Tuesday, September 8, 2020

CSIT 155 FA 20 - Greg B - Homework Post 2

For this assignment I am analyzing the Top 5 Biggest Fast Food Chain Restaurants.

Subway

www.subway.com

Subway is a privately held restaurant franchisor that sells submarine sandwich's and salads.
The business started in 1965 when Fred De Luca borrowed $1,000 from a friend to start the very first subway in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Today Subway has more locations than any other fast food restaurant chain including McDonalds.

There are over 42,998 Global locations and 25,90 are located in the USA. Total investment in a subway franchise costs anywhere between $150,000 to $350,000 depending on the location. Their core products are submarine sandwich's. Subway spends over $500,000 a year in advertising.  Subway is considered the fastest growing fast food chain with a market penetration in 112 countries.

What is their marketing plan for Social Media? Subway utilizes three primary methods for Social Media. They are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Within Facebook, which is their primary media target they have 24,232,949 likes and 21,267,170 followers. I checked all three websites and the last post for both Facebook and Twitter was to promote Labor Day. 

Additionally, on Facebook they post jobs, promo's, video's, how to order, specials, and where the nearest store is located.

Subway although not a huge user of social media does encourage conversations among its followers and does promote conversations revolving around their food and a healthy lifestyle.

On Twitter they have 2.3 million followers and have a new promo featuring the Coach of the New England Patriots touting the benefits of eating their food and a having a healthy lifestyle. I thought this was an interesting use of a well know sport celebrity. Especially, since Coach Bill Belichick is well know as someone that is extremely non - media friendly and hardly ever says anything when dealing with the media. However, he is a winning Super Bowl Coach and they must have thought he will convert customers to the brand.

Conclusion:

Subway utilizes 3 approaches to Social Media with Facebook and Twitter the leading forums.
Their approach is to sell the healthy lifestyle. I did some research and their three main goals is to promote 1. Fresh Food. 2. Their Food is Cost Effective. 3. They host social events to promote the brand.

They have invested heavily in hiring 150 employees to help them spread their digital image and promote content friendly technology and develop a digital strategy to compete with McDonalds and other large competitors in this market sector.

They also spend a great deal of time on Social Media promoting special deals on their combination sandwich offerings. 

A special emphasis is now on promoting the Subway special app. for Android, Apple, and Paypal.  They new emphasis especially with the covid crisis is to promote online ordering. 

I found their Social Media policy effective especially with their special sandwich promo's. They have great pictures of their products even though they rarely look like this when you actually buy their food.

McDonalds

www.mcdonalds.com

McDonalds was founded by two brothers in San Bernardino, CA in 1940. In 1955 Roy Kroc joined their business and eventually purchased this from the two brothers. They now have a Global Headquarters located in Chicago.

McDonalds is an international corporation with locations in over 100 countries. There core business is selling hamburgers and French fries. 

Their revenue comes from rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchises. In 2018 McDonalds was considered the second largest employer in the world.

In 2018 McDonalds reported earnings of $5.9 million with an annual revenue of $21 billion.

With  regards to Social Media, McDonalds is not a major player in this sector. They use the following to spread their message: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Within Facebook they have 80,559,330 likes and 80,588,789 followers. They do not have that many posts listed on Facebook and only post company messages maybe 5 times a month. Their last message on Facebook included shout out to their employees this past Labor Day for 9 - 4.

Twitter is also figures heavily in their social message with 253 tweets with 8,525 following and 168.9 followers. I am assuming this is in the millions.  I still don't know enough about Twitter to read to much into this other than they mimic many of the same messages on Twitter that are used on their Facebook page. Wishing a happy labor day to their employees and all workers.

Conclusion:

McDonald's does not rely that much on Social Media. They update fewer than 5 times a month. So very little activity. When they do promote something it usually involves their healthy food alternatives. Additionally, they promote social content with regards to the issues of the day. i.e. BLA

They are one of the most mentioned social media non - technology companies and seem to have placed emphasis on listening to their customers feedback. The text states a good company listens to its customers and that seems to be the primary emphasis for McDonalds.

For example, they received complaints on both Facebook and Twitter from customers complaining about running out of Szechuan Sauce for their chicken and this was tied in to a marketing program with their Partner Disney to promote the ne movie "Mulan." 

My impression of them is that they do listen to customers but most of their social media is tied to marketing new products.

Starbucks

www.starbucks.com

Starbucks is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. They are the largest coffeehouse chain and operates over 30,000 locations in over 70 countries.

Their core products are hot and cold drinks, whole bean coffee, tea, snacks, and they are heavily involved in seasonal promotional specials like the Fall classic, Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Started in 1971 and sold the company in the 1980's to Howard Schultz. Whose inspiration was the taken from expresso type drinks that he discovered while travelling in Italy.

Starbucks is heavily involved in various Social Media platforms and the once constant message is selling their brand.

Starbucks in heavily involved with the following social media platforms:

Facebook.  They have 36,724,491 people liking this with 35,562,942 people following them. Their last post on Facebook was last month and they have announced they are pausing advertising on all social platforms which include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Starbucks has pause advertising because they are discussing internally with their media partners to prevent the promotion of hate speech. Seems they have decided to join the politically correct movement and reexamine whether they want to partner with companies that may be viewed as fomenting prejudice.

On Twitter they have 93.6 million following and 11 million followers. As mentioned they have suspended all promotions with their last tweet dated on 8 - 25.

Conclusion:

Historically, Starbuck has invested heavily in promoting their brand on various social media websites. Their Corporate directives has been to publish Quality Content and use bold colors in their photos to promote whatever item that has been selected that month. They don't post a lot but are vivid in the images that are used.

They tend to use Creative Captions that makes their posts easier to read. Posts are very clean.

They value their customers more then anything and communicate content by responding to their customers posts and comments.

Finally, they have a large target market and try and identify this with catching drink names to attract new customers.

Out of all the companies I have looked at they seem to be on the cutting edge of Social Media.  Starbucks is perhaps the biggest name to promote their brand and incorporate this into a lifestyle.

Dunkin Donuts or Dunkin

www.dunkindonuts.com

Founded in 1950 the chain was acquired by Baskin Robbins in 1990 and has been rebranding its image as a beverage led company. Today they are the worlds leader in baked goods, which include donuts, bagels, coffee, and donut holes.

Dunkin has 11,300 locations throughout the world and 8,500 located in the USA. They are one of the most recognized companies with their current slogan that " America Runs on Dunkin".

Their marketing efforts led to a name change in 2018 and they are now called , "Dunkin".  The name change was the result of a shift in rebranding to a beverage trend company. Based on consumer research that customers are more health conscious and buying less donuts they have aligned their image to reflect that change in market behavior.

Facebook  - They have 15,743,975 likes and 15,676,323 followers. The company is 68 years old so they are constantly creating new promotional tools to engage new customers. They do place an emphasis n customer feedback.

Twitter - They have 54.2 million following and 1.2 million followers. They also use Snapchat and KIK.

There is cross sharing across these marketing channels and they have employed new emoji keyboards to allow their customers to comment on their favorite products.

The last tweet I read was from 9 - 2 and it was involving a new ice drink.

Conclusion:

Sharing channel specific content is their primary emphasis and they have a social media team in place to achieve those results.

They are content oriented and use Facebook to promote video's and show behind the scenes stories that their customers would be interested in.

Their future emphasis is on messaging apps and conversational content with their customer base. Dunkin seems to be on the cutting edge for social media and they place a heavy emphasis on connecting with a younger demographic.  

Pizza Hut

www.pizzahut.com

Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise which was founded in 1958 in Kansas. The company is know for its Italian Food, primarily, pizza and pasta. Today they have over 18,703 restaurants worldwide. Now owned by Yum Brands and have a great international presence.

As of 2015 they have 1,903 restaurants in China and is considered China's largest and most successful foreign casual dining chain.

Facebook -  Pizza relies heavily on promotions through social media and this is especially true with Facebook. They have 32,032,679 likes and 8,016,748 visits. Their most recent post was on 9 - 8 and they are promoting reading by marketing children's books. There is a big emphasis on education, and improving their customers lives with their " Our Book It " program where a parent can enroll their kid to help read.

Twitter  - Pizza Hut has 85.5K following and 1.6 million followers. Their last tweet was on 9 - 7 to promote a picture of a pizza and the three day Labor Day weekend.  A special emphasis on content involves high quality photo's of their pizzas and the ease for online ordering. So they have reacted to the Covid crisis by using an app to order your food.

Conclusion:

Pizza Hut uses three primary ways to connect with their customers through social media. The major emphasis is on both Facebook and Twitter. They also have YouTube listed on their website and have videos demonstrating how to order online and all the various promotions. So they are engaged with their customers.

The companies strategy is promote social media to build value and return on investment.

They have active Listening Keys to create value. They track user during new product launches to help gain feedback.

Pizza Hut utilizes customer feedback to help align promotions with specific target markets.

Another use of their data is to help identify what their competition is doing and that in theory helps identify customer threats and how to head them off.

Finally, they target customers who specifically purchase rather than a broad email blast and hoping you receive an order. So this is target specific and driven by their marketing department. 

Overall they seem to be well in tune with their customers and have an aggressive social media strategy.










2 comments:

  1. Wow! You are so incredibly thorough and well thought out. I love that you took on all super giants in this marketing arena! Very ambitious and really well done. My post felt like it took forever (and it did) but yours is really impressive. I can't imagine how long this took you to do, but bravo!

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  2. Great work Greg, your research was laid out very clearly and very precisely. I hadn't ever stopped to consider the use of social media in fast food chains and I was honestly surprised at the numbers they were turning out. I found the information your posted for Starbucks particularly interesting with their willingness to suspend traditional media ads and re-evaluate their partnerships. I think it was Ray Kurzweil that once spoke about brand loyalty becoming a new dividing line and replacing political loyalties in the future. We may be witnessing the beginnings of that.

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