Panera Bread Case Study

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as well as more brand awareness.

They are leading their market segment, but other competitors seem to do much more marketing. They are able to keep just behind Panera by marketing themselves as they do, therefore if Panera were to focus more on marketing, they would rocket ahead of the competitors.

By focusing their efforts on advertising new locations in the form of billboards, people who normally pass that area will know that it is a new option for their lunch stop. Nearby companies could also partner with them in a small way, allowing their employees to get a small discount for every purchase guaranteeing further business with all employees at the company. A friend of mine works next door to a Qdoba restaurant, and they offer a 15% discount to all employees at his office. He and a few coworkers go down there for lunch multiple times per week and they have even had small informal meetings there on his office’s dime.

If Panera forced their franchisees to invest more in advertising, they would see that their efforts allowed them to be able to reap in the rewards of further brand recognition. People looking for healthy alternatives to their daily lunch schedule would see that Panera was a readily available option that was serving what they were looking for.

Another aspect of marketing that they could take advantage of is their sponsorship of healthy activities and events, such as 5k runs all the way to marathons. Their presence sponsoring these runs would give the run event more exposure, therefore giving themselves more exposure. By showing themselves at these healthy events, they will further reinforce their healthy, responsible eating image.

Finding of Fact 3: The Panera bread company owned locations make the company much more money than the franchise owned locations. There aren’t enough company locations to capitalize on the potential.

Recommendation:

The franchise owned locations already outnumber the company owned locations nearly two to one. The franchised locations allow Panera to accomplish multiple things, mainly two; exposure to and testing in emerging markets and new locations, and spreading the brand awareness of Panera far and wide. By spreading brand awareness, these franchises are not only improving their own performance, they are improving the state of Panera all over the USA. If every franchise was operated poorly and wasn’t as good as the company owned locations, then the US population would assume that all Panera locations were of similar quality, leading to the downfall of Panera. However since all Panera franchise locations are comparable to the company locations, the company continues to look good and grow.

These franchise locations in emerging markets and newer areas allow the new areas to experience the full impact of Panera food and atmosphere. Their continued success and growth in areas without company owned locations show that the area is now ripe for company owned locations to jump in and embrace the market. States like New Jersey have vastly more franchise locations than company owned locations. These franchises have proven to be able to support themselves and continue to spread, except these franchise locations aren’t making the company as much money as the company owned locations can. With the franchise locations outnumbering them so much, the company is essentially turning down increased profits by not spreading their company owned locations into these already-proven-successful regions.

By moving company locations to already established markets with franchised locations, Panera will have avoided a lot of guesswork and market research that is normally necessary before opening a company location. When the company owned location joins the market, the population there will already be familiar with the products that Panera offers. This will allow the company owned location to jump right in and start making a good amount of sales without having to spend time and money getting their new location “on