Restaurant Branding Requires Consistency

Whether you realize it or not, if you are in the restaurant business, you have already begun to build your restaurant brand. Your brand is how customers perceive your restaurant, and each time they enter and order something, that perception is etched in their minds. Restaurant branding creates a mental hook upon which your products hang. Misunderstanding this perception of your products can easily yank the hook to the floor while taking all your other products with it, and shower the room in plaster. All that remains of your legacy will be arestaurant brand-shaped hole in the wall.

Featuring the wrong products will bring a mixed message to your guests that can put a halt on any seductive restaurant branding successes you might otherwise enjoy. A while back, Subway introduced pizza. My guess is the thought on their part was to find a way to expand their menu in hopes of getting groups of people, who would otherwise have eaten at a pizza restaurant, to come in and buy from them. However, offering pizza is a strategy that strays so far from their original restaurant branding efforts, that for them, it defies brand management logic.

Here’s another example of just plain bad restaurant branding: Applebee’s has a line of Italian offerings on their menu. And if that weren’t bad enough, what they offer isn’t any good. I know this because I’ve tried them and nearly gagged on every bite.

Or how about Culver’s announcing a healthy portion of their menu with fewer than 500 calories? Their restaurant branding strategies were built around comfort foods that are inherently high in calories and fat. The whole success of their business depends on the products giving you a satiated feeling for little money. They shouldn’t even bring up the healthy thought as the very idea is against everything they stand for.

Knowing what customers are buying or could be buying, knowing what they love about you, what brings them in, or at least what can bring them in is essential to understanding the power of restaurant branding. Your sales history is the greatest piece of marketing research you can possibly ask for. A menu matrix, compiled from your point of sale system or simply counting tickets will tell you exactly what your customers love about your restaurant from the way they vote with their dollars.

There is a focus group going on in your restaurant every day. Your guests are voting with their pocket books and their feet. They are deciding every day if they will eat with you and when they do they are deciding what they want you to make.

If Subway, Culver’s and Applebee’s had taken the time to stop and think about potential effects their restaurant branding concepts, these blunders could have been avoided. Before you make the same mistakes, allow HotOperator to do some simple restaurant branding assessments for you. It’s free and may just save your brand.