SEMINAR 102 Case Study: Creating positioning profiles (Nostrum)

GROUP 2 CARLOTA ALONSO, CRISTINA CAULA, MANUEL GONZÁLEZ, ANNA LOPERA, LAIA MARTÍNEZ, JULES OVERES

Introduction: Nostrum Competitors

Nostrum is a Catalan
company of takeaway home
meal food that was founded
in 1994. Nowadays they
have more than 100 stores
in all the country, and they
have started growing
internationally.
They focus on the quality of
the product, the low prices,
the variety of the dishes and
on the location of the place,
mainly next to business
areas and to universities.
The firm operates in the QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) sector, in which also operate
important firms such as McDonald’s or KFC. To do a more precise analysis of the competitors,
we will focus on middle-sized companies, that are the most direct competitors to the firm.
• Tento: Is a takeaway home meal company established in Barcelona, Madrid and
Tarragona. After its repositioning strategy (which implied an increase in prices due to the
firm’s poor profitability), the firm targets those gourmets that are highly-
concerned about ecological issues and want to eat mainly fresh and natural
food at an affordable price. The firm reflects its ecological-oriented positioning Figure 1:
Tento logo.
strategy with its new logo (figure 1) and its slogan 'Comida de mercado'.
• Casa Mas: Its business model is based on selling meals to supermarkets (e.g. Carrefour,
Alcampo or Eroski) and in some universities (e.g. Pompeu Fabra) instead having restaurants.
The firm is targeted to students and workers that do not have enough time to
prepare its own meals, but that want food with a good taste and well-
prepared. The firm segments some of its products geographically, for example
focusing the sales of canelons to Catalonia and the sales of lasagne to the rest
of Spain. The firm is positioned as a more traditional takeaway home meal firm, Figure 2:
as shows its logo (figure 2) and its slogan 'Casa Mas, tu otra cocina en casa'. Casa Mas Logo.

Nostrum restaurant in Barcelona.

Relevant market attributes for consumers in the QSR market

The four attributes that are more relevant to those consumers in this market are therefore: Time, Price, Quality and
Location.

• Time: Consumers in this market don’t want to waste time cooking, maybe due to its hardworking schedules or maybe
because when they get home are tired to cook. Millennials (the main consumers’ group) are oriented to use time with the
maximum possible efficiency in their tasks, so spending more than 1 hour in having lunch is not attractive for them (they
prefer to lunch in 20 minutes).
• Price: Consumers in this market are ranged between 18 and 40 years old (although the mass of consumers is more intense
nearly to 18 years old). This implies that in general, they do not have enough purchase power to spend every day around
10-11 € in a standard restaurant (high price sensitivity).
• Quality: In this market, consumers are very quality-demanding in comparison to the willingness to pay. They want the
maximum quality for each euro spent. They are also concerned about how dangerous for your health can be having lunch
everyday in McDonald’s or Burger King, so they demand fresh and natural ingredients, and in come cases also organic ones.
• Location: Due to the limitations in schedule, the consumers in this market are not able to make great displacements to
having lunch, because they do not have enough time to waste in it, so they search the best restaurants that are nearer to
their workplace. The interior of the local is also a highly-valued attribute by consumers, that want to be relaxed while eating.

Target audience / Competitive advantage / Positioning of Nostrum

The consumption of takeaway meals in Spain is reaching high growth levels. Nostrum is targeted to those young
workers and students (18-40 years) that due to their jobs or studies, don’t want to spend time preparing their meals
at home. The brand is focused on those regular and frequent users, keeping low prices (meals for 1€, 2€ or 3€) due to
the implicit high price high sensitivity that frequent consumers have, but at the same time maintaining a certain level
of quality because the consumers (and also the potential consumers) care about the quality of the product and want
to eat a balanced and healthy diet without having to cook.
The competitive advantage that Nostrum offers is the time-saving, variety and quality of meals (all of them based on
a radical cost reduction), making the client to feel like at home. For creating value, the company follows two strategies:
the excellence of the product and the excellence in logistics, serving meals to the clients in few seconds.
In conclusion, Nostrum has positioned itself as a young and casual-food (also ‘fast good’) firm that offers natural food
at a competitive price with fast service, differentiating itself from junk food or traditional fast food companies.

Seminar 5 Marketing Management II 27/02/2019

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 SEMINAR 102 Case Study: Creating positioning profiles (Nostrum)
GROUP 2 CARLOTA ALONSO, CRISTINA CAULA, MANUEL GONZÁLEZ, ANNA LOPERA, LAIA MARTÍNEZ, JULES OVERES

Team’s perceived level of attributes for the 3 brands and development of its positioning profiles
From the analysis of the positioning profile, we have detected that each one of the three brands have some unique
strengths and weaknesses in their positioning strategies:
• Nostrum is clearly the strongest in ‘Good Promotions’, given its unique customer
loyalty program (the Fan’s Club) that allow to its members to buy meals for 1€, 2€ or 3€
depending on the typology of dishes desired. It is also the strongest in ‘For University
Students’ and ‘To Eat Everyday’ categories, due to that a lot of students of different
universities around Barcelona use to go to buy the launch several times per week in
Nostrum. The ‘Price’ is also more competitive than the other brands. The most worrying Nostrum’s Fan’s Club.
weakness is related to the ‘Packaging’: the food packages are not perceived as eco-
friendly nor easy-to-open.
• Tento is outstanding at being know because of its ‘Healthy’ and ‘Casual’ (not to eat every day, which is one of its
main positioning weaknesses) food. It is also perceived as more oriented to ‘Adult Workers’ rather than young
‘University Students’. The main weakness that is shown is the poor price positioning that is perceived from this brand.
We, the university students, perceive this brand as a more expensive and with less promotions (although the firm has
started a loyalty program like Nostrum’s Fans Club is still in its introductory stage) brand rather than Nostrum or Casa
Mas.
• Casa Mas is perceived as an incredibly-good brand in the ‘Serving Process’ (for example, in Carrefour, you can go at
any time of any day, and if you want some “complex” meal like canelons; you get it, without waiting). Is also perceived
to having more ‘Variety’ than both of its competitors Tento and Nostrum, being able to offer more complex meals at
a reasonable ‘Price’, with presence in a lot of different supermarkets, university restaurants, etc. (‘Sold Everywhere’).
The main weaknesses are related to the poor presence of ‘Good Promotions’ and
the non-easy-to-open ‘Packages’. We have perceived the brand as a ‘Home Meal’
food, but not healthier nor casual than Nostrum and Tento, respectively; for
example (Casa Mas’ canelons and albondigas have an incredible taste but are not
as healthier as Caesar salad from Nostrum).
In general, the three brands share the same weakness
related to the packaging. This is probably due to the low-
cost structure that this companies follow, that causes them Casa Mas packaging example.
to offer simple packages to be competitive in prices.

Marketing strategies to reinforce / improve the positioning of Nostrum

Keeping in mind that Nostrum tries to position itself as a fast-food referent in the segment of healthy food, we have
thought about some marketing actions the company could implement to improve and/or reinforce its positioning:
• University students represent a big proportion of Nostrum clients, they are young people with no time to cook.
Hence, it could be convenient for the company to negotiate with the University the establishment of specific places to
sell Nostrum products at Universities, since many students complain about the lack of variety in meals offered in this
Cafés. By doing so, the company could manage to increase loyalty among current users and increase sales by increasing
the frequency of use (instead having lunch at Nostrum one day per week, having launch here daily).
• Another action that Nostrum could implement to gain visibility could be to actively participate in the promotion of
events related to a healthy lifestyle, as public races, yoga master classes or hiking; by giving away samples from their
products to the participants. For example, they could offer a yoga class at the Barceloneta beach plus breakfast with
Nostrum products.
• Indeed, Nostrum should expand its product line (increase the variety to be competitive) and a good way to do so
could be to dedicate one day a week to adapt typical recipes from around the world to the health lifestyle of Nostrum.
For instance, Nostrum could promote the “American Fridays”, and instead of offering the typical meat burger and
chips, it could offer a veggie burger with ecological chips.

Seminar 5 Marketing Management II 27/02/2019

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 SEMINAR 102 Case Study: Creating positioning profiles (Nostrum)
GROUP 2 CARLOTA ALONSO, CRISTINA CAULA, MANUEL GONZÁLEZ, ANNA LOPERA, LAIA MARTÍNEZ, JULES OVERES

Appendix and References

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Seminar 5 Marketing Management II 27/02/2019

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 SEMINAR 102 Case Study: Creating positioning profiles (Nostrum)
GROUP 2 CARLOTA ALONSO, CRISTINA CAULA, MANUEL GONZÁLEZ, ANNA LOPERA, LAIA MARTÍNEZ, JULES OVERES

Seminar 5 Marketing Management II 27/02/2019

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