Research and Describe Marketing English Tea in Saudi Arabia

MARKETING ENGLISH TEA IN SAUDI ARABIAByCourseProfessorInstitutionDate
Marketing English Tea in Saudi Arabia
Introduction of a new product into the market may be an intensive and difficult process. The use of marketing mix strategy helps in the identification of the proper channels and positions that the product will occupy, and the consumers that will interact with it. Introduction of English Tea into a high-end restaurant in Saudi Arabia, requires proper consideration of cultural factors in the marketing mix strategy. This is in order to implement culturally-cantered strategy to ensure the product is received well in the market. This study uses the 4P model, segmentation and marketing mix strategy to create a marketing strategy for English Tea in a high end restaurant in Saudi Arabia.
Tea Culture in the UK and Saudi Arabia
Before developing the marketing mix strategy for the tea in Saudi Arabia, it is important to consider the tea drinking culture in both countries. Tea drinking is an established culture in the UK population, where the art began in 1610. Many important people especially the royal family made the art famous by including it in the royal diet for morning and evening meals. Queen Catherine of Braganza made the practice popular in 1662 and now it is even more popular as the British consume an average 60 billion cups per year (UK Tea 2017; Greenwood 2016). Most British take their tea with biscuits, while tea bags are the most popular mode of application (Gebely 2013).
There are many tea rooms in the major cities in the UK, where residents regularly visit for a hot cup any time of the day. In Saudi Arabia, the culture is a bit different. Saudi Arabia is the second largest retail tea market in the Middle East, where tea plays a social and family function (Ashraf 2011). In Saudi Arabia, tea drinking is a cultural practice where visitors are served with a cup of tea upon visiting a household as a show of hospitality (Ashraf 2012). While the British mostly like their tea with milk and sugar, their Saudi counterparts prefer it hot and black (Gebely 2013; Ashraf 2011). Another difference is that Saudi tea is mostly a family custom, mainly taken at home anytime, while in the UK, it is part of the culture and the folks take it at home and restaurants. Saudi tea is mostly black tea while the British tea is mainly green tea but there is use of black tea as well.
Market Segmentation and Positioning
Tea is a very common social drink in Saudi Arabia. With a daily consumption of 19 million cups per day, the country comes only second to Egypt in the Arab world in terms of tea consumption (IFP 2017). Therefore, being already a popular product, the market segmentation and positioning should seek to place the product in the market with a social appeal. Segmentation is the division of the market in terms of consumer characteristics such as geography, behaviour or lifestyle (Hassan and Craft 2012). With its existence as a social feature, there exists two market segments in tea in Saudi Arabia; as a lifestyle product and as a cultural entity. The lifestyle market segment is the most appropriate for the British Green tea since it is new in the region. This will require packaging the product with a British taste to appeal to the S...