Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges: Back to the Future?

Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges: Back to the Future?

Allen P. Delaune

Strayer Univerisity

Principles of Marketing – MKT100

Professor Jane B. Osbourn

April 29, 2012

Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges:

Back to the Future Chocolate Lounges Taste Sweet Success

By taking the already established Ethel M Chocolates stores and transitioning those into Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges, Mars, Inc. realized that there was a great opportunity to create a whole new approach for offering quality chocolates to consumers with minimum investiture of capital improvements. Hence, Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges came to life in Chicago, Illinois in 2005 after extensive consumer research. Mars, Inc. wanted to attempt to offer chocolate as more than just occasional indulgences by creating a more social-interactive environment where individuals may partake in otherwise seasonal indulgences on a more daily base. In the next few pages key information will cover consumer buying decision making, factors that influenced consumers to spend money and time at Ethel’s, the key motivational factor and the underlying needs an experience to Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges may appeal to most individuals.

Describe the type of consumer buying decision that best describes the choice to indulge at Ethel’s.

Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges approach in their business model is to allow the consumers to interact to purchasing their products through a routine response behavior. A routine responsive behavior is associated with products purchased frequently. Products purchased in a routine responsive behavior pattern can be referred to as low-involvement products because consumers spend little time deciding before making their purchase. (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2011). By having a limited menu, the clientele of Ethel’s can become quite familiar with the product mix offering and quite comfortable with their decision to spend more time interacting with an individual or group or whatever it may be that they came to Ethel’s to...