestyle. There was still something more needed to be done. 2007 2010 In 2007 Ahmed They started by a quantitative market study using a questionnaire that was administered to customers visiting the stores. The finding were somewhat shocking however very important. First they found out that nearly there only customer category is the C class of ages between 25 to 35 years old. The problem here was that due to the inflation in prices, the purchasing power of C class is decreasing day by day, which would lead to a big problem for Momen in the future. The better target would be the 18 to 25 year olds of B class customers, whose purchasing power is much higher. Second, Momen was perceived negatively as a brand that is local, outdated, and irrelevant to its target market. Also there were some positive relations

with the brand which were mainly summarized into the massive sizes of sandwiches and that Momen serves real food. As a summary, they realized that Momen was a first mover in this market then became outdated. They decided a major shift in brand essence and market offering was needed capitalizing on the positive pillars found during the research. This shift was needed to change the perception of Momen in customers minds (especially among the B class who did not care about the previous position of Momen an authentic Egyptian brand) into a brand that is close to heart. Taking all of this into consideration, They decided to rebrand Momen positioning it as real food. They would keep it real in everything; real food (not junk), real big portions (not only pictures), real pricing (pay what you see), and real Egyptian. This way the brand would be honest because it is representing reality, thus will be close to the customers hearts The objective from this rebranding initiative was to reach out to B- class customers and also to maintain C class customers by changing their perception about Momen brand, using a multi step approach: Stop negative word of mouth do not resist if served give it another try.

Mo'men invested heavily in terms of branding, they recruited a global branding company called "Brand Union". They have performed major rebranding projects for big international food brands such as TacoBell, Hardees, and Pizzahut worldwide. Having this powerful partners has given Mo'men an edge in advertising manuals, communication manuals and also helped in franchising to other countries. At the same time, meetings were arranged with Mo'men's advertising agency " Leo Burnette" together with "Brand Union" to increase the synergy of work performed. One of the major brand identity changes was the removal of the logo with the blue color that signifies cold, and the introduction of a new logo with teel color that contains green (fresh) and yellow (hot).

In terms of product, there were a lot of changes. To start with Mo'men introduced new categories such as salads and pastas, rice meals (with chicken or seafood) of great value and diet food (with brown bread). Moreover the whole menu categorization was changed into MoMeals, MoMagnum, MoClassics and MoKids instead of Chicken, Beef and Seafood categories, to further illustrate the notion of real food and to make it easier for consumers who like a certain line of food (big, or classic or meals).

Taking on the same approach, Mo'men has made sure to keep all prices without any fractions and rounded to the nearest half pounds and pounds. (you pay what you see). This went along fine especially with the lower classes (B- and C class) because they valued size. As usual, Mo'men chose its locations for its branches carefully and made sure they cover a wide area. At this period, Mo'men started renovating its branches making them cozier and added more green color (related to freshness) into them. Concerning communication, Mo'men started sponsoring events such as "The orphan day" to be closer to the hearts of their customers and to the community. Mo'men tried to communicate the real food position to its customers through instore communication and promotions such as the "buy a meal get a sandwich for real" offer and also through several advertising campaigns with ATL's, one of the famous was Burito's a Mexican sandwich that Mo'men had introduced in Egypt. Although the campaign itself was a success since it has changed all the food industry advertisements into more fun, Now it needs a further step New quantitative research conducted to found out that Mo'men was looked down upon so much (especially from youth) showed shocking negative perception and association of Mo'men as a food brand. The negative perception was very wide to the extent that Mo'men's personification was an old man, with a cooking dress,. Therefore there was a huge gap between the intended target (B class youth) and the brand persona. The Team started digging for some positive points in Mo'men's resume. They found that it is an Egyptian brand that has successfully established itself internationally in foreign countries, didn't do a lot of communication (especially ATL's) which allowed for flexibility to start a new shout, Mo'men's international expansion and also their last campaign for Burito sandwich was a success (they typically conveyed that Mo'men is not Mexican, but their Burito tastes good nevertheless). The team also gathered some facts about Mo'men that they wanted to convey to their target, and these were that Mo'men is: Authentic (an Egyptian brand since its start) kind (due to the offers they do for their customers) Young (a 22 year old brand) Makes you smile (such as Burito ad) Generous (due to the high value for money in their products)

At this point, they realized that Mo'men's personification is very close to and should be of a young Egyptian cool guy, and this is what they decided to communicate to

their target. That Mo'men is not this old man; instead he is a young, cool, and trendy Egyptian guy. They started to think of what this guy's attitude would be like when conveying a message to someone, and they came to think that he would be confident to the extent that he would be mocking himself in order to make it more believable to them. So for instance if this guy was an AUC electronics major and was asked what his field was, he'd say "I'm an electrician" and would leave the figuring out to the audience. Phase 1: This is exactly what the team did, in mid 2010 they decided to introduce to the market a very simple, honest and aggressive campaign emphasizing Mo'men's core business (see exhibit 1). The campaign was launched based on the belief, "That you can say what you want about a brand, it all boils down t what the consumer believes about it". The campaign was rather a shock to some people; they have never expected this from a brand like Mo'men with their prior perception about it. The campaign used TV ad's and a lot of outdoor billboards and was considered a success among several coming successes in the next phases of the campaign. Phase 2: In this phase that was launched in the third quarter of 2010, the objective was to give the audience reason to believe that Mo'men is really changing. They have conveyed that Mo'men has expanded internationally in 5 arab countries + Malaysia. The focus here was to emphasize that Mo'men is competing on a multinational level. Again the campaign used some TV ad's where Mo'men communicated that it has opened in UAE for instance, but that it hasn't become a travel agency (Again honest, simple and aggressive). This has enhanced Mo'men's image a great deal as some customers didn't know that Mo'men has opened in these foreign countries, something which gives them pride in such a successful Egyptian brand.

Phase 3: This phase, that was launched towards the end of Ramadan 2010, had one goal in mind; to remind the target audience with Mo'men's heritage and with how far Mo'men goes in their lives. The intention was to focus on creating value out of Mo'men expertise, proven by some historical and Egyptian landmarks that relate to target customers on a personal level. This would revive the emotional bond between Mo'men and its customers, a bond that has been growing in the right direction for the past 22 years. Again Momen followed the same strategy in all their communications; being honest, to the point, simple and aggressive. Similar to the prior phases, the campaign involved

several TV ad's and outdoors as well. Their outdoor ad for delivery service showed only a motorbike and its driver with the delivery dial number on the bottom. The result was a transfer in customer perception towards the positive side, something that Mo'men wanted from a long time. Campaign results: In about six months time, after the third phase of the campaign was launched, another research was done on Mo'men's target customers and results were astonishing. First, the campaign has enhanced Mo'men's image as well as customers' perception dramatically. Customers who refused to think of trying Mo'men, have now tried and can recommend to others. Second the sales has increased quite good. And finally, the target audience started to relate more to Mo'men's intended brand persona, the cool, funny and honest guy.

Exhibits Exhibit 1