Chapter 10 Product Concepts

Each Hard Rock Café has its own retail store called The Rock Shop. The Rock Shops are specialty stores with rock ‘n’ roll themed souvenirs including accessories, apparel, pins and glassware. The product lines with the most depth are apparel and pins. There are many items in each product line. Hard Rock adds to the depth of their product lines to keep the buyer interested in its products and to penetrate new buyers. Some of the most popular items are seasonal pins.

Seasonal pins are made in limited quantities and sold for a limited time. They are made for an event or holiday such as earth day or Thanksgiving. Adding seasonal pins is a way Hard Rock attracts buyers with different preferences. Along with pins, apparel has wide variety of options.

The classic white tee shirt with the Hard Rock brand on the front has always been a big seller. By adding the cafe location to the shirt, adds a feature and a new selling point. Instead of a giving a loved one a souvenir from their vacation, the souvenir becomes an exclusive gift they can’t get anywhere else.

 After guests leave the Rock Shop with their branded souvenirs, they become walking advertisements for the Hard Rock Cafe. They are willing to pay specialty store prices at the Rock Shop because there are only a few Rock Shop locations in the area. The consumer enjoys being a part of a company with high brand equity. They are loyal to the brand because of its quality and global brand awareness.

Ch. 18 Sales Promotion

Companies spend six times more gaining customers than keeping them. One way a business can attract a new customer is with coupons. The goal of the coupon is to introduce the customer to a product and have them repurchase. 85% of coupons can be found in newspapers and magazines; these coupons are called freestanding inserts (FSI).

Hard Rock Café is a part of the 15% of coupon distributors that does not use FSI to gain new customers. HRC sets up its coupons for guests that have already made a purchase. When a guest spends $20 or more at any café, their receipt has a survey code. After they go on line and complete the survey, the guest can print a $5 dollar coupon. This is a great way to gain customer loyalty because the guest knows after their first purchase they will continue to receive $5 off their next purchase.

In addition to coupons HRC has a frequent buyer program; the All Access Card. For $25 a guest can purchase this card and use it at any HRC worldwide. The benefits include a $20 rebate (which can only be used at the café), priority seating and $5 off every time you spend $100. All purchases are added up on the card. Each dollar spent is a point, points never expire and the discount is kept on the card. The All Access Card can be purchased at any café and at hardrock.com.

The goal for any retailer is to get a consumer to repurchase their product. The downside of both of these promotions are guest will never know that they can get a $5 coupon if they never go to a Hard Rock. Since HRC does not use FSI they are not penetrating new markets. While the All Access Card is $25, most frequent buyer programs are free to sign up for and offer similar dollars for points strategy. This may turn people off from buying it and may limit repeat purchases.

Chapter 17 Advertising and Public Relations

In the U.S. 10 million dollars are spent on advertising by major companies each day. For large companies, their advertisements keep the consumer aware of the brand name and remind them to purchase products. Companies use many media types for advertising: newspapers, television, radio, magazine and internet. Each type has a different cost per contact and each reach a different amount of people. 

Television has been the most expensive and most effective way companies reach potential consumers. The internet is becoming a very popular way consumers get news and watch TV programs and movies. Internet advertising has 22 billion dollars in revenue each year to keep up with the consumers.  Phones now have internet access, laptops are more portable and new devices like the iPad have made it easier for the on the go consumer to stay informed.

 The Hard Rock Café uses its own internet site as advertisement. Users who go to hardrock.com can get information on any café worldwide including menu items, special events and hours of operation. HRC advertises special deals and for consumers that can only be found online. This is a profit strategy that a company uses because if a consumer buys a product online, the company pays less overhead and earns more than if that consumer purchased from a retail store. 

You can find other less mainstream types of ads in each city that has a HRC. HRC have become a 3D tangible figure. They have built themselves into the landscape of each city they are in. Since HRC are only built in high traffic areas, usually near arenas and hotels, many people will pass the giant trademark guitar in front of most HRC. A consumer may not realize they are being advertised to each time they pass the HRC on their way to work but if that person goes to that HRC for drinks before a baseball game, that 3D advertisement worked. 

Hard Rock Cafe at New York's Yankee Sadium

Ch. 15 Retailing

    Restaurants are not the first thing most think about when talking about a retailers but restaurants provide a service with tangible products just like a boutique or drug store. The products restaurants provide are prepared foods. They also provides an intangible service that includes having your order taken and clean up provided by the restaurant both provide an enhanced experience.

A study from the National Restaurant Association shows the average American will spend 48% of their food budget on eating out. Americans can afford this lifestyle because of larger household incomes. Most American families have incomes from both parents. For these types of families there is less time to cook at home making eating out convenient and affordable.


Consumers have a wide variety of take-out choices on any given night so how do they decide? Some families choose food that delivers such as pizza and chinese food, both are very affordable. Families on the go may choose drive through restaurants that offer value menus that start at $1 per item. Another popular option is the casual dining restaurant which includes Applebee's T.G.I.Fridays, Dallas BBQ's and other dine-in restaurants. All these have similar price points, an All American cuisine, and are located in shopping centers near populated residential areas.


Hard Rock Cafes are do not profit from the local family consumer. Meals eaten at HRC's are not the typical 5.8 prepared meals the average American eats weekly. Prices and location leave HRC's to tourist and weekend family outings. HRC's are built near hotels and arenas usually in a city's downtown area. Prices are higher than popular chain restaurants but HRC's offer the same type of food.


Guest that dine at HRC are staying at a near by hotel or are attending a sporting event or concert. The way HRC make up for the lack of local business is to sell souvenirs at their Rock Shop and a higher price point on food. HRC do not offer deals or happy hour specials that would attract locals to frequent the restaurant during the week.  These are some interesting facts from The National Restaurant Association website:

• 1.3 million: Number of positions the restaurant industry will add in the next decade
• 34 jobs are generated from every additional million dollars in restaurant sales
• $1.7 billion: Restaurant-industry sales on a typical day in 2011
• 80 percent of restaurant owners started their industry careers at entry-level positions
• 46 percent of restaurant employees say they would like to own their own restaurant some day
• 88 percent of adults say they enjoy going to restaurants
• 71 percent of adults say they try to eat healthier now at restaurants than they did two years ago
• 47 percent of adults say they would patronize food trucks
• 69 percent of adults say they are more likely to visit a restaurant that offers food grown or raised in an organic or environmentally-friendly way
• http://www.restaurant.org/research/facts/

Ch. 6 Consumer Decision Making

When a consumer makes a purchase, that purchase is motivated by one or several wants or needs. There is a chart of needs based on a theory by Maslow:

One of Maslow's theories of motivation is the peak experience. A peak experience is experiencing love, music, art or the beauty of nature. Examples of theses are when consumers purchase tickets to a museum, opera, or a trip to an African safari. These can range in a rare ocassion for the working class or frequent occasions for upper class consumers.
Peak experiences may be a reward you give to yourself when you've accomplished something difficult like a cruise when you graduate from college or tickets to a play-off game after a promotion.
The Hard Rock Cafe is in the peak experience business. Their goal is to create "authentic experiences that rock" for every guest. As a moderately priced music venue, music memoribilia museum, retail store and restaurant the Hard Rock is able to provide an affordible peak experiences to all social classes. There is no admission fee for patrons to enter a HRC. By providing free live music and a rock 'n' roll museum, patrons are more likely to purchase souvenirs from HRC retail store to remember their peak experience with such as a Hard Rock tee-shirt or  guitar pin.