Jamba Juice

Nicholas Pantazelos

Marketing Principles

Jamba Juice

Feburary/5/2002

Marketing often comes down to making your customers intelligent enough to buy your products or services. They have to understand what it is you're selling, how it'll help them, and how much better it is than any other solution. Jamba Juice is a leading juice and smoothies retail chain in the country. Started in 1990, originally called The Juice Club, their stores are now open in most states giving their customers an unexpected health experience by offering the best ingredients, remarkable service, and amazing flavor, nutrients and variety. Jamba Juice is a company that follows on living a balanced lifestyle that integrates nutrition, fitness and fun. Its passion for health and uncompromising commitment to quality are the keys to its customers' fulfillment and consequently to its success. Jamba Juice is known for their fresh-squeezed fruit and vegetable juice blends that are made on the spot with no additives such as sugars, preservatives, or artificial flavors. The company's main goal is to augment the daily experience of its customers, its community, and its team members through the life-nourishing qualities of fruits and vegetables.

The main marketing issues for Jamba or any other company are social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory when compared with a environmental scan of the United States of America. If a Juice Club were to be open near the University Of Massachusetts Lowell, an environmental scan would prove to be useful. The strengths could be the college environment since they seem to have expendable income to use. However, the area around the university tends to be a more situated around the middleclass income. The college student is an ever transient demo since they are only here for about 4 years. College students are also not here all year long so they are not truly your long-term customers, especially because they only have four years to spend at the university. The people who live around the school would be considered the main customer base.

Also, a juice bar is a trend-based business, so one should consider whether or not a college area is a trend-setting environment. Considering the economic downturn we are in right now, does it truly make a Juice Bar a necessity? For example, you would assume that the consumers are going to save their money to buy lettuce and milk, rather than spend extravagantly on $4 juices. The m iddle class type consumer is more economy sensitive then anyone, and they will just consider a juice bar to be a trend, not a necessity. Trends are ones that just come and go, and this can be a weakness. But, if the area happens to be a trendy one, comprised of people who usually like to do different things, then it could be a strength to gain that particular customer base a sort of niche in the market.

Between trying to make itself known, a business has to battle with a player in the field that has already established itself. Consider the area around the college. There is already a mom and pop type coffee house called the Sugar Shack which seems to have found its place in that market. This could be considered a weakness for Jamba Juice. People may be less likely to go to a juice bar when they are already comfortable with the existing coffee house in their area. The only real opportunity I can see is that there are no other juice bars in the area. Introducing something new to the area could potentially attract a lot of customers.

There could also be a problem if competitors choose to clone your business in some form or other. Then, a company is faced with the task of getting the customer to purchase your particular service/product over the competition. How long will it take to build brand loyalty? Will it be enough time to make a profit? If juice bar A is serving a similar product base compared to juice bar B, but B is cheaper and has a better atmosphere, then there goes your loyalty! You have to make sure that your product/service is the best in its area of business.

The environmental force which is most critical for Jamba Juice is location.

Jamba Juice's outlets are primarily located in strip centers and street locations. Consequently, it has to find access to a more diverse and concentrated traffic flow of potential customers than do Jamba Juice's usual choice of strip malls and street locations. Let's not forget the competition. There are also numerous smaller mom and pop chains of juice bars serving