Hi Guys!
This is my first post on radiosalescafe.com and I am pretty excited about discussing radio sales ideas with you all. I am from India where radio is still at its nascent stage. I work for a CHR radio station that plays contemporary Bollywood music.
Well, right now I need your help in sharing some of the ideas for our client Taco Bell which currently is in just two of the markets in India (Bangalore and Mumbai). They are planning to expanding to other cities as well by the end of the year. I will, in brief, talk about the promotion strategies they adopted in past.
Taco Bell till now has only concentrated on Product specific promotion on Radio, where they come up with a new food item which they promote on Radio. Some of the examples are Cheesy Egg Burrito, Chalupa Chipotle, Double Crunch Wrap, Mexican Pizza and Kathitto (An Indian Kathi Roll with Mexican fillings). The tagline that they have adopted for the market is "Think Outside the Bun".
Now, they have planned on to switch gears and go all out to promote the brand 'Taco Bell' on Radio. They need a brand property that can be adopted for different markets.
Here is a brief gist of the brand...
Client: Taco Bell
Campaign Objective: To create a brand property that has the essence of Taco Bell which is quirky, crazy, edgy and EFFORTLESLLY COOL.
TG: There is no age bracket, but the prime target group are people who are adventurous and experimental, the secondary targets are those who are inspired (Oh yeah! I have been to Taco Bell!).
Brand Strengths:
Brand Challenges:
Other Cues: They talked about the prank call segment, but don’t want to sponsor it, rather create something of their own.
I hope this info helps. It would be great if you can suggest some promotion ideas that are long term and engaging for the listeners.
P.S.: They are ready to give away free vouchers.
Wow, Ishaan.
This is a tall order. Taco Bell is an established brand with a distinct persona--a persona that doesn't necessarily jive with Indian culinary culture as I understand it. Everything you describe about the brand is lifted completely from the US branding and placed into your market.
Before anything else happens, here's an important question. They say radio isn't working for them. How do they actually know this? This is a common complaint from advertisers who are clueless about radio. There's a fast-food chicken chain in California that swears by radio. They always run family meal deal specials during evening drive, when busy parents are coming home from work. Their stores become insanely busy during those times. It's like opening a customer faucet.
Here's the reason for my comment about Indian culinary culture. With your personal experience as an actual Indian, you could tell me I'm way off base. However, a few years ago, I worked with a friend and her Indian partner who were talking about opening a chain of fast casual Indian restaurants in the US. The prospective financiers were from India. At first, the financiers didn't understand that the restaurants were supposed to be for Americans. As was explained to us, Indians like Indian food. When Indians travel to foreign countries, they seek out Indian restaurants. The financiers had been operating a big-name US fast food pizza franchise in India and struggled at first. They had taken the US business model whole cloth and plopped it down in India. They found that Indians weren't interested in US pizza tastes. It was only when they started offering Indian-influenced pizzas that business turned around.
In Taco Bell, you have a distinctly American brand on your hands. (Yes, despite it being "Mexican" food. Americans have a wildly diverse melting pot for food tastes.) The "Think outside the bun" conceit works only (a) if the expression "think outside the box" is in the Indian zeitgeist, and (b) if you have a huge fast-food burger culture there. Sadly, I can't speak to either.
Conversely, you said one of the single most brilliant things imaginable about the brand: "It's familiar yet different." For the Indian market, this seems crucial. Mexican food shares similar spices and flavors. I would focus intently on this angle. And strategically, I would do one or both of two things. One, I would develop branding radio that uses some catchy language to drive home the exotic yet homey nature of the food. And/or two, I would consider running daypart-appropriate advertising that drives customers to the stores at mealtime. As mentioned with the chicken chain (called El Pollo Loco, which translates as "the crazy chicken"), offering family meal deals when busy parents are driving home from work is like opening a flood gate into their stores. Here's a link to brief explanation of the story: http://www.scba.com/article.asp?id=177700 If you do more searches, you might be able to find more in-depth information with details about the results.
Similar but different: when I was a Creative Director in Los Angeles, I was tasked with filling an Italian restaurant's dining room for lunch. The place was empty during the noon hour. We had two account reps who loved food and loved this restaurant. We would simply open the microphone, sit back, and let them talk about various food items on the menu. They were hilarious. They'd become too enthusiastic and finish each other's sentences as they discussed the food. I'd cut the conversations down into small chunks, created announcer wraparounds, and turned it into a campaign called "Businessmen Discussing Lunch." The announcer always said something about "ten lunch menu items under ten dollars." We'd run them in the pre-lunchtime dayparts. In a couple of weeks, the dining room was packed during lunch.
This has been a lot of writing. Hope you find something useful. Good luck with your effort to think outside the bun. And never let a client tell you radio isn't working without actual evidence. And if they have actual evidence (which is rare), it's time to dissect what they're running. Most of the time, it sucks.
Cheers,
Blaine
Like Blaine, I would question how they have determined radio doesn't work. My suspicion is that their concept or yours of what branding should accomplish is more a promotion or advertising goal, i.e., what they really want is foot traffic and sales. Either way, if you present them with something that can accomplish the latter - they will decide you are indispensable. In the end, the franchise is supposed to brand - that's why you pay for the franchise license. The franchisee is supposed to sell.
The thing that often works with restaurants is dayparting - if lunch is slow then you run middays... if dinner is slow then you run PMD.... late nite (drive-thru?) runs 7p-12m. Some fast food and independent restaurants will daypart production to promote breakfast items in the morning, et al.
We run several ongoing features that were initially developed to address specific things for the restaurants such as down-times. Some involve food giveaways, some don't. The food giveaways help because people seldom eat alone - they win something and bring friends along who then pay their way. The ideal food giveaway (from the restaurant perspective) is to give away something substantial enough to impress and bring somone in but leaves an opening to add-to or upsell.
KFC 10-Second Challenge listeners call in a specific time (7:45a because that's when in-car listening is high). We have done several different 'challenges' for this client. The most recent and enduring has been the 10-second challenge - a listener (live) is given a category and 10-seconds to name 6 things in that category, For that they win a designated meal (must be a minimum $15-$30 value - easy for KFC with 'meal deals'). We produce the certificates and lsiteners pick them up from us. We run promos thru all days and dayparts to the effect 'remember to tune in each weekday morning with Brian's Y102 Morning Show for the KFC 10-Second Challenge...'. You can add website/social media recognition of winners, Client loves this because they hear 'KFC' being mentioned all the time. This contest runs M-F all year.
Y102 Retro Lunch - 1 hour of retro hit after hit (80' & 90's). This is very popular with at-work listenership. Airs 12n-1p M-F. Mentions run thru all days and dayparts. Sponsor gets open, close, 2 :30 in-feature . Sponsor can add a giveaway with a 'Rewind' contest wherein we play a retro song backwards and they enter their guess as to song title and artist online. A winner is drawn daily from those who answer correctly. Wendy's currently sponsors.
Top 5 at 5 Listeners vote at the station website for their top picks. These are then played back in 5-1 countdown fashion at 5p.M-F. Voters are automatically registered when they go to the website to win dinner from Little Caesar's. This can be done as a PMD feature without the giveaway.
Office Invasion Did this with Qdoba. People register on-air and online to win a lunch for 20 people in their workplace. The winner is drawn each Friday during AMD for a Tues delivery to the winner's place of work - delivery is made by the morning personality. We have run this for 5 consecutive weeks at a time. Lots of live mentions, can include airtime for the client - depends on how you price it. Listeners LOVE this. Be aware this is a at-work promotion - we have a regional hospital, county seat and university all within an easy shot to Qdoba.
So each of these presents a different daypart, different target, all air on our AC station. The promotional food item promoted or given away can change with the current offer from Taco Bell.
Hope some of this helps, Ishaan.
