3 of the Most Successful Restaurant Marketing Campaigns in 2013

As a restaurant operator, it never hurts to take a look at what is working really well for the competition. There were a number of highly successful restaurant marketing campaigns in 2013 worthy of review by the restaurateur looking to up their restaurant’s marketing campaign track record. Here is a brief review of three of the most successful. 

Wendy’s Makes a Home Run with Crowd-Sourcing

Crowd-sourcing can be a very powerful promotional strategy, but getting your customers engaged and interacting with your brand can be tricky. Wendy’s hit the crowd-sourcing home run in 2013 with their ‘Pretzel Love Stories’ and ‘Pretzel Love Songs.’ In these campaigns, they encouraged fans to comment on the Wendy’s Facebook and Twitter pages about how much they loved their new pretzel bun products. They then took these comments and cobbled them together into humorous video skits and songs telling the ‘pretzel love stories’ as crafted by the fans. They gave public credit to the people whose comments were selected, and, of course, ended each promotional video by encouraging viewers to send in more comments to help them write the next pretzel love song or story. The campaign went viral and ended up being a brilliantly successful marketing tactic for the restaurant.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Excels at Brand Positioning

Brand positioning can make all the difference in terms of how the public thinks of your restaurant. Over the last several years, Chipotle Mexican Grill has made its name with its ‘Cultivate a Better World’ and ‘Food With Integrity’ marketing campaigns, designed to demonstrate the brand’s commitment to sustainable and ethical food choices. In 2011, they put out a promotional video entitled “Back to the Start” which was wildly popular online. In 2013, they followed this up with a new video and matching smartphone and tablet apps entitled “The Scarecrow.” The object of the game is to guide the scarecrow character through a dystopian future landscape of processed food in search of sustainable sources to feed customers. The chain also offered free food rewards to download and play the mobile game. The campaign was again, wildly successful, and serves as a solid demonstration of how effective it can be to associate your brand with a cause about which people care. 

Domino’s Takes the Pie with Personalized Pizza Profiles

While pizza joints were some of the first restaurants to embrace online ordering technology, it wasn’t until this last year that chains like Domino’s upped the ante in terms of customized online ordering. They decided to give customers the option to save a personalized ‘Pizza Profile’ in which they could save the details of their favorite orders to expedite future ordering. They then paired this feature with an extensive video marketing campaign illustrating the frustrations and waste of time ordering over the phone, and assured customers that they could reduce their order time to 30 seconds or less simply by creating a Pizza Profile on the Domino’s website.  Not only did this campaign bring in thousands of new customers, but it also had the added benefit of giving the company the contact information and permission needed to market to these customers in the future. 

Whether you want to look for ways to take advantage of restaurant technology, focus on positioning your brand, or find inventive new ways to appeal to your customers, it’s smart to scope out tactics being used successfully by competitors and employ them within your own business. Marketing success in 2014 and beyond will rely on taking notes on what’s working for others and integrating those ideas into your own unique restaurant marketing campaign.

Tags: marketing strategies, restaurant management, restaurant marketing, success stories