Darden Restaurants : An Advertising Approach

1
Darden Restaurants An Advertising Approach

• Participate Restaurant Coupons are at stake!!!

2
The Beginning of Darden Restaurants

• Red Lobster 1960
• Created for casual dining geared toward families
• Family restaurants boomed during 1970s and 1980s
  fueled by changing demographics

3
Darden Restaurants Today

• Today, Darden Restaurants is composed of three
  major national chains
• Red Lobster
• Olive Garden
• Bahama Breeze
• Sonic

4
Pre-Advertising Research

• Darden formed a development team in 1980 to
  investigate the potential for a new Italian
  restaurant in the causal dining segment
• Research revealed that people expected a warm,
  homey place for family gatherings with lots of
  food

5
Olive Garden

• research uncovered the attitudes demographic
  trends for the potential new market
• ads depicted large Italian families laughing and
  eating together at large tables overflowing with
  pasta wine
• has over 150 patron customers a year
• comprises 41 of Dardens total sales

6
Image Appeals

• Saving Red Lobster
• Lagging sales
• Marketing Research
• Red Lobsters challenge
• Old image

7
The New Red Lobster

• Changing the menu
• Regional dishes
• Physical appearance
• Staff
• Sales Recovering

8
A New Chain

• Bahama Breeze
• Caribbean Atmosphere
• Performance Assessment

9
Dardens Restaurant Success

• Customer Focus
• Demographic Trends
• Competitors
• A step ahead

10
Discuss

• What role does advertising play in helping these
  Restaurants remain a step ahead of competition?

11
Answer

• Research helps them stay in tune with their
  customers preferences that are constantly
  changing. This is extremely important in
  advertising three completely different restaurant
  chains (seafood, Caribbean, Italian, fast food).

12
Discuss

• What is a management decision problem facing
  Darden when it was thinking of launching a new
  initiative to save Red Lobster?

13
Answer

• The management decision problem is the problem
  that confronts the decision maker and what the
  decision maker needs to do.
• Problem What can management/advertising do to
  fix these problems?
• Lagging sales
• Tired image
• Need for new appearance upgrade in menus,
  uniforms, restaurant interiors and atmosphere.
• IMAGE-BASED ADVERTISING/PROMOTION

14
Discuss

• Define an appropriate marketing research problem
  corresponding to the management decision problem
  you have identified in question 2?

15
Think

• A marketing problem asks
• what information is needed and how it can be
  obtained?
• Ex. Lagging Sales How far off are their sales
  v.s projected sales?
• This can be obtained by asking the budgeting
  and revenue department
• Ex. Tired Image What image can work for Red
  Lobster to be new and exciting?
• This information can be obtained through
  surveys and focus groups.

16
Think

• Ex. Need for New Physical Appearance What new
  enticing designs can be formulated for their
  menus, restaurant interior and advertising?
• This information can be obtained through focus
  groups, surveys, and secondary data.

17
Question

• Based on the definition of the marketing research
  problem, develop two research questions and two
  hypotheses for each.

18
Answer

• MRP Are uniforms a hindrance/help to the nature
  of the business
• Hypotheses
• Test two stores in the same area with different
  uniforms and see if there is a difference in
  sales.

19
Think

• MRP Do alcoholic bar areas bring in sales?
• Hypotheses
• Build a new unit with separate bar and compare
  bar sales vs. total restaurant sales then
  compare that with a restaurant only unit.

20
Sonic

• What is their campaign about?
• New Breakfast at Sonic?
• Do you like it? Why/not?
• Lets see their commercials and discuss them