Text 3: Chester’s Grill: Grilled Chicken for Trendy People
The Brand Image
A brand image makes people go straight to Mc Donald’s for a hamburger; KFC for a fried chicken, and Chester’s Grill for a grilled chicken, of course.
How can Chester’s Grill become the top three?
Go back to the last two decades when an influx of western fast food chains first arrived in Thailand.
After the gigantic success of the fast food chains, a large number of Thai investors were trying to duplicate the success and getting a market share. But no local investors have reached the goal like Chester’s Grill has.
Supported by the conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc, Chester’s Grill has been through tough tasks before finding its way to the top three fast food chains of Thailand.
History/Background
Khun Sawat Songpattanayothin, Deputy Managering Director to Chester’s Grill, says that Chester’s Grill was established 20 years ago by President Thanin Jiravanon.
We’d our chicken production farm, we needed distributing channels for our chicken. Chicken is our main product to expand Chester’s Grill at that period.
Chester’s Grill was established as the Chain Restaurant which had ability to expand more and more branches by using raw materials from CP as our main resource.
The menu available, being different from others’
We started our menu with grilled chicken and then developed to add in our dishes with rice and grilled chicken because it’s the staple food for Thai people.
In the past few years, we’ve added shrimps and fish in our menu which are the result of the R&D of CP.
We raised grilled chicken as our selling point – then it became the core product – in order not to be the same product as other competitors in the market.
It also can be another choice for the health conscious consumers, especially as we add menu of rice with grilled chicken including shrimp and fish.
These all became our strength which suddenly makes us different in the market.
Marketing Strategies
As a product nature we’ve targeted on working people and family groups. It wasn’t until the past few years that we expanded our target to teenage group. To attract younger group, we offer new design, decoration, menu and advertisement as well as theme song to communicate directly with the young diners. Consequently, more teenager consumers come in our shop.
Next step, very soon, we will expand our target to children and the reason why we do not do market at the same time is because it is different market activities between teenagers and children. We have to make it step by step. We accept that there were other competitors in the market before us, so we have to make differences from others.
Business Development
Apart from its successful renovation, Chester’s Grill has improved its franchise system to boost franchised stores.
Two-third of the number of Chester’s Grill stores are run by the Mother Company.
90 stores from the total 150 branches are operated by franchise companies.
One franchise has 2 – 3 stores by average. A franchise can open up to 12 or 13 stores.
The three types of investment at Chester’s Grill
- kiosk in food court
- compact store smaller than 100-square-meter space
- a store with more than 100-square-meter space.
Expansion
An average expansion is 15 stores per year. In 2006 we opened 27 stores, of which 22 were franchised. More than 30 per cent of the openings were located in gas stations.
Current Status
Among 150 stores, more than 90 are in Bangkok, the rest in areas outside Bangkok and upcountry. The majority of the provincial outlets is located in the south thanks to its Halal approved grilled chicken. The northeast has the least outlets because the grilled chicken has always been the traditional food in the area. We still have chance to open franchise in towns which has teenagers as the main target.
Conclusion
There are a few factors to compete. The most basic is the Quality Service Cleanliness (QSC). After our service has been accepted, we moved onto the marketing factor. In 2007 there were only pricing competition and attractive set menus. Now we had to fight on other factors like the new look of Chester’s Grill presented by superstars and their lifestyle, or the sales between meals.