Business marketing mix and operational case studies

The Marketing Mix covered in GCSE and A Level Business includes the 4 P’s – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. As well as marketing, a business entrepreneur needs effective and efficient operations , employing the four factors of production namely land, labour, capital and ingenuity.

 I have followed the fortunes of two businesses in my local Twickenham streets during their five years to date –  a high street butcher and a park café.

I will describe the success and failures of these two businesses through the lenses of marketing and operations.

Brown’s Artisan Butchers.

Just before the Pandemic started in the UK in 2020, an independent butcher opened in the High Street of Twickenham, London. The business, then called Brown’s Artisan Butchers, is run by a butcher of 50 years’ experience, who had for many years run a butcher in nearby Hounslow and knew Twickenham well. He located his shop on the High Street, next to a Marks and Spencer’s Food Shop, an independent
greengrocer,  and a highly successful Fishmongers, which sold some meat, though meat is not their main product. 

Mr. Brown  emphasized in his promotion material his speciality cuts, locally sourced foods from free range farms. He has written books on the subject and does training for anyone from home-cooks to upcoming butchers to top Chefs. He displays carcasses drying, but discreetly at the back of the shop. He justifies slightly higher prices with a quality reputations and his artisan approach to unusual cuts and quality flavoured sausages.

  
This butcher survived the Pandemic lock down well, with queues
often to be seen wanting access, and by Autumn 2021 was well
established post-lockdown.

A competitor for Mr. Brown.

A competitor called The Meat Room, was opened by a businessman at around the same time as Brown’s. The location was close to Brown’s but crucially a different section of the High Street.

The Meat Room owner ran two successful butchers shops in the Midlands and wanted to try and expand in London. He had a reasonable amount of butcher
trade experience. He chose Twickenham and located his shop on the busy High Street, but next to no other food shops, for instance his neighbours included a Furniture Shop, which subsequently closed. The window of his shop was unusual in that it displayed giant meat carcases, drying. The range of meats were varied  and the prices though slightly higher than supermarkets were reasonable. However the trade was not enough to sustain the business and it closed after about a year.

So Brown’s saw off the competition and more recently in 2025 Brown’s has changed its name to the “Honest Butcher”. A slight change of Branding but the actual shop has remained the same and continues to be successful even as other independent supermarkets have opened nearby.  Mr. Brown continues to be a welcome, well respected presence in his shop and his young well trained and knowledgeable staff support him well.

A café in the park.

Radnor Gardens in Twickenham is an ideal place for an outdoor cafe, near the river Thames, some popular gardens, and a playground and some schools, in a relatively affluent area.    A new owner refurbished an existing basic  café with some simple  improvements and at first was successful. The offer was simple, essentially coffee and  croissants. But problems started occurring such as being unable to serve coffee because the supplies of beans ran out, and customers reporting that the café was often closed even on hot summer days.  Eventually the business failed in about 2020..

Another new owner emerged in the early 2020’s with a very different approach. Antipodea already ran successful branches in nearby Kew and Richmond and the owners wished to expand and diversify from evening to daytime hospitality. They invested quite heavily in creating a new look with much more seating than before and a delightful  “green” plant image with plant-covered green walls and doors The food included Australian style breakfasts and brunches, and a good variety of cooked lunches. Prices were relatively high for a café but the quality of food was good, as was customer satisfaction, which included waitress service. The business ran successfully for a while, with the café generally full with its targeted customer segment of mothers and children, dog walkers, families, river walkers ; fairly up market.

However,  after a break in and difficulty in getting staff, and a natural slowdown in winter, the café began to struggle, perhaps because of the meal selection being just too ambitious and hence expensive. And eventually it closed.

But within a year,  a replacement opened up, again run by a nearby parent company, this time Parsons from nearby Teddington. It appears some  capital has been invested, with a slightly different style of seating; and a less ambitious but fit for purpose menu is offered, but the overall feel of the garden – plant  vista has been nicely retained and so far in the hot summer of 2025 it looks to be successful.

Marketing Mix and Operational efficiency; observations and conclusion

For the butcher’s business it is clear that the Product and its Brand (artisan, good quality, unusual cuts, Brown’s personal reputation, good customer service) are important in its success. In contrast the Meat Room’s branding was poor. But there was more than that – Place was important.  Brown’s is in the “Central Business District” for independent food retail on the High Street – even if competitors are close by, customers know where to look for meat and related complementary products. In contrast the Meat Room although only a few hundred yards away was isolated from other food shops – it simply didn’t fit – and a bit further from the car park.  

Looking at the café, the first incarnation got its Operations wrong – running out of supplies, unpredictable opening hours and the product offering too limited. The second, Antipodea, ran excellently for a while with attractive green branding . But I think it suffered operationally from staff shortages and while its pricing and product offering may have improved margins and profitability,  actually prices may have been slightly too high-end for a simple park café and sales volumes suffered.

So far in 2025 the new Parsons café seems to have retained the Brand – an environment- friendly image – but improved the interior and has got the Menu offering about right in terms of middle range price and realistic product variety. And as a local dog walker I was delighted it offered free dog biscuits during refurbishment – sometimes the little things are a good part of the promotional aspect of marketing mix.  

But perhaps the test has yet to arrive – how does a park café thrive in winter or in the rain? Does it accept losses in low periods – or shut down for the winter months?  Full time or temporary staff? 

A message for Business Studies students. 

Wherever you live – Twickenham or anywhere – think about your local high street and shops and consider how you would describe them in terms of the marketing mix and operations. You could easily get this type of case study in the exam and you can see above how to use the technical terms from your syllabus to analyse businesses.