1. LAO SZE CHUAN CHINESE RESTAURANT
MARKETING STRATEGY
December 03 2015
Yingwen Zeng
Qinru Hou

2. WELCOME TO LAO SZE CHUAN
As an ambassador of international Chinese cuisine, we are a neighborhood
hero providing not only the best authentic Chinese food but also a set of
delicate catering service which make customers be in touch with the
richness and exquisiteness of Chinese culture. ”Life time
achievement.”—world association of Chinese cuisine.
Besides food, we also provide different special unscheduled cooking mini
courses depend on the unique taste of every customer. With the open-
kitchen and developed social media community, customers can enjoy
this service anytime, and anywhere.
Yes, we know, there are tons of Chinese restaurants to go for delicious
Chinese food. But we are different that delicious is our superficial goal.
And hope you can enjoy our distinctive business philosophy.
Interactive system for cooks and customers.
Customization for each dishes: One style for one dish, hundred dishes
have a hundred different taste.
Not just a Bib Gourmand, but also a cultural tour guide.

3. CONTENTS
• Welcome to LAO SZE CHUAN
• LAO SZE CHUAN’S Dream Place
• Marketing challenges
• Executive plan summary
• Research Summary
• Discovery Findings
• Brand value position
• Marketing mix
• Growing the wedge
• Assumption& Smart experience
• Organizational Barriers& Enabler

4. LAO SZE CHUAN’S DREAMSPACE
Micro perspective: Customer Experience in 2020
Customer can interactive with our cooks and
enjoy the whole process of cooking a Chinese
Cuisine.(with the unique open kitchen) Chinese
cuisine is an delicate art, which grew out of a
highly developed civilization and long history.
And in Lao Sze Chuan, customers can have a
magical feeling ‘Travel in China’
Customer can attend unscheduled cooking mini course through the App ‘Kitchen Story’
or on-line videos at anytime. Also, they can have a face-to-face instruction from the
cooks on site.
Customers can order their dishes through a living menu which is a display area beside
the open kitchen. Forgive us to make you month water!
Maybe some of them are only sold in Chinese Market, don’t worry, we help you
to get it. Customers can buy the material of the Chinese cuisine which is mentioned
in our mini course. Also, if you want some Chinese specialty, you can preorder with us.

5. LAO SZE CHUAN’S DREAMSPACE
Macro perspective:
Migration path from current situation to this long-term vision for the business
Now: The restaurateur and the community leader of Lao Sze Chuan is prepared to start to carrying out the
marketing plan about cooking mini course with brand new open-kitchen at one store in Evanston firstly. Like
an experience, to see how is it going with the market. Also, a lot of organizational work and operating analysis
need to be down, such as the design for the new kitchen, the training for the cooks as they are going to have
face to face contact with the customers, building friendly and attractive social media community and web-site,
corporate with local community and traditional media to expand our influence. So now is a stage for unfolding
the change. We could take the advantage of our current resource and material basement of reputation in
Chicago area to speed up the process.
Through 2015~2016: Changing from the outside: renewing the kitchen into a open style, improve the inside
dining environment of our restaurants, carrying out cooking mini course( 20~30 minutes for each dishes) in
Chicago, and do some statistic to testify the effect.
Through 2016~2018: Collect the performance data of each stores, and according to different situation in
different stores to make some adjustment for mini courses in each stores. Such as the store in downtown, people
will not spend much time in learning how to cook, so maybe a comfortable space for them to enjoy watching
the cooks cooking while waiting(just like the ‘foreplay’ of Starbucks). However as for the stores in Evanston,
maybe those who like learning to cook maybe family looking for funs and students with their friends, so the
mini courses can be held like a workshop which make everyone share fun with each other; Promoting the
cooking video on-line which can be subscribed our mini course channel with a little fee; Building a club-
membership system all over the USA, generating loyalty effect.
Through 2018~2020:Streching out a new industry---retailing of Chinese food material/ingredient. If people
want to cook Chinese food, they will need special material which can be only found in Chinese Market. As for a
Chinese restaurant, we always have enough material for cooking, and we can purchase those good at a low
price. / As in this stage, we have developed experience in carrying out this project, so we can implement our
marketing plan and business concept in our stores all over the USA.

6. MARKETING CHALLENGES
How do we differentia ourselves from our competitors profitably?
How can we attract the new target customers and change the
negative point they used to have for Chinese restaurant?
How do we built our brand loyalty among so many choice that
customers can pick?
How to make the promotion of our new Marketing Plan effectively?
How do we cultivate a market-focus culture in a restaurant?

7. EXECETIVE PLAN SUMMARY
Offering cooking mini course: Customers can have unscheduled cooking mini course
from our cooks on-site or on-line. You do not need to pay much time on it or pre-
order it. It’s a one-time course, all you need to do is to have fun with your friends and
family. Let’s start a food / cultural journey with our cooks!
Reconstructing the kitchen: We have brand new open-kitchen which makes customer
can enjoy the whole process of cooking Chinese cuisine as an art.
Customization service: Every dishes has the name tag of the cook who made it on the
plate, if customers have special requirement for each dishes, such as less spicy, no
onion, they can communicate directly to the cook. Or if they are unsatisfied with a
specify dishes ,their complaint will be sent to the cook precisely. Also, we have a
living menu( a display area for dishes classified by the cooking method( fried,
steamed, boiled, braised….), this can make a clear assortment for customers to order
the dishes fits their taste and avoid ordering the dishes they don’t like by
misunderstanding.
Building member club: We can built a member club not just for promoting our dishes,
showing the meaningful experience in the cooking mini course, but also setting up a
supportive social community to sharing a positive life-style, holding special activities
for Chinese Festivals . This can help us build brand loyalty.
Chinese style distinctive social media: We can use social media as a strong tools to
carrying our cooking mini-course on-line and pose our daily stories in the stores,
different special festival activities .
Integration of advertising: Cooperating with Kitchen Stories which is a popular App
that sharing cooking experience with each other and teach people how to cook. By
sharing the recipe and mini course video on Kitchen Stories we get the benefits
gaining viewers who interact with our cooks, we also gains consumers who purchase
the products and the consumer gain ideas for cooking and using Lao Sze Chuan by-

8. RESEARCH SUMMARY
Interview the Chief Executive of Lao Sze Chuan Restaurant
• After interviewing the Chief Executive Tony Hu , we gather some basic situation and internal conditions of this
restaurant. These information can help us to know about the company, and the business and carry out a suitable
campaign for it and reach our dream place. Lao Sze Chuan mainly distributed in Chicago area. There are four
stores, they are each located in uptown, downtown, ChinaTown and Evanston. Each of them have different
segment target. The store in ChinaTown is the first and biggest however it earned the least profits among these
four in2014~2015.Tony is originally a cook from China. He worked in a restaurant in the early year and then
he built up his own business. Taking bringing honor to the traditional Chinese cuisine culture as his duty, he is
engaged in dining and the related industrial specialized company.
Customer Survey
• We adopted the quantitative method through distributing questionnaire
• We designed two questionnaires for our customer survey, and we distributed them on-line and on-site. One is
distributed randomly and the other is distributed to the customers in Lao Sze Chuan Restaurant. By doing this,
we want to have a deeper understanding of customer insights and keep pace with the trends about the target
customer & what is valued.
• In this survey, 330 questionnaires were issued, 262 were recovered.
Mystery catering& shopping
• Inspired by Our homework Apple Mystery Shopping, we also had the mystery catering and shopping
experience in Lao Sze Chuan. The difference is that we add a catering part to this investigation. With the
permission of Tony, we had acted as waitress for one day. Also, we went to four stores for dinner as customers.
• This can help us keep closed with our customers and discover what is their unmet meet and which service
output they value but we do it bad.

9. DISCOVERY FINDING: CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Target market:Bib gourmet
 people who take delight in Chinese cuisine/carve for decent Chinese food
 people who enjoy cooking and sharing with family
 people with passion and want to explore different food culture also interested in Chinese culture.
 Gourmet who consider eating in the restaurant is not just for filling one’s stomache more importantly is for being
visually and appetizingly amusing.
Unmet needs
 Guarantee for the food material
 Order the food that match our interest
 Make queue time and worth waiting
 Interaction with the cook.
 Enjoy the food in a decent and good sanitation environment.
Complication
 can not differentiate the difference among so many Chinese restaurants( Which one is better, what’s the real
traditional Chinese food, which restaurant is the most authentic and fits my favor)
 The cooking process of the Chinese cuisine is a mystery to customers
 Little information in the menu, do not dare to try other dishes.
 The queue time is too long.
 Americans tend to think Chinese food as cheap and fast food without design and stylish. (Panda express, food truck,
chinatown)

10. DISCOVERY FINDING: INDUSTRY FORESIGHT
• There are nearly 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S, three times the
number of McDonalds franchise units and there is an huge increasing
tendency.
• As China becomes one of the world’s largest economy, authentic Chinese food
attracts more customers and at the same time, more Americans are willing to
try authentic Chinese food and learn about its culture.
• While Chinese food’s popularity rises, food safety becomes the No.1 concern
among Americans and will remain for a long period of time in the future.
• The population of Chinese students study abroad in U.S is increasing every
year. Most of them still can’t get used to American food until several years
after so authentic food is a must for them. The market demand will keep
rising.
0
20000
40000
60000
Chinese restaurants Mcdonalds Subway
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
2008 2010 2012 2014
(the quantity of Chinese restaurants in USA from 2008~2014)

11. DISCOVERY FINDING: ORTHODOXIES
• In Chinese Restaurant, customers can’t interactive with the cooks.
Cooks’ job is just cooking.
• Service at Chinese restaurant is focus on Chinese people.
• What the restaurant sells is the food.
• Recommended dishes on the menu are delicious for all the
customers.
• Chinese food is cheap and fast wok food.
• Chinese customers are main client base

12. DISCOVERY FINDING: SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
• Artistic Interior design evolves Chinese culture, creates an exotic atmosphere for
Americans and cures homesick for Chinese customers.
• High quality food with fair price and varies choices compare to other Chinese
restaurants in .
• Renew their menu and released new dishes seasonally. “Today’s Special”
• Friendly manager that will frequently ask feedback from their customers after
meal.
• Each popular dishes have their story and history background on the menu (Eg:
Mapo Tofu)
• Unlike other Chinese restaurants that has too many dishes in their menu and
want to cover everything. Basically Lao sze chuan’s food industry is focus on two
things: Authentic spicy Chinese food and American style Chinese food.
• There is always a long line during weekends however they do take reservations.

13. DISCOVERY FINDING: SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
• Most of Chinese restaurants can be divided into two types. First one is fast
food which has cheap and low quality, contain many American style dishes,
lots of fat and salt in their dishes but the price is low and short cooking
progress. Second one is the one who focus on authentic Chinese food and
their main customers are Chinese. What we found interesting is that the
ratio of customer’s ethnicity in Lao sze chuan is approximately half and half.
That means Lao sze chuan can attract both Americans and Chinese
customers by having both American Chinese food and Authentic Chinese
food.
• We had this cooperation with CSSA (Chinese students and scholar
association) to provide their meal plan. (Students make reservations and pay
online, then they deliver the food to campus at lunch time on weekdays.)
• Highlight the importance of the cooks. As for a restaurant, the
cooks in charge of the dishes for customers. However, they don’t
get in touch with the customers directly. Our marketing strategy
make those who serves customers demand can communicate with
customers straightly which better fulfills their taste.

14. DISCOVERY FINDING: ECONOMIC ENGINE
• Lao Sze Chuan offers cooking mini courses for each dishes to make
customers can cook delicious Chinese cuisine at home and also know
more about this mysterious splendid culture. This additional and
distinctive service make people having a interesting and meaningful
dining experience.
• Lao Sze Chuan also sales food material and ingredient that use to cooking
Chinese food. For different cuisine, we prepared a set of collocation
ingredients. Some material can only be found in Chinese Market that
located in China Town. But Lao Sze Chuan spread widely in the whole
city. Also, we have a developed take-out delivery system.
• Just pay some fix cost to renew the kitchen, we can gain much more
profit that will exceed the upfront investment in a short time. The open
kitchen provides a better interactive system to fulfill customer need and
attracts more potential target customers.
• Lao Sze Chuan collaborates with Kitchen Stories which can reach win-
win situation for both brand.

15. BRAND VALUE POSITION
Target market
people who take
delight in Chinese
cuisine/carve for
decent Chinese food
people who enjoy
cooking and sharing
with family
people with passion
and want to explore
different food culture
also interested in
Chinese culture.
Gourmet who
consider eating in the
restaurant is not just
for filling one’s
stomache more
importantly is for
being visually and
appetizingly amusing.
Attributes: Service
conscious, High value
of dining experience,
interest in Chinese
Culture, Have enough
Time
Frame of
reference
Authentic Chinese
Cuisine
Material and
ingredient of
Chinese dishes
Unique cooking
mini course
Point of
distinction
Cooks can communicate
with the customers. And gain
the feedback from them
directly
We are not just selling
Chinese food. Instead, we
are promoting a brand new
business concept for catering
industry.‘One-stop’
experience of Chinese style.
Elegant and high-grade
dining environment
comparing to other Chinese
restaurants
Corporation with the App
Kitchen Stories and local
community
Guarantee the hygiene and
safety of the food
Reason to
believe
Opened-Kitchen design
On-line and on-site cooking
mini course
Delicate and classical
Chinese style decoration
Customers can order their
dishes with a living menu
and each dishes has the
name tag of the cook.
Expert Chinese food
Supermarket
Wedge
Let the cooks interact with
the whole marketing
process
Significant value addition:
warranty of eating outside,
attractive dishes, no worry
to order dishes that don’t
fit my taste, joyful dining
experience
Expand the whole industrial
chain with little cost.

16. BRAND VALUE POSITION
Awareness
Likeability
Consume
intent
How do we build awareness on the authentic and high-grade?
How do our service outputs fulfill our target customers unmet needs?
How to have a positive influence on consuming influence? Walk-by/yelp browser consumer
• Delicate Chinese style decoration, clean& neat and elegant dining environment
• Special designed kitchens which can make customers interactive with the cooks, and enjoy
watching the whole process of cooking just like a live show. Also, monitoring the process of
cooking makes them get rid of worrying about the safety&healthy problem of the food.
• Unscheduled cooking mini courses unfolds the mystery of oriental cuisine and motivate customers
interest on Chinese food.
• Leverage Social Media tools: well-designed Chinese style home page, photos and video of joyful dining
experience, warm& interesting social media community, linkage of every cooks’ individual homepage.
• Corporation of App Kitchen Stories: We share the same target market but the service we provide is different,
if our function combine together, we will create a win-win situation.
• Corporate with local community, such as we plan to carry out a cooking mini course in Northwestern
University. The mini course is a traditional campus activity in Norris Student Center which enrich the spare-
time life.
• Open—kitchen：triggering people’s appetite and curiosity, make our restaurant more attractive to passenger
• On-line cooking video: leave a vivid impression in customers’ mind, unforgettable memory make them wanna
try.
• Building a friendly and trusting social media community and interactive communication system.

17. MARKETING MIX：LAO SZE CHUAN’S 4PS
10%~15% lower each dishes than
Other similar Chinese restaurant.
The ingredient maybe less but more
delicate. We care more about quality
Club member fee for 100$/year, 0r
10$ a month, the first 3 month will
be free.
5$for a 20~30min cooking mini course,
Join with family or friends will be cheaper
High margin for retailing Chinese food
material

18. GROWING THE WEDGE
Building a strong and trusting customer/channel relationship, expanding high
margin by-product business through cooking mini course, and transferring the
highest amount of surplus to the customer make us maintain the tallest wedge
• Dining experience: Our dishes are less volume but more delicate. 10%~15% less
price than the same restaurant but with more high-grade dining environment and
give customer more choice to eat different dishes.
• Cooking mini course: As for on-line video, the subscribing fee is quite little, but the
margin utility is big. Growing our fans, advertising for ourselves while earning
money, why not? As for on-site courses, we can gain more regular customers and
build trusting club member ship to provide them better additional service, let our
customer marketing for us.
• Open-kitchen: This can make our restaurant more attractive to new customers and
enjoyable for old customers. The more important is that this distinctive point increase
the output of the cooks while cooking. With the same cost(their wage) they can
provide more value to the restaurant and interact with our customer.
• By-product retailing: As a restaurant, we have enough inventory with great
assortment for Chinese ingredient or material. We can sale this goods to those who
want to cook Chinese cuisine at home. Chinese market is hard to find, but Lao Sze
Chuan spread widely in the city. Thanks to economics of scale, we purchase food
material at a low price, and we can provide a reasonable price(<retailing
price,>purchase price) to customers.

19. ASSUMPTION& SMART EXPERIENCE
• Assumption: The love for Chinese delicious food will motivates target
customers to attend the cooking mini course.
Experience: Doing a customer survey among people who love Chinese
cuisine, to measure their intend to join a on- site and on-line course.
And investigate how much money/time they are willing to pay for it.
Outcomes: As for the Americans, they think it will be a great idea. The
more they care is not the knowledge about how to cook, it is the fun
share with friends and family. It’s seems like an entertainment activities.
However for Chinese students who study abroad, they show less interest
in this cause they want more chance to get in touch with foreign
people/culture and they are quite familiar with the cooking process
cause watching their parents cook even they do not know how to cook.

20. ASSUMPTION& SMART EXPERIENCE
• Assumption: Online Customize Mini-course can trigger housewife’s
interest on authentic Chinese food.
• Experiment:
• 1. Conduct a online survey target at housewives who see the mini-
course and ask about their expectation and satisfactions after cook by
themselves
• 2. At the end of the survey ask them to list the top 3 dishes of
authentic chinese food they would love to learn. Gather the data and
choose one of the overall top three dishes.
• 3. Conduct the survey again and measure customer’s satisfaction, ask
them if the course fits their need and will they recommend this course
to others.
• To prove the assumption, sample size needs to be at least 70 people to
ensure random variable with 95% interval and the increase in
satisfaction needs to be at least greater than 20%

21. ASSUMPTION& SMART EXPERIENCE
• Assumption: Open kitchen can decrease customer’s concern
about safety (especially for American customers) and raise their
satisfaction towards the eating environment.
• Experiment:
• 1. Conduct a quantitative survey and ask dine-in customers
(after meal) from a scale one to ten to rate the different things
about the change of the restaurant
• 2. Use the exactly same survey but ask customers first time
when the restaurant doesn't have open-kitchen and ask again
after it has it.
• 3. Compare the first survey and second survey.
• To prove the assumption, sample size needs to be at least 70
people to ensure random variable with 95% interval and the
increase in satisfaction needs to be at least greater than 20%

22. ASSUMPTION& SMART EXPERIENCE
• Assumption: The open-kitchen can fire up customers’
metabolism.
Experience: It’s hard to build an open-kitchen to testify the
customers’ feeling at a short-time. However, we found a similar
point just exist in our daily life---the open-cooking bar for our
MSC Lunch. We interviewed some of our classmates about their
thoughts about the cooking bar. Also, we interviewed people
queued in line for the fired pasta about the factors they are willing
to wait.
Outcomes:
74%
22%
4% Yes, it really makes me
hungry
I don't have much
feeling about that
I hate it

23. ORGANIZATIONAL BARRIERS & ENABLER
Large scale upfront
funding and the might
wait for a long time for
payoff
During the preparing time,
we need special training
for the cooks. As. they
always work behind the
stage, it maybe difficult
for them to communicate
with customers. Maybe
they also will have some
resistance for the change
as they are going to take
more responsibilities
BARRIERS Strong connect with local
community, world restaurant
association, student
organization and local media.
Solid relationship with our
food material supplier
Lao Sze Chuan’s founder was
a professional Chinese cook in
the past. He owns the unique
skills of Chinese cooking,
better understanding of how
to promote it and precise
industry foresight.
The incentives of the cook
will not only be the wage,
but also social status and
collective honor. Because
they become the leading
actors of this change.
Enabler