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Red Lobster Harvard Case

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Problems noted with Red Lobster Invigorating Initiative:
Based on the market research it appears that over the decades Red Lobster has a new segmentation group, i.e. experiential. This group, who is classified at the highest income level, dines out the most at causal and fine dining restaurants and loves sea-food is the group which Red-Lobster should make the primary focus for its campaign. Since this segment is fairly new for Red Lobster and it needs to embrace the fact in their re-invigorate initiative by noting on some of the recommendations noted below.
In their current strategy they’ve prioritized ‘Operational Excellence’ as the first target for improvement which may prove to be an error due to the fact that a lot of the changes as part of Operational Excellence may not be visible and apparent to the newly identified Market Segment.
Recommendations to the Re-Invigorating Initiative:
In order to appeal to the new market segment, Red Lobster should have coupled Operational Excellence and Remodeling as part of the first phase. Although the initiatives as part of Phase I had an indirect impact, however, the market segmentation wouldn’t be aware of the changes taking place behind the scenes. For examples, the changes to the cooking equipment in the kitchen, etc. In contrast if they went with the re-modeling approach upfront it would also allow for easier re-positioning of their offerings. In addition, a ‘sensitive’ marketing campaign to the loyal patrons of the chain, i.e. emphasizing that the new changes are part of the evolving nature of the chain and do not compromise the older values which the patrons hold regarding the

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