Second Cup Research

Second Cup Smart Options Campaign

Our approach to this assignment was to visit Second Cup vendors and their competition, Starbucks. Upon speaking to the management at the Second Cup at York University, we were able to obtain promotional material, including a poster from a recent campaign for orange-flavoured beverages.

We decided to investigate their “Smart Options” campaign to determine the types of market research they had used in order to arrive at their final positioning strategy.

Types of Market Research

Observation

We believe that Second Cup would go to their stores and monitor what their customers are ordering, and how they're ordering it. They would find that a lot of customers, primarily women, order their beverages with skim milk as opposed to cream. They would take this information and apply it to a healthier choices campaign which promotes “Skinny” drinks that use skim milk.

These “Skinny” options are an area that Second Cup has the upper hand on. Starbucks has the option of using skim milk as well in their beverages; however, it is not promoted as a campaign.

The “Smart Options” line of products will also likely appeal to those wishing to lose a few extra pounds in order to get into “bathing suit” shape.

Surveys

In-store surveys would also be a beneficial research method. They could conduct a brief personal interview with customers, asking them whether they prefer full fat or low fat beverages, which coffee shops they frequent, their perceived images of each coffee shop (ie: which one they see as healthier, which they think has more options, etc.), their opinion of tea, whether or not their beverage choices change depending on the season, whether or not they visit coffee shops such as Starbucks or Second Cup for beverages other than coffee. This survey could also take the form of a small card placed on each table in the restaurant, left there for the customer to fill out at their own leisure.

Experiments

To uncover opinions about product usage, experiments could be conducted to determine how much the consumer knows about their products. For the Energized Skinny Latte, regular customers could be given a regular latte every day for one week, followed by a week of the energized lattes. They would then be asked if they noticed a difference in energy levels between the two weeks.

The fruit smoothies could be given to customers without telling them the name of the product and asked to describe the feelings they associate with the drink. They could take this knowledge and determine when would be the appropriate season to promote this item. This product would probably be associated with summer, and as such the beginning of spring may be a good time to promote this line, as customers are growing tired of winter and long for things that they can associate