Now that you have some more tools to boost your marketing strategy and results through our marketing blog series, we want to give you further inspiration and share some tried and tested promotional campaigns from food and hospitality brands. We know big brands have considerable marketing budget, but the approaches they adopt can be replicated by even the smallest of companies.
What: Pret a Manger, sandwich shop
What happened: Pret asked customers through an online poll if they would support vegetarian stores. Its client base was enthused. With 10,000 votes in favour, and for summer 2016, it turned one of its central London stores into a Little Veggie Pop-up. The pop-up was so successful that instead of turning it back into a regular Pret at the end of the summer, the company kept it open and has now opened vegetarian stores at two further London locations.
What you can learn from it: Listen to your customers. We’re not saying you should open up a new type of business, but going out to your existing client base for feedback on your business and then showing that you’re listening to them, really pays dividends.
What: Pho, Vietnamese quick service restaurant
What happened: As Pho serves Asian food, it had a challenge tapping into the typical Western Christmas expectations of turkey and roast vegetables. Instead, it thought around the holiday and focused on the idea of the ‘morning after’ with the traditional pho dish positioned as the ultimate hangover cure. It targeted 18-45 year olds in cities around the UK using social media and marketing collateral. The campaign was such a success that this year it won a “Catey”, a set of awards given out by UK hospitality trade magazine, The Caterer.
What you can learn from it: Try something different. Certain times of year are considered to be marketing gold, but they can also be crowded and it can be hard to make your business stand out. By taking a slightly different approach, you stand a greater chance of being able to cut through the noise.
What: Twickenham Stadium, rugby stadium
What happened: Working with its official caterers, Levy Restaurants UK, Twickenham Stadium launched a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the food and culinary experience at the venue. It wanted to highlight and capture the emotion behind its customers’ experiences and did this using videos plus social media with a #sharetwickers hashtag and a series of competitions. As part of the campaign it created a dedicated range of sharing food options for conferences, events and match day hospitality.
What you can learn from it: Make it about the experience, not just the food. Food may not be the first thing that comes to mind when consumers think about rugby stadiums, but by making it about the whole experience, Twickenham was able to make food an essential part of the overall event experience.
What: 7-Eleven, convenience store
What happened: In 2015 7-Eleven introduced a “Bring Your Own Cup” day in the US, Canada and Australia. This year was the third year in a row that the store held the promotion around the countries. The rule is that if you bring in a cup or container that can fit in the 10-inch hold, is watertight and food-safe, you can get a free Slurpee (a vividly coloured crushed ice drink). Stores have seen customers bring in pots, pans and even buckets. Using social media to promote the giveaway, every year, customers flock to the store in droves with their unusual and colourful containers, usually buying something else as well. This naturally creates more fodder for social media.
What you can learn from it: Giveaways work. Everyone loves something for nothing, but a well-designed giveaway can give back tenfold in customer engagement with marketing. Think about how the giveaway works visually, make sure people want to take photos of it and make it easy for them to share and interact with each other online.
The Preoday marketing team is here to help clients by offering support, expertise, and sometimes just to brainstorm creative ideas. To find out more about what clients get on top of our technology platform, get in touch today on hello@preoday.com.
It’s not as catchy as: ‘When is a door not a door?’ (answer, when it’s a jar) but it speaks to the idea that in-car collection, and the technologies that support it, are flexible enough to bend to the needs of a business and its guests.
Delivery can be daunting to the uninitiated, and it might be tempting to sign up with a third-party ordering aggregator that offers the service, such as UberEats, but other options could suit your business and brand better. Here we present three different ‘levels’ of delivery, starting with the most basic – and cheapest method: doing it yourself.
