The Inspiration Of PF Chang's Positioning Strategies On The Internationalization Of Chinese Catering Enterprises

Brand positioning is an intrinsic link between the brand and the target consumer group.With the rapid development of technology and increasingly fierce global competition,the consumer-oriented market is more complex and changeable,which brings unprecedented challenges to the survival and development of enterprises.Brand positioning will enable the company to form a clear distinction with other brands,create a unique character in consumer perception,and promote the culture of the company to consumers.This paper takes the positioning strategies of PF Chang's chain management as a research case which has profound significance.PF Chang's can be originated in the early 1960s.In the 1990s,Philip Chiang and his partner Paul Fleming finally expanded it to the world.With its business philosophy "Farm to Wok" as the selling point,PF Chang,s accurately positions itself as a high-end Asian cuisine and Chinese tavern to quickly occupy the market in the United States.Now,PF Chang's has more than 210 restaurants in the United States and over 95 restaurants in 25 countries around the world.At the beginning of 2018,PF Chang's opened its first Chinese branch in Shanghai,China,and its CEO pointed out that this behavior was "in an interesting way to bring Chinese intellectual property back to China".Therefore,taking PF Chang's as a research case,it is of great practical significance to analyze the successful positioning strategies of PF Chang's for the internationalized development of Chinese restaurants.However,although PF Chang's has achieved success in the US market,there are still some problems in its global positioning expansion.For example,PF Chang's doesn't·perform well on localizing food in different markets,and does not make full use of media resources for publicity and other issues.This article is divided into seven parts:The first chapter is the introduction part,consisting of the research background,the significance,the research methods and structure of the paper.The Chinese food has a long history and is well known throughout the world.The Chinese food is mainly divided into eight major cuisines.The selection of ingredients is all-encompassing and the cooking methods are complex and diverse.With the advancement of the globalization process,the catering industry,as a pillar industry in the tertiary industry,should take a big step to open new stores in the oversea markets and promote the Chinese food culture.However,many companies have failed on the road to internationalization.Therefore,the study on the market positioning strategies of PF Chang's not only provides suggestions for the development of Chinese restaurants in the United States,but also be a great incentive for catering enterprises that intend to go abroad.The second chapter mainly reviews related research at home and abroad,and these studies have great value for the writing of the thesis.In addition,the author also sorts out some of the theories that appear in the paper,such as PEST analysis,diamond map Positioning theory,and 4P theory.These theories are the theoretical basis of this thesis.The abstract marketing theory will be used in the case study to enrich the article.The third chapter mainly analyzes the market environment of PF Chang's in the United States from three aspects.The first dimension is macro environmental analysis.Using the PEST analysis,the author analyzes the macro environment of PF Chang's in the United States from four aspects:politics,economy,society and technology.For enterprises expanding overseas markets,analyzing the macro marketing environment can enable enterprises to better understand the political,economic,social and technological environment of the target market,so as to develop an adaptive positioning strategy according to local conditions.The second dimension is the competitive environment analysis.The author first analyzed the development of the Chinese food industry in the United States,and then analyzed the main competitors of PF Chang's in American food market,Ding Tai Fung and Panda Express.The third dimension is the internal environment analysis of PF Chang's.The author mainly describes the development history and current situation of PF Chang's.The fourth chapter,with the help of Professor Li Fei's diamond positioning model,analyzes how PF Chang's has achieved great success with brand positioning.According to the diamond map positioning theory,the positioning process is divided into three stages:finding the target market,defining the positioning content and implementing the positioning strategies.The first one is to find the target market.The target consumer group determined by PF Chang's is the mid-to-high-end consumer group in the United States,which determines that the main position of PF Chang's is high-end in the United States.The second one is to define the positioning content.PF Chang's is positioned as a"high-end casual Chinese restaurant" in terms of its property positioning;"delicate and clean food" as its profit positioning;"Farm to Wok" as its value positioning.The third one is to implement the positioning strategies.Through the rational planning of the four marketing elements of product,price,place and promotion in 4P theory,PF Chang's realizes its brand positioning,which will be elaborated in the paper.The fifth chapter points out some small mistakes in the current positioning strategies of PF Chang's,such as the imperfect localization strategy on food and lacking in media publicity.The sixth chapter is based on the positioning strategy and successful experiences of PF Chang's.It provides five feasible suggestions for Chinese restaurants that plan to embark on the internationalization road,such as broadening the publicity channels and fully implementing the food localization strategy.The seventh chapter is the conclusion,summarizing the main findings and also some limitations in the thesis.