All Food Retailers Know that McDonald’s is an Aspirational Brand

Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® continues to say “Don’t listen to the Naysayers who filled the airways, newspapers, blogs, social media, and trade magazines when McDonald’s reported soft sales numbers once again calling for ‘change’ or simply calling out McDonald’s for their personal priority.  The naysayers are for the most part uninformed Micro analyst wannabes wonderful space filler for the press, and nothing more than a distraction for industry according to Johnson.

While McDonalds continues to evolving, it is garnering contemporized customer relevance.  Many of you seem to forget that McDonalds has led the industry breaking long traditions of chain restaurant brand protectionism as regular readers of this blog know.

Monthly sales numbers aside, McDonald’s AUV’s are the gold standard of the QSR industry, not always number one but still the gold standard where all other are judged.  The simple fact that there is not another QSR that would not like to trade AUV’s numbers with them should be enough. 

In September, Foodservice Solutions® will once again released it’ Top 10 Grocerant Retailers list and McDonald’s I’m sure will make the list. McDonald’s is evolving with the consumer as fast for faster than most other legacy chain restaurants. Technology has evolved, and consumers are more time starved, than ever before leveraging new technology for food information, and finding new points of fresh food distribution at the same time. 

This year there are approximately 36 million consumers who are receiving food stamps, the  Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance. These consumers can’t afford to dine out or order a meal in. Year after year Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® believes the primary reason McDonald’s was found to be the restaurant chain grocery shoppers would like to visit more often is speed of service, convenience, and price.  Simply put; for millions of Americans McDonald’s is Aspirational.

The Micro analyst wannabes just might take a minute to reflect on what a treat it would be for a single parent and child to go out for a meal.  McDonald’s is a powerhouse of a brand and while overlooked by the elite, it is a treat for the street. Did your kids get to go to McDonalds?

McDonalds is a dynamic company not static.  They have tired, bone in wings, mix and match game day meal boxes, and customized touch ordering, delivery, digital marketing.  No company is perfect, but no one can fault McDonalds for being static, for brand protectionism, or for having the aspirational AUV’s.  Success does leave clues and everyone else is following McDonald’s. 

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

Battle for Share of Stomach

Earth Fare ‘Better for you’ is Relevant Today

At the intersection of the consumer and food sales today in the ‘halo’ of better for you according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Johnson speaking about Earth Fare stated “they have a unique understanding that the ‘halo’ of better for you.  They understand that it extends into all aspects of the consumer touchpoints including technology, and digital menu boards are a large part of the consumer expectations and I (Johnson) has been telling the restaurant industry for years”.

Johnson continued saying if you want a sales lift while improving margins technology that is consumer facing, interactive, and participatory is a very good investment. The simple fact is that Earth Fare invested in digital signage which resulted sales lift.

So, earlier this year, Earth Fare piloted custom-designed digital displays from Mood Media in the café area of a store in Charlotte, N.C. Serving up a variety of information, marketing and entertainment content, the displays generated a 10% gain for the café’s eat-in food sales during a 60-day test.

Today, Earth Fare has Mood Media digital signage at 26 stores, including more than 180 screens and 400 media devices. Besides the café area, digital displays are located in such areas as the bakery, bar, seafood, deli, coffee/espresso, smoothie/juice, sushi, sandwich and pizza counters.

Mike Savage, senior vice president of merchandising at Earth Fare  stated “In addition to our commitment to provide clean and healthy food options for our shoppers, we are also dedicated to ensuring that our shoppers have enjoyable and memorable experiences…Mood Media helped us create a branded café environment that positively distinguishes us from other grocers. With new visual technologies and engaging, customized content, shoppers felt invited to eat, drink, lounge and relax.”

Here is how it started; for the pilot, launched in mid-2019, Earth Fare developed creative digital media content, which was displayed on five 55-inch, ultra-high-definition LCD screens, supplied and installed by Mood Media. Signage in the café included digital menu boards at the point of sale for food and beverages, Earth Fare branded content and targeted messaging promoting eat-in food options, live sportscasts (specifically for March Madness college basketball games) and local weather forecasts.

Mood Media noted that relevance was key to the digital content strategy for the pilot, given that Earth Fare customers tended to dwell longer in the café than other grocery departments. That my friends is how interactive participatory technology works elevating consumer touchpoints.

Authorized employees at Earth Fare manage the digital media content via Mood Media’s Mood Harmony platform. The tool’s interface lets them instantly change, edit and publish content for one or multiple screens across locations. They also can schedule content in advance, even down to the second, Mood Media said.

Bradlee Hicks, creative director at Earth Fare “With a clear layout and the ability to drag and drop, the CMS is straightforward and simple to use, and I know exactly where each of our hundreds of pieces of content will live, in this case the café area,” according to. “Within seconds, we can schedule content and push updates to several locations, a key factor for a retailer of our size.”

Earth Fare is also leveraging Mood Media’s partnership with DISH by occasionally airing live TV on screens in the Charlotte store’s café. Are you ready for a sales lift? 

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, www.Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/  or www.twitter.com/grocerant

Wienerschnitzel Sponsoring Advertising Competition

When your advertising budget compared to your sector leaders looks more like a penny than a dollar you have to try harder to while looking a customer ahead. That is exactly what Wienerschnitzel, the world’s largest hot dog chain with 333 locally owned restaurants in 11 states is doing. Wienerschnitzel has been chosen as the official corporate sponsor of the 2019 National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) for the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

This is an outstanding opportunity for Wienerschnitzel according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Few people know this but Wienerschnitzel has franchisees today who have previously won this award back in their college days.

Wienerschnitzel like previous sponsors Nissan, Snapple and Yahoo! will provide a “real-world” marketing assignment to advertising and marketing students at over 150 colleges and universities in the U.S. who will develop and pitch an integrated campaign to a panel of judges. Wienerschnitzel’s specific assignment, which will focus on hot dogs, will be revealed later this year.

Doug Koegeboehn, Wienerschnitzel’s chief marketing officer stated It’s going to be amazing to have the brightest minds at the top colleges work on our business,” "In addition to being the largest hot dog chain in the world, this family-owned brand has demonstrated a deep-rooted sense of responsibility to its customers and the communities it serves, and we are proud and honored that Wienerschnitzel is the 2019 sponsor of the National Student Advertising Competition. 

The competition represents advertising, marketing and media disciplines. How is your brand reaching out? Are you looking a customer ahead? Wienerschnitzel is doing all of the right things to drive top of mind awareness, whole edifying the brand to tomorrow’s customers today.

Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization? Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

Foodservice Retailers Looking Outside the Box for Inside Results

While regular readers of this blog know that Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® has been crafting new non-traditional business relationships edifying legacy brands while building foundations for star-up and regional chains; since 1991 his foodservice operations experience began as a franchise back in the late 1970’s.

Does your brand need a refresh? If your brand looks more like yesterday than today or tomorrow it just might be time that you called for outside eyes to help you drive inside results.  What is your new electricity that is driving top line sales and bottom line profits?  Are your customer counts growing? 

So, just what is your brands new electricity? According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new food products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.”

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, coins /currency urban clothing, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. 

Foodservice retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

So just what is your New Electricity? Success does leave clues www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  is the global leader in grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed a Grocerant Program Assessment, or new Grocerant niche product Ideation?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us