The 10-Minute Manager's Guide To Marketing To Kids

Barbara Sullivan

By Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 7/1/2004

With Happy Meals and free toys, Ronald McDonald set the pace for marketing to kids, but times are changing. A growing number of chains are scrambling to hook the burgeoning kids market—-which, of course, includes parents. Some 40% of all eating-out dollars are spent by families with children, according to foodservice researcher Technomic Inc. “We looked at how kids are marketed to,” says David Henkes, a principal with the Chicago firm. “Chains recognize the value of appealing to kids, because a lot of times, the child has the veto vote. There’s a recognition that brand loyalty has to start early, and that it grows as they grow.” Everything from clean changing tables to quick, kid-friendly service and child menus to activities (crayons, etc.) at the table are important parts of marketing to kids.

Let Us Entertain You
A child is watching cartoons on television at home, and an ad comes on: it’s a little boy drawing a door on a blank wall—a little like Harold and his magic purple crayon. He opens the door, and poof! he’s entered the world of Chuck E. Cheese, a world, he’s told, where a kid can be a kid.

The marketing strategy developed in the mid-1980s by Irving, Texas-based Chuck E. Cheese’s was to focus on children ages 2 to 11. Birthday parties are a specialty, but account for only 20% of business. The majority of patrons, according to John Rice, vice president of marketing, “are a mom and dad with a couple of kids who come in for a meal and fun.”

The fun is all over the restaurant. Kids use tokens (bought at the counter) to operate a multitude of games and activities; sometimes they win more tokens or get prizes, so a bunch of 25-cent tokens can last a lot longer than 25 games. And for the toddlers, there’s the never-ending supply of crayons and paper, offered routinely now by many chain restaurants, including Applebee’s and Olive Garden.

And although conditions are bound to vary from place to place, Rice echoes a key element to all marketing aimed at kids and parents: “Cleanliness, it’s a critical issue. We’re dealing with young children here. We’re very sensitive to this, we’re constantly wiping everything down.”

Log on and Play
Web pages targeted to kids, tweens or teens are an emerging trend with obvious branding appeal. “A number of chains are doing more Internet marketing,” says Technomic’s Henkes. “It’s not a full-blown thing yet, but we’re seeing more and more of it.”

For example, link to the Game Gallery on www.chuckecheese.com and play air hockey or try to catch falling pizza slices (just two of many games), all amid lots of noise and busy robots. The Ruby Tuesday Kids section of Maryville, Tenn.-based Ruby Tuesday’s Web site, www.rubytuesday.com, has a hamburger to color—there are about a dozen colors to choose from, and the computer mouse acts as a paintbrush. A timed memory game features 36 squares. Touch a square with the mouse and a food item appears. The trick is finding the square with the matching item. (It took this writer 5.57 minutes to get all 36; a child would have been much faster.)

A Kids’ Corner on the Cracker Barrel Web site www.crackerbarrel.com, features checkers, bobbing for apples, car racing and a peg game. Applebee’s has a psychic apple that answers questions, and interactive stories such as “The Day Our School Bus Driver was Replaced by a Hippo.” And over at Dairy Queen’s www.thedqlab.com, a kid can push a button (with the mouse) and set off on a roller coaster ride with all sort of possible informational stops.

It's Free
Traditionally, there’s nothing like a freebie to draw in customers. The formula at such QSR chains as McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s has long been small toys that come with the kids’ meals. Although the popularity of such giveaways reached its zenith with McDonald’s Teenie Beanie Babies in the 1990s, most major chains continue to add baubles—often tie-ins with films—to kids meals.

BK last year included holiday ornaments bearing the Cat in the Hat’s likeness. McDonald’s latest is a series of sports toys tied to the 25th anniversary of the ESPN sports network. Dairy Queen used to give away toys, but switched to giving free ice cream cones after surveying their young customers. Some casual-dining chains, such as Olive Garden, give its youthful diners a plastic cup decorated with cartoon figures.

And What About Nutrition?
Most children are finicky eaters, and nutrition ranks near the bottom when it comes to marketing efforts to get them and their parents into restaurants. True, more and more restaurants have a special kids menu, but a Technomic study of 195 children’s’ menus found the same basic foods on almost all: chicken strips and nuggets were the most common items, followed by burgers, grilled cheese, pizza, and macaroni and cheese. But—and it’s a big but—that could be changing.

“Kids don’t have concerns [about good nutrition], so the trick is for restaurateurs to provide a lot of options,” says Technomic’s Henkes. “It’s a long term thing, but [children are developing] a more sophisticated palate.

Cracker Barrel Vice President of Marketing Chris Tomasso agrees. “We don’t focus on fried foods on our kids menu,” he says. “We offer grilled chicken, tenderloins, vegetables, other alternatives [to fried].”

Get Them Involved
Picture this: a group of kids, ages 8 to 12, are sitting in a big booth at Dairy Queen, very seriously sampling and discussing different sweet flavors. It could be one of the several DQ crews now “working” with the company in key locations throughout the country to develop new flavors. “Our core market was somewhat middle-aged, and we wanted to get the kids ... so we started this plan two years ago,” says Bethany Harris, senior vice president of the advertising agency that devised the concept.

Minneapolis-based DQ comes up with 40 or 50 flavor ideas a year, Harris says, and “the kids help hone them down, delineate what’s on top, what most appeals to them. My favorite last year was the Cotton Candy Blizzard.” Products that get kid approval are marked “DQ Crew-Approved.”

Introduced last month: The MySTIRy Misty, a clear slush that turns one of four colors when mixed with a special spoon-straw filled with a raspberry-flavored “mystery powder.” The 16-ounce treat, available nationally, is priced at a kid-friendly $1.59. A MySTIRy Misty Slush Game was added to the chain’s tweens-directed Web site, www.thedqlab.com, in mid-June.

Barbara Sullivan is a Chicago-based freelance writer.