Restaurant Marketing and Branding 101 With Joe Haubenhofer (Ep 247)
Your restaurant’s marketing and branding are not only about turning heads and getting everyone’s attention. Most importantly, it is about turning your target market into loyal customers. Joe Haubenhofer, owner of The Plaid Penguin, discusses the right way to do this to improve and elevate how your restaurant is received by the public. He shares practical tips on creating effective logos, designing restaurant menus, using photography for maximum impact, and sticking to your set brand guidelines. Joe also discusses how to blend brand and marketing with your workplace culture to inspire everyone to exude authenticity, intentionality, and consistency.
Find out more at https://www.theplaidpenguin.com/
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Restaurant Marketing And Branding 101 With Joe Haubenhofer
Coming up on this episode, we talk all about restaurant marketing and branding. If you're a reader of this show, you know that I love talking about the marketing piece. I really enjoyed my conversation with Joe Haubenhofer of The Plaid Penguin. Be sure to stay tuned for some great marketing and branding tips for your restaurant.
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Joe Haubenhofer Of The Plaid Penguin
We’ve got a great episode for you. I’ve got Joe Haubenhofer, Owner of The Plaid Penguin, which is a marketing and branding agency that does a lot of work in the hospitality space. Joe, I love talking about marketing. I'm looking forward to this. Your homepage and I'm looking at it here leads with, “Winning brands don't happen by accident.” Good stuff. Tell me a bit about the firm, how you guys got started, where you work, why marketing, why branding, why restaurants? What have you got?
Yeah, thanks, Jaime. I also love marketing and branding. I’m looking forward to the conversation. That moniker on our website really just speaks to, obviously, branding. However, branding is not a logo, it's not marketing. It's this all-encompassing living organism that should be done with authenticity and intention. It grows over time and should be fed and nurtured every day, every week, every month every year. Just done with intentionality. I think is the main point there is that you should constantly looking at it, adjusting it and monitoring it.
Tell me about you, guys. You've been around for how long? Where are you physically Do you work with companies all over the country?
Yeah, we've been around since 2007. I started the company from a spare bedroom in a garage and then had series of offices. We’ve slowly been growing the team over those years and our services and capabilities. Around 2018, we did a self-audit on our own brand and what was true to us. When we took that audit, we looked at all of our clients and the work that we were doing and a big common denominator was in the realm of hospitality.
We started to focus inside of that space. Lots of restaurant, restaurant groups, hospitality groups, bars, hotels and then some ancillary food service, CPG firms, retail, etc. We're based in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have a team of 25. We work across the country on branding projects as well as all sorts of design projects and heavy communications, PR, social media events, all that stuff.
Creating The Right Restaurant Logo
I saw a litany of things you do from branding strategy to marketing to getting involved with the menu development. I'm curious to poke you on that at some point here, but you throw out the word branding early on and I think you already said it. When people think of that, they think of a logo and they think of that coffee company that has a logo that everybody will recognize if we just looked at it.
Some think, “That's what branding is.” That's all it is. It's just some cute logo, but it's so much more than that. Let's stay there for a second and layer in. If you're talking to someone for the first time and you want to get the feel of what they do, the vibe, what's behind it? How do you talk to someone about that storytelling aspect, that branding piece?
Just level setting. You're right. Branding, when done correctly, our definition of it is the intentional shaping of how people feel and/or recognize your business. It's that visceral gut feeling that they have. It's what they say, how they feel, what they remember and your logo or your marketing doesn't necessarily need to be present in order for that to happen. It's all the sensory stuff. It's your reputation. An everyday metaphor we use to level set with our clients when going through this process is, we'd say a logo is like the outfit on your first date. What they see it, it's not what makes them stay. Marketing is more how you might ask somebody out on that second date or to meet their parents or their friends.
It's more your approach and what you say and how you present yourself. You act differently in a formal dinner party versus a beach vacation or meeting the parents or hanging out with friends on a couch. You're going to act differently in that relationship. Branding, it's who you are, it's your personalities. It's your value, it's your vibe. It's your religious, political, human views. It's how you might respond to difficult situations, your idiosyncrasies, your mannerisms. It's the good stuff, the sum total.
As I said, like any human, it's a growing organism, so naturally evolves, but the core DNA remains the same. I think when going through the process, our methodology is to really extract from the stakeholders why they're in the business they're in and what is the concept and why is it special and unique.
We try to stray them away from words like, “We got into the restaurant business because we love serving people, or we have great customer experience, or we have high quality food.” Those are empty adjectives. We really try to and try to mine out from them what can make their brand, which, again, if we're describing in totality, is so many things all the way down to the culture that you're presenting to your fellow team members or recruits. They're going to be representatives of that. It can't just be, “Here's our logo,” and then a bunch of empty mission statement stuff. We really try to drill down and extract that and then extrapolate that and use a verbal library and a visual library to help bolster up whatever it is the good stuff for mining.
Blending Culture And Brand Together
That was a perfect run through of the different sequences. I wrote it down. I take notes while you're talking, by the way. That's why I'm scribbling. From logo to marketing to branding, really good walkthrough. You already touched on where I was going to go next. The culture piece in what that conversation does for restaurants specifically.
If all your outward marketing and branding is presenting you one way, which you do not get once you walk in the door, your campaign will suffer because it is disjointed.
I want you to talk about the two pieces of that culture and the brand, the outward facing one to customers and whatnot, vendors and so forth. However, the inward facing one to your staff and onboarding folks with your brand and initiating them into the brand, that's a really important piece. I believe I read somewhere you guys helped talk through that process as well.
Yeah, for sure. They're interchangeable. They should be the same. On the training side of culture, there's nuances. There's obviously steps of service and there's systems that need to be put in place, but it should have this overarching umbrella that speaks to why are we in the business that we're in. It could be something as simple as the type of nomenclature we use. We don't have customers, we have guests.
One of our clients is a retro hamburger restaurant. The word hamburger is nostalgic and retro. They don't serve burgers. They serve hamburgers. There's a lot of intention around all of that. Yeah, the process with us is once we figure out what the true brand North star, we call it, is, then we start creating different pieces of languages that are used internally and externally, but they more or less are the same thing that's just presented a little bit differently.
They need to be tied together. What we're saying is brand is this total experience to how the parking lot looks, what the sign looks like, what the storefront looks like, how you're welcomed, the smell, the music, how fast are you greeted, are you left with something. If it looks a certain way, which we can get into this because there really are two worlds, we live in a digital world and a real world, but you go on a website or you read a review and you see a photo.
Going back to the metaphor of like, let's say, dating, you don't want those experiences be disjointed. You go to a dating site and you see somebody's picture from ten years ago and then you meet it in person, it's like, “What?” They need to connect. The culture piece is so important because if all of your outward marketing and branding is presenting you one way, but then you walk in the door and you don't get that certain type of feeling, then it's disjointed and the brand itself is going to suffer.
I think that a lot of restaurants, not just restaurants, but a lot of companies miss that whole piece of branding in terms of giving you a vibe, giving you experience, giving the staff the communication to bring that feeling to the customer. It's a big opportunity. When you do get it, you feel a difference. You're at a restaurant, you see the vibe, you talk about the music, the menus a certain way, the staff is a certain way. You feel it. I know there're difference.
Photography In Branding And Marketing
One thing that I wanted to go to just, because I was thinking about as you were talking was photography and restaurants. Again, some restaurants just don't get this right. We went to a great place for the first time and the website photography was terrific. It really made the decision to go there, by the way. That was a big deal. A lot of folks don't do this well enough.
The physical menu itself didn't meet my expectations. One of them was, in fact, faded out. Of course, I'm getting old. Where's my glasses? I'm struggling to see the menu, things like that. Anyway, great food, great vibe. They missed the execution of the menu there. Anyway, I drifted there...Photography...You guys help with it. Obviously, it's a big deal for restaurants. How do you think about it?
It's a critical part to branding and marketing. Yeah, alignment between those two worlds, you can't hire the best photographer to jazz up your photography where it's so far removed from what it actually is. The thing about the digital world is I think we try to use a lot of different style photography. Space design, lifestyle with people, team members and food, not just a bunch of food and drink that's perfectly curated.
Use less of that on your website and use less of that in your social channels. In our opinion, social media is one of the most disruptive things that we've had in our world since the internet. What I mean by that is it's a device that is influencing and shaping the way we elect world leaders and dividing countries or bringing groups together.
What other mechanism is that powerful to say that it can't do that for your business. I'd say that and with the photography, you don't want a perfectly manicured, landscaped springtime, colonial home all the time. It's okay to get behind the scenes and do more raw footage in the form of short format reels on your phone.
People tend to consume that and it's more authentic. Not to say that you should just throw up your phone and move it all around. We're not judging it based on that. It gives them a more authentic and clear look into what they might expect. To wrap up the photography, it's important. You should refresh on a consistent basis. Look at your blend. Don't just do all food shots. Just really try to capture the overall vibe of the brand and of the experience.
How To Stick To Your Brand Guidelines
I like the two things you finish with there. Refresh it periodically, have it be a blend of stuff. The aspect that you said was really good about being authentic, some folks get nervous to pull out the phone, which is a movie studio. You're absolutely right. You can go behind the scenes very quickly in the kitchen with your phone and your staff. They're better at it than me, I know. They're probably better at it than you as the owner, how to create content that is both quick and fun. How do you let folks off the handle and make sure they stay within brand guidelines when anybody in the restaurant could, all of a sudden, create content ad hoc?
A strong brand definitely elevates perceived value.
This is what's really shifted over. The word brand guidelines, we really like to stay away from that word, again, with the brand being a growing organism. It needs to have some do's and don'ts just like everyday service does. Everything doesn't need to be, again, perfectly manicured based on these guidelines or guardrails. That's where social media, I think, brings it just on a human level.
People aren't judging you because your lighting's not perfect. This is really just true with video content, not so much photography. Static photography versus video is probably the 80-20 rule, if not sometimes 90-10. We might be posting one really nice photo of the space, of a drink, of a person that we had from some photo shoot. Again, you can do this periodically. Twice a year, find some local photographer to do it because food and drink and space, when not lit right, it can look bad.
The video stuff, you have a lot longer rope when it comes to the brand guidelines. That's all I'm trying to say. Just be more organic. More is more and more is better than trying to get that perfect reel and spending a bunch of time. You hit the nail on the head. We encourage our clients, even the ones that we're on a monthly, daily support with where we're curating content, planning out the schedule, doing stewardship for them.
We try to tap a mixologist or a server or a host or somebody that's generally younger and we try to get them excited and let the ownership grow group know, or the general manager know that they can get us really good content, we can chop it up. Even if we're not in the picture, yes, identify somebody that skews younger, that's enthusiastic and give them a little leeway and have them interact with your clientele on Instagram.
Using Branding And Storytelling For Better Profit
That was perfect. I appreciate you going through how you guys think about it because I'm sure restaurants ask the same questions. “What should we post more of? What should we post less of what's not working?” I appreciate your insights there. Talk about branding as it relates to premium pricing. We all want to charge more and price is different than value, which is an equation. Brand comes into play in terms of value. It's not just a competitive price, $6 burger, $7 burger. I paid $18 for a burger the other day like, “What's going on?” How do you use branding and storytelling to make folks pay more, more money for stuff? What do you think?
That's part of it. A strong brand definitely elevates perceived value. Let's say it's something about your mission or sourcing a certain type of food or supporting farms or whatever. There's some of the quality aspect and with a little bit more detail. That's going to cap out. Using the hamburger as analogy, you only can charge so much for certain things. I think where we see the biggest return is just the lifetime value of a potential guest. If you can get them coming back 2, 3 times a month versus once every 3 months, that's where you're going to make the top line sales and ultimately become more profitable, assuming all your other metrics are in line with your cogs.
It's not for every brand like a QSR brand versus a neighborhood restaurant or a bar versus fine dining. Obviously, there's nuances to each one of those. Talking about menu engineering, you mentioned here a second ago, there's a whole science around size of font and do we put dollar signs? Do we have odd numbers versus even numbers? Are we trying to load up on tapas and appetizers on the front? There's a lot to unpack there, but generally speaking, the details matter. When you pay attention to all of these details throughout the guest experience, you're just going to get more from them. You're going to get them to order more, they're going to come back more, so more is more.
Placement Of Items In A Menu
Do me a favor, let's go back to menus for a second. I'm looking at my notes from the website. You referenced food and beverage menu development. When you talk about that, do you talk about the physical aspect? Some of the things you just referenced about placements of aspects on the menu or the actual menu itself? Do you contribute thoughts to, “You guys doing this thing should have these sorts of ideas on your menu?” Maybe it's a combination. What do you think?
Yeah, combination. I would say half the time, we are seeing a brand all the way through. After we create a brand, it's coasters to uniforms to what goes on the wall, the posters, the emails, the van wraps, the menu design. We're just physically laying out a menu. They supply us with the menu and then we're laying it out so that it’s overlaying the brand, but then we're also adding a little value when it comes to highlighting certain dishes or certain combinations. Your eye goes up to the right, most people want to start left and that's apps and salads and soups. It goes into some breakdown of the entrees.
Do you have separate menus for desserts? Do you have separate menus for drinks? We go through all of that. There's a little consulting and advisory. The other half of the time we do get into, “We have a rough idea what our concept is. We haven't hired our chef.” They are clearly they're going to want to have input. Once the chef comes aboard and they have an idea, then we do. Based on their direct competitors likely in an area, we will provide guidance.
There's been some cases, more so in the QSR world, where we have worked with chefs because ingredient cross utilization is key, costing all that stuff. They give us some parameters, but then we're coming in and really helping saying, “We should have 5 menu items in this section, 3 in this, 5 in this. It should be a blend of these types of ingredients.” We've gone as far as to help name them to even further accentuate the brand as well.
Measuring ROI In Marketing And Branding
By the way, I'm sure you guys enjoy digging in like that with the operators, I would imagine. Let's go to a question that a lot of folks would ask. I am going to run a postcard campaign, it's going to cost X, I'm going to get Y, and maybe you guys even touch that realm. I'm going to do a branding campaign and it's going to do X and it's going to do Y and I know it's ephemeral when we talk about marketing, branding and you guys even say so on your site. It is this thing, but someone says, “What's going to be my return when I take you, when I work with you, Joe?” I'm not looking for a specific answer, but how do you talk about ROI when you talk about marketing and branding? What do you think?
Yeah, the inevitable question. It's a reasonable question. I’ll try not to go all over the place here, but branding again should not be looked at as a campaign. Branding is this thing that you invest in one time, that's the foundation of your house. That should really be amortized out over the life of the business or however long you keep that brand. Specific marketing initiatives, whether it's traditional marketing like you're saying with a postcard or digital advertising or all the stuff through the own channels, which is not advertising.
The own channels are things that you control, that you're sending out a message to your audiences such as your website, your social media, email marketing. Those things, if we talk about blends, we're heavily concentrated, especially with restaurants on you should be spending 80% to 85% of your resources on focusing on those channels.
Branding is the foundation of your house. It should be amortized out over the life of the business or however long you keep your brand.
These things are cheap and you can control them. Another 15% should be made up of the paid channels, which is what advertising is. That's postcards, it could be digital ads, it could be all sorts of things, but anything that you put extra dollars into your marketing. The last category is what we call the earned, which is more PR and community awareness. This is sponsoring the local T-ball team, or this is trying to do something in the community that gets you some notice and some praise for lifting everybody up.
When we talk about ROI, I think the types of clients that we're working with are not the ones that call us and say, “We need butts in seats and tell me exactly what we're going to spend this and tell me exactly what I'm going to get.” The clients that we optimized think of us as like you're at a cabin on a lake and the sun is just about to break, but you started a bonfire, it's like 7:00 at night and we are coming in with a curated marshmallow s'mores kit and we turn up the fire a little bit and we get the sun during golden hour. We're the supercharger, we're the accelerant.
The organizations already need to be doing things well. We're just helping fine tune things and get the details. The ROI, it's truly a partnership with us. We grow with our clients and so the clients that just want to do more of a traditional advertising, like, “I want you to send out X amount of emails. I want you to send X amount of postcards,” we're not really engaging with them. If we were to do a specific activity like a postcard, which those types of things work in certain environments, we've done those and there's a couple tricks that we have.
Let's say those coupon packs. You're opening up a new hamburger place outside of your local city and you want to drive attention. We would suggest that we create an offer that has virtually no strings attached and something that would make somebody take an action. That means by coming in, so not just giving away a free fry or a 10, 15, 20% off. It would be beautiful picture of a hamburger.
“We're new to the neighborhood. Here's who we are. Come in. Give us this card and we're going to give you a free hamburger. That's it.” That costs me call it $0.50 per household that I put that in versus me spending $20 targeting a potential guest on a Facebook ad. I would much rather have that. The cost to me to make my hamburger is $3, so you just sink that in to a marketing cost versus a cog cost.
What I really liked going back to the own channels versus paid channels. I was going to ask you a question that was like, “Is there anything that restaurants used to do all the time?” When I say that, the first thing comes to mind is glossy city magazine. You used to always have to advertise in the glossy city magazine. You don’t have to do that anymore. It's changed so much. Anything come to mind?
Totally. It depends on the city that you're in, the size of the community. I think 18-hour cities and even 12-hour cities, supporting your local chamber or whatever commerce group that you have is always a good thing. They diversified their offerings to not just be print and to be more digital and they send out an email, or they'll loop you in on their Instagram. Depending on the spend there, but it usually can be less than a couple of thousand dollars a year. Especially if you’re in like a touristy town, I think that stuff can work.
The vast majority of our clients, like I said, it's more on their own channels. Again, social is of that 85%, like 50% to 60% of our efforts are spent on social media. It's not just Instagram. I mentioned that sometimes it can be TikTok, it's Facebook. There are different audiences, but more content there. It doesn't need to be perfect. That's where we're seeing the biggest return.
The Importance Of Discipline
Let's go for some business thoughts, some personal advice and thoughts. You've run a business for many years. What would you say is one of the best pieces of advice you've received?
I don't know who said it. Something along the lines of discipline is the strongest form of self-love. That delayed gratification, ignoring something you want now for something better later. The passion over the paycheck. How I got into this business, it was nothing to do with my college degree. I didn't know what I wanted to do in college or post-college, but once I took a beat, I figured out I love food, I love design, I love storytelling, I love connectivity. All my other friends are going off on very particular career paths. I was just like, “I'm going to do this and figure it out.” Part of it is believing in yourself and that the line of work can really be fun if you just follow that itch or that gut feeling.
Now I have to ask as a follow up, I'm curious, what you did go to college for. What is it? Is it something very different? What have you got?
Yeah, that's a whole other episode, my feelings on higher education, but that's just what you did after high school. “Okay, I guess I’ve got to go to college. Okay, where do I go to college? What degree do I need to get?” It was in Management Information Systems. This was back at the infancy of the internet, so it was just tech and it was cool, but it was all stuff that my ten-year-old probably learns in the first day of class.
After that, I got a job in Management Information Systems, which was merely a startup internet company. I was there for three years and I learned a ton about just the business world. Just because when I went there, when I started there, there were six people. When I left, there was 130, so I saw a lot of growth, but it just wasn't it for me.
Details matter. What you do from a top-level shows how much you care about your team.
Joe’s Book Recommendations
It seems like we're around the same time span. There was that growth in internet technology companies where things just went from 6 to 130 so quick. These startups raising money, it was just a heady time. Of course, there was the dot-com burst and bubble. I think we probably both went through that. Talk about a book that you're reading now or something that you recommend to colleagues, friends, so forth. What do you think?
I'm a podcast guy, for sure. A book I recently read, not surprising, would be Unreasonable Hospitality but some of my favorite podcasts, Jefferson Fisher, Chris Voss, they're like communication experts. Chris Voss is an old, he is an old FBI negotiator. Never Split the Difference. That guy. He's awesome. Jefferson Fisher's his protege. He is a lawyer. This is a perfect example of Instagram. Now he's blowing up, but he started these videos. He's a trial lawyer, but he gave three tips on what to say when you're walking into difficult conversation or what to say when you're dealing with somebody that is narcissistic.
He gives three points and he is done tons of videos and he is just now blown up. He's got a couple of books, podcasts. I love Dave Ramsey too. He has entrepreneurship. That's where the work and the play for me is. You can see like, “I love reading or listening to people that are doing stuff differently in my world.”
How Technology Will Change The Restaurant Industry
I’ll echo you on Voss. Excellent book on negotiating strategies. Of course, Ramsey, anything around financial management he has great tips. The last question I’ll ask is are there any trends you see in the restaurant industry? It could be what you guys do or outside of what you guys do, but in the next 2, 3 years coming down the road. Any thoughts?
Yeah, let's see. I'd say a couple of things come to mind. One is, I think no matter the restaurant, but maybe more so inside of the QSR world, even as technology emerges there, getting back to meeting people where they're at and this idea of the root of hospitality, again, a lot what Will says in in that book. Simplification of systems and of offerings should be and I hope it is a trend. When we talk about menu consulting, they have their favorite dish or that owner tasted this or that shuffle of this and it's just like strip it back. Just do the things that you can do and perform exceptionally well time and time again. Simplicity, I would say, would be a theme.
I know I said with QSRs and technology. I do feel like leveraging technology and embracing. Just an example, like for restaurateurs, we talk about bran. The digital realm that we live in, online reviews is a real thing on Yelp or on Google or on OpenTable. You can go into one of these learning language modules. There's a couple different add-ons that you can get for free. You can have it go and scrub all of your reviews and then put it in a data driven table that says, “Give me all the common denominators, give the all of our 5-star, give me our 1-star and give me the adjectives that are the common denominators associated with those.”
You can see like, are people saying that my restaurant's too dark, or my service wasn't good, or it's too salty? Whatever it is. Leveraging technology and then things like the toast platform, like tapping into all that that has to offer. Not just the online ordering stuff, but really tapping into their integrations and their marketing modules. You can set up like your email marketing, for instance. You can set up automated responses or automated emails that trigger based on how much they spend or when they haven't come back like a lapsed guess. I think that more and more restaurants and this directly relates to a lot of stuff that we, we do and you can get it, you can automate it yourself.
Find Your North Star
I love the fact that tech is very approachable now and affordable. The things that you can do now for, I'm going to just make up some dollars, but for a couple hundred dollars here or there used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. You can integrate so much and it's giving restaurants a real fighting chance because margins are shrinking and it's getting so competitive, but now you can right size your inventory and your staffing and your pricing and your execution. So many opportunities there inside of tech and AI to ramp up the business. I appreciate those thoughts. Anything we didn't hit on, any parting thoughts? Hit them with the website, your socials, etc. What have you got?
I would just say, yeah, find your North star and constantly monitor and audit everything going on. You have to pay attention to the image that's out there in the digital world and in inside your four walls. Details matters and what you do from a top level showing how much you care about your team, or you care about the guests or you care about the trash in the parking lot goes a long way.
Simplify. Once you simplify things, your menu, for instance, it makes all of that stuff that much easier to achieve. Really then to focus on the important stuff, which ultimately is your guests. The guests are the ones that, ultimately, determine your success. In terms of finding us, our website, The Plaid Penguin. That's one reason why we chose that name. You type it in, it gets pretty good SEO. Same on all the social channels. Just #PlaidPenguin on whatever platform.
Yeah, it's funny, I love the name and I was going to ask you about that. There was a lot of open topics we didn't hit on. Maybe we'll bring you back six months down the road and we'll talk about some of the things we didn't get to. Folks Joe Haubenhofer from The Plaid Penguin. You can find them on the web at ThePlaidPenguin.com.
For more great restaurant marketing, service people, tech tips and more, stay tuned to us here at RunningRestaurants.com. In the meantime, if you could do a big favor, just like the episode wherever you are, rate it, review it share it with folks that helps us out and is very much appreciated. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Joe.
Thank you.