Corner House Ice Creams Marketing Essay

Gone are the days where ice creams were confined only for the childrens.With the entry of different ice cream players,even the adults now have got a special liking for ice creams.

Everyone looks forward to having an ice cream leisurely while experiencing the comfort provided by a sit-down ice cream parlour. Though we have been relishing the experience of take aways in our childhood days, this scenario has change with the entry of ice cream parlour shops like Corner house, Baskin and Robbins etc. So far the sit-down ice cream parlour concept has not been introduced in full swing in India. While both the formats, sit-down and take away, have their own relevance, sit-down ice cream parlours are undoubtedly slowly crawling itself to the top. Subroto Mukherjee – COO-South Asia, Baskin Robbins (BR) opines, “Recently, we have had newer international brands foraying into the Indian market in addition to some Indian brands also approaching the segment. This has certainly opened up the market for the consumer with larger choices.”

The ice cream market is growing at around 15 per cent year-on-year and is expected to expand further with the increase in number of malls and the ever-growing retail sector. Virag Joshi, President & CEO, Devyani International Ltd (Franchisee for Swensen’s) affirms, “Currently, 15 per cent of the ice cream market is in-parlour sale – a new segment that has showed up in the last few years and is growing fast.”

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Joshi further says, “With a rapidly growing young earning population, rising disposable incomes, change in taste and the spending capacity on leisure is leading to a surge in the Indian ice cream market. Compared to the other developed markets, ice cream consumption is quite low and therefore offers great potential especially with plethora of new retail formats available today and openness among consumers with regards to these global formats and consumption pattern.”

INTRODUCTION:-CORNER HOUSE

Corner House Ice creams is one of the leading ice-cream houses in Bangalore. It is well-known for its various desserts. It was started in 1982 and since then has started more than 10 outlets in various parts of Bangalore. It offer high quality ice cream, made fresh every day, and served in the most ingenious ways.it has long been devoted to making the experiences of eating ice cream an enjoyable one.

HISTORY

Corner House was started in 1982 by Narayan Rao, known by all ice-cream fans

as the Hot Chocolate Fudge Man. Started initially as a bakery and fast food place,

Corner House saw some rough times in the beginning. Though items like chicken rolls, burgers and pizzas did very well, the Goan eatery established a year later was a failure. it have been an exclusive ice cream and sundae parlor since 1995.

After finishing his BSc in Agriculture, Narayan Rao completed a diploma in Hotel Management in Salzburg, Austria. He has also studied in the hospitality field in Canada.

After training in The Oberoi Grand in Kolkata for a year and then completing his diploma in Austria, he worked in Switzerland and other parts of Europe before returning to India and joining Nirula’s in Delhi as a Management Trainee.

In 1982, he headed to Bangalore, where adding up all his education and work experience, he started the first ever, now legendary, Corner House.

COMPETITORS:-

In India, the Indian ice cream industry is currently estimated to be worth Rs. 2,000 crores, growing at a rate of approximately 12%.The biggest competitors to corner house are from the branded market and the grey market. The branded market are Amul, Kwality Walls,Vadilal and mother dairy which offers frozen ice creams of different flavours in packages of various sizes and volumes. The grey market consists of small local players and cottage industry players like Jolly Ice Creams, Flavours, The Cream and Fudge Factory and Baskin-Robbins.

C:UsersGENIUSDesktopbaskin-robbins_web.jpgC:UsersGENIUSDesktopamul-ice-cream19.gifC:UsersGENIUSDesktoplogo_brand_cream.gifC:UsersGENIUSDesktopkwality.gifAlthough various ice cream parlours have sprung up in the market Corner House ice creams continue to be sought after despite the many competitors in the market, it is due to the characteristics of this brand. Quality, quantity, consistency, value for money and the importance of customer feedback. All maintained over the years by the values that A Narayan Rao, the founder of Corner House, lives by. Lack of greed and contentment in life is the way he puts it.

PRODUCT AND PRICING:-

Corner House serves just about everything from scoops to sundaes (fruit and non-fruit based) and seasonal specials to milkshakes. Fruit-based sundaes that are must-tries include Impeached, Fruit Jackpot and Trilogy. Beside fruit sundaes there is the Cake-a-Moccha, (a combination of coffee ice creams, cake, nuts and chocolate sauce) and Cake Fudge (with vanilla instead of coffee ice-creams).

For a light dessert, there is the famous Hot Chocolate Fudge, HCF as it is popularly known, or the Mint Fudge; and their various flavoured scoops like Rocky Road, Black Currant, Fig n’ Honey, Rum n’ Raisin, to name a few. Other hits are the seasonal specials like fresh strawberries with ice-cream, and mangoes with ice-cream. All the ice-creams are made in-house.Corner House has a menu of fourteen flavours, but their secret lies in the array of sauces that they offer.

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Fig.Trilogy Ice-Cream(a popular ice cream of the parlour)

The most famous item on the Corner House menu is Death by Chocolate – reviewers had observed that it is one dish worth dying for!! Scoops of vanilla ice-cream on a rich chocolate cake liberally laced with hot chocolate sauce and topped with cherries and nuts can makes anyone’s heart flutter. Its ice-creams and milk shakes are famous. Another popular item on its menu is the apple pie – which is not usually available in other places.

PLACE:-

From one parlour in Residency Road in 1982, Corner House has spread to twelve outlets in Bangalore and one in Mysore!

Residency Road

No. 45/3, G.K. Complex, Residency Road Cross, Bangalore 560025

Ph: 9900545172

Airport Road

Unit No. 25, Carlton Towers, No.1, Airport Road, Bangalore 560017

Ph: 91 80 25216312, 9880594010

Koramangala

No. 363 & 364, 1st A Main, Koramangala 7th Block, Bangalore 560095

(Next to Sweet Chariot),Ph: 9845923734

Jayanagar

No. 1225, 26th Main, Jayanagar 9th Block, Bangalore 560069

(Near Ragi Gudda Temple)

Ph: 91 80 26540925, 9880594012

Airlines Hotel

No.4, Airlines Hotel, Madras Bank Road, Bangalore 560009

Ph: 9845930618

Indiranagar

3289, 12th Main, Indiranagar, Bangalore 560008

Ph: 98808 46251

Marathhalli

35/1 C, Munekolalu Village, Varthur Hobli, Bangalore-Varthur Road, Marathhalli,

Bangalore 560037

Ph: 91 80 28495444, 9880851151, 9900131280

Seshadripuram

No. 29/2, Nagappa Street, Nehrunagar Circle, Sheshadripuram, Bangalore 560021

Ph: 91 80 23447520, 9880594011

HRBR Layout

No. 4 C, 614, 2nd Block, HRBR Layout, Bangalore 560043

Ph: 91 80 65465551, 9880038330

Yelahanka

No. 804, 13th A Main, 80 ft road, Yelahanka New Town, Bangalore 560064

Ph: 9845196617

Bel Road

No. 66, 80 Ft. Road, Siddarth Complex, Opposite Ramaiah Hospital, New BEL Road,

Bangalore 560094

Ph: 9845196610

Basavanagudi

No. 10, Kanankapura Road, Basavanagudi, Bangalore

Ph: 91 80 41699595, 9845467796

Mysore

No. 47/1 a, 2nd Main,Valmiki Rd, Vani Vilas Mohalla, Mysore – 570002

Ph:+(91)-(821)-3293504

What mainly draws the customers to these places is the uniqueness and individuality of taste that corner house provides.

PROMOTION:

Corner house doesn’t rely on heavy promotion campaign. Their promotion is mainly done through word-of-mouth and through internet. They have been listed on several must-visit places on several website on the internet like burrp.com and mouthshut.com. local advertising has proven to be the most common and powerful

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:-

Study of consumer taste, habits, standard of living of the people etc to study the market potential available in that sector.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-

The story behind corner house success and its way to become a legend.

The section of customers aimed and targeted and the way postioning is done in the minds of the customers.

The different variety of ice creams it sells and the pricing of each.

Top selling items and more popular ice creams.

The age, sex and the economical status of the customers entering the parlour.

The behavior of the employee with the customers,the maintainance of the shop and hygienity of the shop. The time interval between order given and the order received.

The working hours-low,middle,peak and number of customers visiting the store at those hours.

The locational advantage of the shop, the size of the shop, the reason for choosing that place.

The competition faced by CORNER HOUSE and the competitors in that area and their product line.

To understand the concepts of values, lifestyle, and culture.

Customer satisfaction: Measurement of quality of customer experience, perceptions, reaction, loyalty, intent, etc.

ASSUMPTION MADE IF ANY

STATISTICAL DATA

AGE:-

STATUS:

SWOT ANALYSIS:

An appropriate swot analysis of the retailer is given below:

STP:

Segmentation:

Corner House mainly aims at those section of people who

OBSERVATION FACTS:-

1. Most of the person that came to the parlour were middle class people especially from the teenager Section of the society.There were few from the upper class.there were people from the lower class also Who earns a considerable amount of income.among the adults that came were mostly from the working section in the age group of 30-40.

2. The store opens at 11 am and closes at 11 pm.During the opening hours i.e. during 11am-1.30 pm,there were hardly any customers.Only one or two customers came.During the timing from 3.30pm-6.30 pm,the store were packed with people.people were coming in an going out continuously.during the timing from 6.30-7.30 pm,the same traffic of people were observed.

3. Demographics:people in the age group of 18-40 years can be seen coming in the store.although it’s a ice cream store,hardly any children were seen enjoying an ice cream.few came accompanied by their parents,but their number were very scarce.teenagers mostly students came to the store.the store were frequented by equal proportion of both males and females.

CONSUMER FACTS:-

1.Most of the customers that came were not alone.they were either accompanied by friend circle or family members.

2.Among the costomers that came into the store most of them were either loyal customers or they frequented the place very often.they entered the store.scan for their choice of ice creams,confirms the price and then goes to the counter to purchase their choice of ice creams.

3.The new customer that came took a great deal of time in deciding their choice of ice creams.among the new customers that came,those people who were tipped or suggested to try out a particular flavour were seen choosing that choice of ice creams quickly after confirming the price from the price menu.

4. Corner house has a strict policy of accepting payment only through cash.so,every customer paid in cash only at the counter.

FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS:

To conduct the market research, we visited two franchise of corner house one at Jaynagar and the other at Koramangala. Below is a summary of the finding.

The Location

The Corner House outlet is located on 9th block ,Jaynagar and at 7th block, Koramangala. The outlet is managed by a franchise.

Ambience and Decor

The ambience of the place is nothing worth talking about. It looks like a hall converted into an ice-cream parlour. The seating space is also limited and the space between tables is less and hence it is a bit cramped. For a well-known chain, the space and ambience is not up to the mark.

Parking

This is a major problem. There is no parking space for the outlet and there is no parking allowed on both sides of the road. This is a major problem, as one has to take a risk and park in the no parking area.

Menu

The major attraction is the menu. There are plenty of items available, in the mouth-watering menu. This includes – various flavours of ice-creams, milk shakes, sundaes, fruit salads and other desserts. Some of the items on the menu (the basic ice-creams/shakes) seem to be fairly priced, but there are others which look to be a bit overpriced.

Service

This is a self-service outlet, you pay up at the counter and collects your food. The service is very quick, you can see the dessert prepared in front of you and is served in plastic bowls on a tray. Even in rush hours, you don’t have to wait too long to get your order – though of course, seating space is an issue.

Taste

The desserts taste pretty good, though the famous apple-pie was very disappointing. We definitely did not enjoy the apple-pie. But Death by chocolate (DBC) is something, which everyone should try once. Death by chocolate can be also called as choco-overdose – too much of chocolate.DBC is made by placing a black forest chocolate cake at the bottom of the dish and then vanilla ice-cream is added to it. Chocolate sauce is liberally poured over the ice-cream and topped up with crushed walnuts.We also tried trilogy,which was quite delicious-ice cream mixed with real fruits.

The taste of DBC is delicious and cannot be eaten by 1 person, you need atleast 2 people to finish this dish! We didn’t find it extra-ordinarily good, but it is a delicious dish, which everyone can try once!

Suggestions:

Another popular program that is growing among ice cream parlors is the use of

loyalty programs

Develop more heathy ice creams

reduced-fat, fat-free, and no sugar added varieties at

many local ice cream parlors.

The newest trend in the ice cream industry is the mix-in or “create your own”

craze

CONCLUSION

Corner House is a great place to visit, if you want to indulge in ice-creams and don’t mind adding lots of calories. Death by chocolate and other ice-cream sundaes and milk shakes are worth trying. Prices are fair, though some items are not 100% value for money.

But overall, if you like ice-creams and are in Bangalore, then you can visit Corner House at least once.