Restaurant Case Study with Agnes- Business Killer 4: Non-traditional Competitors Cont'd:
Posted by Ryan Volberg at February 28, 2008 2:30 PM
Promoting Your Brand Without Eroding Brand Value
Agnes’ grandmother taught Agnes so much about the restaurant business before passing away. If it weren’t for her, Agnes wouldn’t have her business. The modest inheritance she left formed the seed money for Agnes to leave her job at the airline and start her restaurant.
On the anniversary of her grandmother’s death, Agnes reflected on the memories she had working in the kitchen alongside her. She thought about the tattered recipe book filled with her grandmother’s handwriting that was proudly displayed in her bookcase alongside other family heirlooms. She’d tweaked some of the recipes over the years, but virtually all of her core menu items were based on those traditional recipes.
As her mind wandered back to her business, she began to think about creating a compelling special that would bring her Saturday night customers back again on Tuesday. She began to smile as she remembered her grandmother’s joy at getting a bargain. Maybe there was something to this line of thinking.
“What if,” she wondered aloud, “I made my grandmother the reason to come back in on Tuesday?” Agnes reached for a notepad and a pen and began to jot down some notes.
When she finished her brainstorm, she had created a promotion that centered on slight variations of her current menu items, using traditional ingredients. Every one of them was inspired by her grandmother’s unique style of cooking. Agnes paired each offering with a small appetizer and a small dessert.
By creating a package of items that were not normally available, Agnes avoided one of the key pitfalls of discounting. She feared that if she offered the same menu with either a lower price or an $X off coupon, she would erode the value of the offering her customers got on Saturday night.
But by offering her Grandma’s Favorites package, she would not only avoid the negatives, but she would actually reward her best customers with something that was unique. In the end, she decided to hand out a special menu with every guest check on Saturday night that invited customers back on the following Tuesday. She took reservations in advance along with the order for what the customer’s preference was. This step eliminated operational concerns over prep. The promotion was so popular, that during the first weekend she ran the program, she booked all of the tables allocated to the promotion and had to extend the special to include Wednesday night.
Over the next few weeks, Agnes used the icon of her grandmother as an anchor in her brand. She educated all of her employees about the origins of the most popular dishes, making sure to weave stories of her grandmother into them. She noticed that the stories were beginning to be retold at the table. It added to the authenticity of the restaurant significantly and Agnes was soon voted the best ethnic restaurant in her area by a local paper.
In our next post, we’ll say goodbye to Agnes and summarize her struggle to take a restaurant that was declining in sales and revive it.
 Category: Survival Tips Story of Agnes the Restaurateur
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