Your Attention, Please

Successful business-building promotions don't have to mean 99-cent burgers

By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2003

Effective event-based promotions may play up a special occasion or spotlight a particular product.
Last October, Taco Bell promised free tacos if a World Series home-run ball struck the company’s floating target outside San Francisco’s Pacific Bell Park. In 2001, the Irvine, Calif.-based chain had extended a similar offer: free tacos if the core of the returning Mir space station hit a target in the southern Pacific Ocean.

Neither of the projectiles hit their marks, but Taco Bell’s promotions did. The company accomplished its goal: capturing public attention.

“It’s all about brand personality,” says Laurie Gannon, Taco Bell director of public relations. “We’re putting our brand top of mind with consumers, which is important to us, but it’s in a very creative and clever way that breaks through the media clutter.”

Such inventive promotions are important weapons in the marketing arsenals of many foodservice operations. While the recent quick-service discount wars illustrate that price breaks remain a popular proposition, many operators are instead moving toward product- and event-based ideas.

PRODUCT PUSH
Common across all foodservice segments, product-based promotions accomplish a variety of objectives. Operators can promote new menu items or bring customers back for old favorites by spotlighting signature foods.

Both strategies apply in Dairy Queen’s Blizzard of the Month campaign, which features traditional flavors such as mocha chip as well as new creations such as the Fudge Cookie Blizzard.

“The Blizzard is a great brand that’s loved by our customers, and we want to give it more attention,” says Aric Nissen, director of brand marketing for the Minneapolis-based chain. “We also want to transfer some of that equity to other products and give people a reason every month to come to Dairy Queen.”

Limited-time offers (LTOs), most common in the quick-service arena, also work well for Carlsbad, Calif.-based Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill. Focusing on product rather than price, the company’s most successful LTOs have included fajitas, lobster burritos, and shrimp and crab enchiladas.

Annual programs such as Red Lobster’s Summer Festival of Crab and Lobsterfest drive traffic by showcasing products customers crave, says Jerrold Smith, brand marketing director for the company. A weeklong Oysterfest promotion at Chicago-based multiconcept operator Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises’ Shaw’s Crab House appealed on a similar level.

Product promotions also are about positioning a restaurant or brand, says Clark Wolf, a New York City-based restaurant consultant. Plano, Texas-based Bennigan’s Grill & Tavern, for example, calls attention to new products such as Asiago Chicken Pasta and Bamboo Chicken and Shrimp to help raise the chain’s food credentials beyond simple sandwiches and pub-style food, says Susan Karlen, senior brand manager.

MENU MOTIFS
Higher-end operations often favor product-based strategies as well, typically in the form of themed menus such as the November game dinner at Restaurant Serenäde in Chatham, N.J.

“We’ve tried price promotions and found they don’t matter in a restaurant like ours,” says co-owner Nancy Sheridan Laird. “Customers who come into our restaurant based on price aren’t long term. What’s best to attract the sophisticated diner is a product-based promotion.”

Programs such as Restaurant Serenäde’s August Tomato Month and April Asparagus Month, each offering a nightly tasting menu featuring the ingredient and a special dinner mid-month, also give the restaurant a vehicle to communicate with customers, Laird says.

At Caliterra in Chicago, Executive Chef Rick Gresh spotlights a different ingredient or cooking method each month based on the season. January’s braised menu brought customers in from the cold, while February’s chocolate lineup intrigued by adding the sweet treat to savory entrées.

Bontá Restaurant & Bar in Hampton, N.H., strayed from its usual Northern Italian cuisine to promote Monte Carlo Week in February. Monaco-born guest chef Christophe Pineau prepared a different $65 four-course dinner each night, spotlighting various regional specialties.

A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
In noncommercial operations, where customers often constitute a captive audience, product-based promotions help break menu monotony.

Sodexho USA’s Menu by Design program, available mainly at corporate accounts, offers customers “something a little different, something they wouldn’t make at home,” says Deanna Dresti, senior marketing specialist for the Gaithersburg, Md.-based contractor. The promotion includes monthly themes such as Bites of Spring and Shrimply Irresistible as well as Wednesday special features such as Classico Italia and Fish for Thought.

Three or four times each year, Harvard University Dining Services in Cambridge, Mass., provides an all-inclusive themed meal for which tickets must be purchased in advance. Popular programs have included French brunch buffet, Thanksgiving dinner and an outdoor barbecue.

“We have such a captive audience that whatever we do to break [the routine] and create excitement typically gets customers more interested in coming to eat,” says Cheryl Walker, director for campus restaurants at Harvard. “Promotions get people talking about us, and that’s what we want to do.”

The university also finds success partnering with vendors in product promotions, as does Atlanta-based Morrison Management Specialists, a division of Compass Group North America. This strategy works especially well with beverages and snacks, says John Feilmeier, director of retail marketing at Morrison.

“We use vendors’ national brand names [in point-of-sale materials] to promote products and sell them at the highest possible price points to achieve our margins,” he says.

At Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, product sampling helps direct customers to slower-selling items and boosts their popularity, says Jill Coughlin, marketing director for the university’s contractor, Philadelphia-based Aramark. A recent promotion of black-bean burgers, for example, helped spur sales of the vegetarian sandwich.

TAKE A HOLIDAY
Eye-catching direct-mail and point-of-sale materials help spread the word about coming events.

Themed promotions need not be limited to products. Holidays, special occasions and other events inspire creative ideas at foodservice operations across the board.

For Asian-themed concepts such as quick-service Chinese chain Manchu Wok, Lettuce Entertain You’s Ben Pao and Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois in Las Vegas, the Chinese New Year presents an ideal opportunity.

Ben Pao invited diners to enjoy typical New Year’s dishes including long-life noodles, steamed dumplings and crispy fish while watching the traditional Chinese lion dance. At Chinois, Executive Chef Joseph Bennett prepared a five-course Chinese New Year family feast.

Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based Manchu Wok furnished free two-item combo meals with soft drinks for customers who could prove they were born in the Chinese lunar calendar’s Year of the Ram.

“It’s all about getting attention. We call it ‘share of court,’” says Bob Nunn, vice president of marketing for the mainly food court-based Manchu Wok. “It’s very important to have something new and exciting every time the customer enters our store.”

Widely celebrated holidays such as Valentine’s Day offer promotional opportunities for most foodservice operations. Multicourse menus such as the $175-per-couple prix-fixe pink-champagne dinner at Brasa in Seattle and the $45-per-person prix fixe at Tasca in Boston were popular choices on Feb. 14.

At Irish-themed Bennigan’s, St. Patrick’s Day provides a backdrop for the chain’s biggest promotion of the year: the annual Blarney Blast. From Jan. 26 to March 30, Bennigan’s featured specialty menu items, including Irish-themed beverages and desserts, and presented five contest winners with trips for two to Ireland.

Nonholiday events and occasions also offer opportunities for positive publicity. Rubio’s took advantage of January’s Super Bowl in San Diego, the chain’s hometown, to provide food at various game-related events. Dairy Queen sold an E.T. peanut-butter cup Blizzard when “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” was re-released in 2002.

Earlier this year, Red Lobster took advantage of its 35th birthday to drive traffic and lure lapsed guests. The chain brought back its popular lighthouse glass, offered dinner coupons and sold second pieces of key lime pie for 35 cents.

CULTURAL CUISINE
Pairing culture with cuisine also can yield innovative, event-based promotions.

Martini Italian Bistro, part of Columbus, Ohio-based Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, holds an Opera Night the first Tuesday of every month. Singers from the local opera company perform from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. while diners enjoy five featured menu items.

At Cameron Mitchell’s M, Mitchell’s Steakhouse Downtown and Martini Italian Bistro Downtown, the Dinner and Broadway package is another well-attended promotion. Customers reserve priority subscriber seats through the restaurant when they make pre-theater dinner reservations and receive the tickets before the show.

The program has been “unbelievably successful,” says Carolyn Delp, vice president of marketing. “‘Beauty and the Beast’ was here just a week, and we sold over 150 tickets for the show.”

In Chicago, Lettuce Entertain You restaurants also emphasize local cultural offerings. A partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago lets several of the operator’s concepts mix art and history with culinary culture by bringing in slide shows from current exhibits to pair with special dinners. Recent events included Monet at Everest restaurant and Picasso at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!

“From a sales standpoint, of course there is a financial benefit, but I don’t think you can measure that against the experiential benefit,” says Susan Salzman, Lettuce Entertain You partner and vice president of marketing. “You know that the 125 people who came to Everest that night told their friends, ... created very positive memories of their experience and continued to be customers after that visit.”