Longing for consistency
Longing for consistency

Since its existence, the coffee giant has gone about its business rather quietly and has promised to continue in the same manner. The ever-present K. Ramakrishnan, President - Marketing, Café Coffee Day (CCD) shares the company’s planning and how they have build themselves to be among the top coffee-players in the country.

Aadeetya Sriram (AS): Café Coffee Day has hardly been visible in the marketing arena, where are you focused on communicating, is it the social media?

K. Ramakrishnan (KR): We at Café Coffee Day have not allocated any marketing budget as such because, for us the café outlets are the biggest tool for marketing, wherein engaging customers with coffee and their experience is the prime objective for us. We are more focused on our social platform where we have a fanbase of more than 2 million fans who help us improve our offerings through the inputs shared and also enable us to track latest trends in taste of consumers. We mostly cater to the young mass of the country but what we have witnessed is that the demand for coffee from non-youth mass is also at a high level. Co-creation is part of our brand and this has brought us closer to our varied customers.

AS: CCD has always been active in various engagement programmes; please tell us more about them? Who is your vendor/partner for such initiatives?

KR: Engaging is not only about understanding the customers’ demands but also ensuring that the existing ones are recognised and thereby given privileges so as to retain and keep the customer interested about the brand. Café Coffee Day has its café moments scheme where every purchase you make gets you an extra load/credit. We also have special surprise benefits when after every five visits, the customer is served free-of-cost offering from our end. For this our vendor is a company called Quiksilver. We have started with the offer in Bangalore in February this year and by end of April this will be applicable in Delhi/NCR also.

AS: We expect Starbucks to have its first outlet in the country in the next six months time, are there any preparations in the offing to counter their entry?

KR: Starbucks coming into India does not bother CCD at all, primarily because our target is the mass in general; it is just that the young population has spread the word about our brand to a whole new level. Their competition is more with the likes of Costa, Gloria Jeans, Coffee Bean etc. as they are recognised as premium coffee chain brands in the country. As far as our own café Square format goes, we have two outlets in the country and they are no plans to expand anytime soon.

AS: CCD has its own premium format, Square; do you see it giving competition to other premium brands in the country?

KR: Square is a three and half year old concept and we have one each in Delhi and Bangalore. The format is generally three times the size of our café outlets. The Square café is a challenging format firstly because of larger space and with real estate rates going as high as they are, the prospects of setting up more café’s is a herculean task. Square is for the coffee fanatics in the country and the flavours offered vary to what is offered at our café outlets. Also, for a larger format we need to recruit additional staff and train them extensively which can only be done when the no. of outlets are in single digits.

AS: What products are offered through e-commerce by CCD and how much does it contribute to the overall revenue?

KR: Our e-commerce model mostly deals with products like packaged coffee, coffee-maker, t-shirts, mugs etc. We have plans to start offering our coffee menu for online purchase in the next couple of months. At this moment, the e-model for CCD contributes a minuscule 5-10 per cent but we believe that the scope for growth margins will be better.

AS: How many outlets do you have in the country, what is the ratio between urban and rural market? Also, what are your expansion plans in terms of outlets?

KR: Café Coffee Day has more than 1300 outlets across the country, out of which 700 outlets are positioned in the top eight cities. Delhi/NCR has 183, Bangalore is second with 170, 153 in Mumbai, Chennai has 60 and Hyderabad has 60 as well. We plan to reach 2000 outlets by 2014. 

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