Sweet Lisbon 1 | Page 25

Santini one of the best ice creams in Portugal. Concerning Nannarella, 45 out of 50 customers went to Nannarella for the valuable Italian-style ice cream that is served there. Only 5 out of 50 went there with no clear purpose. Nannarella, thus, relies mainly on its high-quality reputation. Since the ice cream parlor is really small, there is nothing more Nannarella could potentially offer to the customer. It sees to it that it excels in serving one product. Last but not least, the majority of Artisani customers went to Artisani to taste the excellent ice cream. Similar to Santini, Artisani is an ice cream brand well known to Portuguese people. Portuguese families visit the store repeatedly. Artisani’s focus is more on ice cream quality and less on ice cream presentation. We can conclude that Artisani, Santini, and Nannarella are relying on a high quality reputation. However, Santini is better in promoting this reputation. In the customer survey in front of the stores, Santini customers referred to Santini ice cream as “the best”, or at least “one of the best”. When asked about their objectives to go to Artisani or Nannarella, customers rather stated that they wanted to get a taste of a very good ice cream. Only a few mentioned that Nannarella or Artisani ice cream is “the best” or “one of the best” in Portugal. Therefore, Santini has a small differential advantage when it comes to the taste of the product. Turning to the second sub-category for flavor, namely the quantity of flavors, Santini is the clear leader of the market, serving approximately 68 flavors – of which not all are available throughout the year, due to seasonality. However, Amorino is doing a better job in marketing its flavors. When visiting the Website and searching through the flavors served, one can easily get information about origins of ingredients and tastes of the product. Nannarella is quite different in its product offering. The flavor choice is restricted due to two reasons: firstly, the parlor space is so little that it is impossible to store more than eighteen flavors of ice cream; and secondly, the owner of the store sees to it that the image of the “little corner shop” is retained. All ice cream is produced on the spot. When entering the parlor, one can even see the production site behind the cash desk. Every two hours the cream is prepared in the mixer according to tradition. Furthermore, Nannarella experiments a lot. The ice cream offering is changed on a daily basis; there are always some new flavors added to the specialty menu. This makes Nannarella different from the bigger stores, such as Amorino and Santini. Amorino is a global franchise system, hence, the ice cream is not produced locally,