This is a strategy compilation on how you can use digital to get more members on a fine dining program. The example here is for the Taj epicure program which is owned by Taj hotels and resorts.

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Managing consumer interactions

2. www.hgsinteractive.com
EPICURE – DIGITAL STRATEGY

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Epicure is a premium dining membership plan offered by the
Taj hotels and resorts in India.
Primarily, there are 2 activities that Taj does around Epicure.
• Renewal of existing Epicure members
• Acquisition of new Epicure members from purchased database
targeting tier 1 and tier 2 city consumers.
Challenges:
1. How do we entice new customers? The traditional ways of
procuring market database (of frequent fliers from airlines,
purchasers of automobiles of a certain value, purchasers of high
value insurance products etc.) cannot be the only route.
2. Can there be any strategy that pulls customers towards us (will an
‘aggregator’ kind of concept work)?
Background and challenges

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Table of contents
 Luxury consumption trends in India
 Fine dining and digital audience India
 Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
 Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
 Epicure membership renewals strategy

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Luxury consumption trends India
 luxury in India has been growing at a compounded annual growth
rate (CAGR) of about 25%,. As per a report by ASSOCHAM, the market
is expected to hit $18.6 billion by 2016 from the current $14.7 billion.
 Service areas such as fine dining, electronics, luxury travel, luxury
personal care and jewellery saw increasing revenues and are
expected to grow by 30-35% over the next three years.
 luxury in India is no longer the privilege of the few who were born
into wealth. There is now a larger consumer base, which has the
money to splurge but want a real value proposition – and, in
2016, this will be the biggest challenge faced by luxury brands this
year.

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Luxury consumption trends India
Digital Luxury
 According to new research, two-thirds of India’s web users access social media daily
and spend more time on it than on emails. A combination of physical stores, digital
experiences and social media engagement is the new mantra.
 According to an AC Nielsen report, almost 67% of Indians in metros and Tier 1 cities
check online reviews before making final purchase decisions.
 Increasing mobile and Internet penetration, m-commerce sales, advanced shipping
and payment options, exciting discounts, and push into new international markets by
e-businesses are the major drivers of this unprecedented growth, as per a joint study
by Assocham-Deloitte.

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Luxury consumption trends India
Luxury outside metro cities
 55% of the total luxury market revenue is generated from metro cities of Mumbai,
Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. Balance 45% comes from smaller and new towns
 Despite of low outreach by luxury brands in tier 2 and tier 3 cities the luxury
consumption is growing steadily due to high internet penetration, increasing
awareness amongst the youth and growing purchasing power of the upper class in
tier 2 and 3 cities.
 16% of revenue comes from cities like Bengaluru ; Ahmedabad ; Pune ; Nagpur,
Hyderabad and Ludhiana.
 7% from cities like Surat, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Indore and Vadodara.
 2% from rest of the small towns and cities.

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Luxury consumption trends India
Democratization of Luxury
 In the recent past people who could afford luxury were
distinguishable than people who could not afford luxury
products. Now with increasing wealth and exposure that line is
blurring. This, however has given rise to a new set of
customers and a new space for brands to exist, a.k.a “bridge-
to-luxury.
 Brands across sectors understand that for this emerging Indian
consumer who wants to ‘taste’ luxury, a different approach is
required to expand the base from its existing sophisticated
customer.
House
Household income,
relative affluence
Working parents,
nuclear families
Celebrity/icons
Lifestyle: global
travel and tastes
global connectivity,
brand reach
Technology, speed
to market
New channels,
retail specialisation
Entrepreneurs,
Innovative start ups
New
luxury
Emotional
need,
category
transform
ation
Demand drivers Supply factors

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Luxury consumption trends India
74% look for information about
Company/brand/product
72% look for vouchers/coupons
rebates and deals
60% look for news updates about
new launches / products
48% want to access better
customer service
36% want to access contests,
games and other fun stuff.
Online offers Indian
consumers expect
from brands.

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Fine dining and digital audience India
89 % consumers eat at fine dining restaurants once in a month
14% 19%
56%
11%
7% 22%
51%
20%
80 % consumers eat at fine dining restaurants once in a month
18 – 24 years
25 – 35 years
Once a week
Once in two weeks
Once in a month
Occasionally
A larger group of young diners visit fine dining
restaurants at least once in a month across age
groups, making it an occasion based experience.
*research by Mind shift and Social Samosa

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Fine dining and digital audience India
Eating hours of fine diners
11% 59%
29% 55%
9% 39%
5% 63%
30% 52%
16% 32%
18 – 24 years
25 – 35 years
Both Lunch and Dinner
Dinner
Lunch
63% of diners in the age group of 25-35 years frequent
A fine dining restaurant during the weekend,
spending quality time with family members and
friends.
Weekdays Weekends
*research by Mind shift and Social Samos

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Fine dining and digital audience India
Mobile phones are fine dining guides !!
Mobile phones are the most used devices in both the age groups when it comes to searching restaurants
74% mobile devices
12% laptops
10% Desktop – PC’s
4% Tablets

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Fine dining and digital audience India

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Fine dining and digital audience India
Deals and locations are the two core factors for deciding a fine dining restaurant

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Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
Before the fine dining experience
During the fine dining experience
After the fine dining experience
 The path to fine dining loyalty is driven by online
consumer experience.
 For digital consumers, the journey to loyalty starts
pretty early even before they have visited a fine dining
restaurant.
 With disposable incomes, digital consumers do not
equate high prices to food quality and ambience.
 Due to above reasons online search, reviews and Social
media play a big role in driving fine dining loyalty
programs

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Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
Before the fine dining experience
Search for fine dining restaurants in
vicinity
Review menu, cuisine, ambience
Read reviews, opinions and restaurant
feedback

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Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
During the fine
dining experience

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After the fine dining experience
Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
 With an incremental social media presence , brands
need to have an active response management process.
 Collecting information about consumers while they are
at the restaurant and inviting them over to provide
reviews online, is the easiest way to amplify the fine
dining experience.
 Recommendations by consumers are based on 3 pillars
of loyalty – pleasant experience, distinctive menu and
value.

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Digital for fine dining loyalty programs
Catch
• SEO
• PPC/GDN
• Mobile and
responsive web
• Social media Ad’s
and retargeting
Connect
• Location based
offers
• Restaurant reviews
on Zomato and
Google reviews
• SMS Campaigns.
• Respond to reviews
and queries online
Close
• Responsive lead
generation forms
• Social signups
• Mobile membership
card
• Mobile app to
manage
membership
benefits
Continue
• Loyalty consumer
analytics
• CRM program using
email and mobile
• 1:1 personalised
offers and benefits
• Mobile App push
notification for
reiterating benefits

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
D2M – Diner to member

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Search engines , aggregators,
reviews, offers
Social media
Search Dine Share
The FMOT (first moment of truth) for a fine dining membership is what prospects/diners are reading about the
Fine dining restaurants online.
The experience is perceived by diners even before they have visited the restaurant, based on what they read as
reviews on search, aggregator sites like Zomato.
Search, Web/Mobile landing pages,
e-mailers, Social media
Read engage
Fine dining experience Loyalty
Repeat visits Membership

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Membership acquisition starts with managing
online content and reviews for the fine dining
restaurants and getting more diners to try fine
dining through the Taj group of restaurants
across cities.

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
 Apparently fine dining as a keyword has very
high Search volumes Vs consumers looking for
Taj restaurants and 5 star dining in India.
 Diners search for Taj restaurants directly versus
looking for fine dining options as the Taj
experience is considered EXCLUSIVE and
consumers resonate to Taj as a brand.
 The Epicure membership needs to leverage the
Taj brand name across search and aggregator
sites.

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
 Currently Only way to reach Epicure is through the Taj
InnerCircle website !!
 Both are mutually exclusive services and even though the
membership benefits cross over, fine dining has high repeat
frequency versus guest stay.

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Prospects
Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Search, Social media, reviews
aggregator sites, mobile and web.
Diners – These are our high spenders and “bridge to luxury consumers” who have been to a Taj restaurant or similar
5 star dining experience. The prospects are reached through search and social media, and once they become diners
We nurture them into members across web, email, social and social.
Web, email, mobile
Social.
Diner
s
High conversion and RoI
High visibility, low RoI

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
While they were waiting !!
 The Taj fine dining restaurants are a powerful engagement
touch point for building diners in to members.
 While most diners wait for their food, they engage with their
mobile devices.
 A restaurant with wi-fi is the most common experience
expected by diners.
 Guest social logins are collected to access wi-fi along with
mobile numbers.
 30 day mobile cookies enable contextual re-targeting for
Epicure memberships.
Diners get
access to
free Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi uses diners
social login to
provide access
Data from Wi-Fi
is saved along
with mobile#
Epicure eCRM
database

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Epicure eCRM
database
 Diner social profiles
 Diner mobile number
 Last visit data – Location, date,
dinner/Lunch/Brunch
Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Diner feedback call
Promoted social
stories
personalised
e-mailer
2 days 1 week 2 weeks
Retargeted mobile Ad’s on browsing
personalised
SMS
3 weeks
membership
landing pages +
Mobile app
downloads
D2M – Diner to member

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Mobile Ad goes here
Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Personalised
Mobile e-mailers

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Epicure consumer acquisition strategy
Epicure dining mobile app
 Search Taj restaurants
 Exclusive cuisines and
menus
 Buy Epicure membership
 Mobile membership card
Dedicated landing pages :
Taj Restaurants, exclusive menu’s and buy Epicure memberships

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Dedicated social media pages with membership landing pages
Social media
promoted
stories
Epicure consumer acquisition strategy

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Epicure membership renewals strategy
member
s
Exclusive dining offers by mobile app, targeted social ad’s and e-mailers.
Focus on special occasions which are made awesome by
membership combo’s with stay at the Taj hotels
Remind membership benefits with “What you can do with your points”
personalised messaging.

32. x
Epicure membership renewals strategy
member
s
 Personalised digital bits and exclusivity through
mobile app and e-mailers
 Special dessert offers or personalised cuisine
instead of just providing membership points.
 Special invites to food and drinks festivals
hosted or sponsored by Taj hotels

33. xThank you