QSR Interview | By Blair Chancey
So it’s not going to work at all drive-thrus or all counters? No, none of this stuff is. A cookie-cutter approach is not a good approach, meaning all the industry is not going to do this. Rather, I’m saying with intention—I want to look at the possibilities and decide what my brand is, what it stands for, what’s the competitive advantage, and, real importantly, how are my customers changing? If my customers are on Facebook and they are doing all this computer stuff, they’re going to expect more of that. Maybe they won’t be so opposed to a bunch of robots doing things. They might think it’s cool. Again, if it’s a 45- or 50-year-old, maybe not.
Should fast-food chains begin to move all of their marketing and advertising online to find customers? It’s good to be where your customers are. Not where your customers were. That’s an important line. You need to be where they are. For example, they were on MySpace for a long time and they’ve migrated. Now a lot of MySpacers are into Facebook. They’ll be somewhere else coming up. Keep an eye out; they move.
Do you think it’s worth marketing on those sites or should companies stick to traditional methods like television spots? If you look at the surveys, you can find out that the young people aren’t watching TV like they used to. They are online. They are doing online gaming, all kinds of things. So I want to be where my customer is. If I find out what my customers are doing and I say, “OK, that’s what they’ll be doing for the next five years,” that would be a mistake because things are changing so fast. Ten years ago, you could’ve said, “This is what my customer does” and use that advertising approach for the next five years.
There’s been a gigantic change. Our customers are changing how they live, work, and play by these forces. For example, iPods, I mean, just a few years back, there were no iPods. Now, it’s changed everything. Look at cell phones. Look at the number of kids that have cell phones now. That change doubled. And again look at what’s happening online. If I’m doing radio ads, but they are not even listening to regular radio anymore because they’ve got iPods or they are listening to satellite—my approach with advertising needs to be Both/And. What I want to do is not be media specific, which means I don’t want one radio ad. I don’t want one TV ad. That’s the old way of thinking. I want to be media neutral. Not think of the medium, but think of what I want to do and where my customer is. Then I want to use a combination of media. Maybe it’s radio coupled with an online contest. Or maybe it’s a television ad coupled with an online campaign.
Some companies are exploring YouTube. Right. Know where your customers are and know that they will be moving again. This was not a relevant conversation five, six, seven years ago. But, from now on, it’s the new rules.
The National Restaurant Association conducted a survey and found that two-thirds of teen respondents said they’d use Wi-Fi if it was available at restaurants, and 65 percent said they’d use MP3 docks. Are these kinds of technologies worth implementing into restaurants to keep customers? Depending on the customer you are trying to attract, yes. Wi-Fi has been very successful in the places they’ve done it. For example, McDonald’s started putting in Wi-Fi. Now, if you are a fastfood place, do you want people to be sitting around spending a lot of time there? No, you want turnover. So that might not be the best place to do it. But in a Starbucks, you might have a second cup of coffee or you might get a danish. So maybe having Wi-Fi in there makes more sense.
Is it worth giving these technologies away or should people be charging for them? Well, Starbucks used to charge and now it’s gone to free. So I think Starbucks would rather you stick around and have another cup of coffee. McDonald’s I would think would want me to get out of there so they can make room for somebody else. I don’t think you are going to have a third burger.
I’d be careful with my brand, my customer, and what they are looking for. Am I getting a behavior that I want to get? Do I really want them to be hanging around, or is there something else I could give them? For example, instead of Wi-Fi, maybe there are a couple of flat-panel screens with VH1 on them. So they are able to see some cool music while they are eating.
Burger King is using a lot of Internet marketing like online games and mobile phone downloads to turn average customers into “Superfans.” Is this a good strategy to take regular customers to the next level? Yes. I think it’s a good strategy because you always want to bleed loyalty. First of all, you have to do something in the store to make them want to be loyal. And then you want to do things online to get them engaged. One of the things that the Internet does is create a level of engagement you couldn’t get with old advertising. I can get you to do something online. I mean, if I can get you to click on something, if I can get you to enter something, if I can get you to want to do something, then Bingo—I’ve got engagement versus seeing something on TV and it’s gone.