Happy Friday, all!
This week in the food marketing scene, it’s all about post-Super Bowl news and pre-Valentine’s Day campaigns. Whether you love biscuits, coffee or Beyoncé, you’ve come to the right spot. Read on for this week’s food news!
Social Spotlight
This past Saturday Beyoncé released her new single, Formation, and one line in particular has really taken off in the food industry. In the song the international super star references going to Red Lobster and, well, Twitter exploded.
Within a matter of hours, there were more than 300,000 tweets about Beyoncé and Red Lobster and for the first time ever, Red Lobster was trending on Twitter. Over the weekend, the company reported seeing a 33 percent sales increase – much of which can probably be attributed to Queen Bey herself.
The seafood chain responded on Twitter with a tweet about changing the name of its famous Cheddar Bay Biscuits to Cheddar “Bey” Biscuits:
Unfortunately, the brand took eight hours to respond on Twitter, and has received both praise for the response and criticism for the time it took to respond. While no doubt caught off guard, Red Lobster attempted to make a recovery the next day:
Nevertheless, this surprise release of a new Beyoncé song dominated social media, created an unexpected buzz for Red Lobster and tied in perfectly with the Super Bowl social media commotion.
Trend Watch: Food + Restaurant Industry News
Last week we talked about how multi-platform campaigns are becoming more and more integrated, and we’re seeing that again this week with brands doing creative and interactive Valentine’s Day campaigns.
Coffee giants Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are celebrating Valentine’s Day with some really exciting and unique social and product promotions.
Starbucks has created limited time only speciality drinks and has been promoting its Valentine’s Day hashtag, #StarbucksDate. There’s also a #StarbucksDate GIF-Giver website that allows users to create cute, Valentine’s Day themed GIFs that encourage users to go on a date at your local Starbucks.
Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and many other brands are getting more and more creative with how they’re sharing the news about these campaigns. Starbucks’ in-store signs (Bro Date, Play Date, BFF Date and more) have prompted many customers to take photos using #StarbucksDate, and Dunkin’ Donuts is inviting people into stores in order to unlock its branded Snapchat filters. There’s no shortage of Valentine’s love on social this week!
PR Lesson of the Week
The PR Lesson of the Week is: be prepared for Beyoncé to mention your brand in her next song.
Just kidding – that probably won’t happen again. But as many brands saw this week, when unexpected publicity happens, timeliness is everything.
Taking eight hours to post about something that had your brand trending on Twitter is definitely not a best practice, but we have to give Red Lobster credit for responding in a way that matches its brand voice and company values. The family-friendly restaurant chain was mentioned in a song that has spiked a lot of controversy over this past week, and the lyrics surrounding the Red Lobster mention are far from family-friendly. The brand did a good job of reacting in an upbeat and family oriented way. Some people have criticized Red Lobster for responding with a “tame” tweet, but would it have been in line with the brand to respond in a different way? Here are some tips for responding on social media:
1. Stay true to your brand
The best part about Red Lobster’s response was that it was true to its brand values and family culture. Not just in times of surprise publicity, but when responding to all comments, complaints, feedback or just posting in general, it is important to always keep your brand voice consistent when writing a response.
2. Timeliness matters
It’s important to be quick in responding to customers on social media – and the sooner the better. It’s not realistic to always be able to respond immediately, but generally providing a same-day response to your consumers’ questions is a good rule of thumb.
3. Have social listening tools in place
Using social listening tools like Notify, Google Alerts or Sprout Social are crucial in catching any unexpected conversation about your brand. Using a social listening tool will help make sure it doesn’t take your team eight hours to respond to something urgent. These tools, and many others, allow users to choose different notification settings and multiple people on your social team can use them.
Hungry For More?
- Taco Bell Finally Releases New Menu Item During the Super Bowl
- Chipotle’s Comeback Plan Involves Free Burritos
- Instagram Now Allows Multiple Accounts – Here’s How to Do It
- The Strategy Behind Coke’s Marvel Super Bowl Ad
- Red Baron Plans 40 Weeks Of Pizza Night Nostalgia
- Twitter’s New Timeline Is Here
Thanks for stopping by for an A La Carte dish of Restaurant + Food Industry News!
What do you think about Red Lobster’s response? What cool food industry trends are you seeing this week? Share with us in the comments!
