Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) brands have been the basis of traditional advertising for as long as anyone can remember: television, radio, screen and other traditional media.However, the QSR sector, like many others, has gone digital. While traditional advertising has not been replaced, marketers have developed mainstream digital technologies that increasingly capture consumers' attention and CMOs' budgets.
This reflects wider institutional and cultural developments, such as the widespread use of mobile phones and telecommunications. It also shows how QSR marketing has changed and continues to evolve.
Let's look at three ways marketing in the QSR business has evolved and how marketers are adapting.Marketing methods can be distributed
When you think of your favorite restaurants, they are probably places to hang out as much as places to eat. They are part of the local fabric and culture, and QSRs should be no exception.
QSR Corporation has always wanted to connect locally, but with such large stores it was difficult. If you think about the traditional advertising venues I described, they are often national or regional in nature, the same in every town or city.
Corporate marketing fails to successfully communicate the pulse of the communities in which these companies operate. Meanwhile, local owners and franchisees often lack marketing experience, and corporate offices have always been reluctant to give them creative flexibility.The Internet has revolutionized this, allowing QSR chains and franchises to promote individual locations in a way that is more in line with the community spirit we associate with restaurants.
Increase the number of tools and other possibilities to extend the tools you already use for more active local marketing. For QSRs, franchisees can put safeguards in place to ensure local operators comply with brand guidelines and other regulations, while also supporting campaigns that focus on highly local events, such as a high school football game on Sunday. Friday night or a community event.
Task in the context of a QSR. Socialize and network with local restaurants, and the results are as follows. And you also don't need a lot of data or other criteria beforehand. You just need to understand the industry and get the right platform.
It's not just digital. It is mostly digital.
I wouldn't think of the QSR industry as a potential candidate for digital transformation, but it has become increasingly digital in recent years.
Customers are used to it. They use apps, want to check a menu or an order (mostly before they arrive) and want to communicate digitally (mostly without human interaction). Even humble QSRs are getting in on the action, with industry giants like Chick-fil-A being the first to go digital.
It opens new horizons for marketers regarding customer engagement, data and experience: applications become platforms for loyalty programs, local marketing, personalization, contextual offers and more.
It was a "low speed" industrial revolution. The digital floodgates have opened. If you haven't already, you need to prioritize digital customers as soon as possible, especially on mobile.
You no longer have full control over QSR marketing.
In short, the industry has gone completely digital and marketing has increasingly spread across all media. The third change is a combination of the first two: the broader digital environment—delivery apps, restaurant review sites, booking sites, and more—means that QSR marketing is now being distributed in ways it wasn't already. direct control.
Active brands and sites may have some influence over third-party apps like Grubhub, but not full control over their installations.
So this is an interesting area where marketers need to be informed, see how they look in different places they have no control over, and then decide how proactive they want to be.
The options here range from simply opting out (giving up profitable revenue streams and customer groups) to diving head first into promotions, sponsored lists, etc.
Introduction.
This is something that QSRs did not have to deal with in the past, but is now an accepted part of today's consumer world. This presents opportunities and challenges for marketers and begs the question, "How can we use these channels that we don't control?" Where do we invest our money? How much effort do we put into details like the images these apps use to represent our restaurant?
Since this is a relatively new area in the QSR digital marketing world, there aren't always clear answers. Another big change in the industry that your marketing approach needs to address now.
