A very serious article about the sales and marketing concerns with the Arby’s brand - including low brand loyalty even by users; and price-product positionings out of wack. http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/05/17/2010-05-17_arbys_performance_amongst_the_worst_in_modern_restaurant_history_analyst.html
Here’s Burger King’s latest venture into the areas beyond Fast Food - http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/04/21/burger-king-testing-brunch-menu-in-select-markets - an area rapidly becoming important in the new normal.
More news - Why Captain D’s Was Thrown Overboard To Save Del Taco - http://blogs.bnet.com/business-news/?p=2077 - the bottom line on this was - healthier food, stronger brand, stronger finances, and fresher marketing - read for the details. (I did some research for one of these brands in the past and one of the brands in the above links.)
Can a two word slogan turn around sales - http://www.slashfood.com/2010/05/25/so-good-is-kfcs-groundbreaking-new-message/ - KFC hopes so. So Good?
In other news - NRA: Menu trends continue to highlight comfort food - http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article.php?id=18373 - Bread Bowls, Oatmeal, Meatballs - you get the idea. More too.
The smartness of McDonald’s marketing and positionings are amazing - McDonald’s seeks to boost its beverage business - http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/05/18/mcdonalds-seeks-to-boost-its-beverage-business/
A great place to start if you are new with this blog is right here - http://restauranttradearearesearch.com/important-posts-in-2008/
Leave it to McDonald’s to uniquely position `nutrious’ Oatmeal - no FF competition, targets Starbucks success with it - and appeals even to the sit-down `greasy spoon’ users. http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/05/13/mcdonalds-adds-oatmeal-to-the-menu-as-breakfast-wars-heat-up/ Another great move by McDonald’s.
Here’s some one and one research I did last year about restaurants - http://videosq.com/Tara-35-44-Top-Of-Mind-Restaurant-Research__EtVziTDuZOY.html - you can see the other five by going to YouTube and entering `top of mind restaurant’ in the search browser.
In other news - Subway To Everyone Else: Stop Selling ‘Footlong’ Sandwiches - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/subway_to_everyone_you_cant_se.html
thanks for your visit today.
Excellent article that once again shows McDonald’s to be ahead of the competition- the dietitian even uses the new `key words’ like reduced salt and balanced diet - http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sfl-mcdonalds-nutrition-042210,0,3516216.story .
And, here’s an example of the above - It’s a new season for consumers as 16 companies, chains announce reductions in salt - http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/92129669.html .
The 189,000.00 Nightmare - happened to Waffle House - http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/21/447056/a-189000-nightmare.html .
Do you have a pizza restaurant? If so, this is the news source for you - http://pizza-news.net/ .
Finally, thanks for the great response to last Saturday’s post http://restauranttradearearesearch.com/2010/05/08/same-sales-same-number-transactions-same-marketing/. If you are new to RTAR please look around. Thanks for your visit today.
Often when I do FF research for a client - they may have stores whose monthly sales are very close to each other as are the number of monthly transactions - and one would might assume that each store would be best suited to similar marketing. But, the owner operator of the store knows that one store in particular seems to `do well’ whenever the TV ad plan is in force; but for what reason?
It’s a simple reason, the store that `does well’ when the brand is on TV - has a MUCH larger customer base size. What you say? How can that be, the stores have similar sales and similar transactions (and therefore similar sales per transaction too) - what is the difference?
The answer, the store with the much larger customer base has MORE INFREQUENT Customers - that make up the transaction base. Those infrequent customers - of which one store has many more of - react to the ADS - and voila - a real bump in sales.
This is the kind of information an owner can use to place billboards, and get a real effect - or to run truly successful `bouncebacks’ with the customer base. AND, this customer base info is the kind of information you get via my MarketView methodology for your market. Only the MarketView has the TRUE customer base sizes for the operator to finally understand individual store marketing needs.
More on Customer Base Sizes here - http://restauranttradearearesearch.com/2008/08/10/customer-base-size-it-can-be-calculated/
More about my MarketView here - www.squidoo.com/tradeareasurveys - thanks for visiting again today.
