Today’s hospitality landscape in India is changing and evolving rapidly. The top challenges for those in the marketing space here are competition, brand loyalty and sustainability. As entry barriers are very low, it allows restaurateurs and entrepreneurs to plunge in and compete with the existing brands for their customers’ wallets. Very often - and this is happening increasingly in India - this gives rise to a huge marketing problem of differentiation. Newer brands are able to offer the same product at a lower cost as they don’t necessarily bear costs such as office expenses, infrastructure costs and other costs that older and larger companies may have to take into consideration.

This increased competition creates an overlap and makes brand differentiation increasingly difficult. The market is becoming further saturated and trying to create your own space and niche to resonate with customers poses a major challenge.

Due to this ever-expanding plethora of opportunities comes the problem of retaining brand loyalty. As marketing professionals, we are all fighting for the same customers and there is only so much preferential behaviour available. What was once only available in two venues is now split amongst 10 and though this creates healthy competition, it also pushes marketers to be innovative and strategise in unique ways.

To sustain brand loyalty and a strong presence, marketing tools are extremely important. In recent years one of the most salient tools is social media which also presents its own set of challenges.

Social media is diverse and full of options yet it is incredibly hard to measure the return on investment from such efforts.

JSM Corporation has brought to India international restaurant brands such as Hard Rock Café, California Pizza Kitchen and Pinkberry.

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