The story of Locos Grill & Pub is truly inspirational. A few guys, a shack and an unwavering attitude that anything is possible turned Locos into an anomaly of success in the tough sector of casual restaurants. Carrying that same attitude, Locos and Snowden Tatarski have created campaigns that have helped the brand double industry sales averages and power through tough market conditions. Creating messages for a system of restaurants that prides itself on not seeming like a system of restaurants is not easy, but is most definitely possible.
As the organization matures and endures the inevitable growing pains incurred by virtually all franchised restaurants, the need for a competitive and distinctive strategy becomes more pronounced. The brand has strong loyalty from several major group segments in particular: those who considered it their college hangout and continue such affinity after moving, those who have adopted the store as their local hangout and a somewhat more transient crowd. Research pinned Locos' customers as frequent visitors who are younger and spend more money on alcohol. In the same study, Locos was found to have a younger clientele who cite the fun, laid-back atmosphere as the impetus for their loyalty. The food quality has been rated extremely high. The brand as a whole has a positive impression.
Snowden Tatarski engaged The Marketing Workshop to study attitudes and usage of the restaurant. The resulting strategy is that Locos is the ultimate contemporary incarnation of a pub (or public house).
All offerings, activities and communications focus on being a public house, and we assert a desire among consumers for the "pub style" Locos exudes.
Locos is the modern incarnation of the public house. Through menu, atmosphere and community involvement, Locos creates the unique experience of the neighborhood pub and gathering place.
While focusing on customer service and quality product is central to Locos' self-image (our hedgehog) our "pub style" is our scorpion, our external identity. It is an attitude and a sense of service that is undeniable when you’re inside Locos. It’s the jokes between waitresses, the slightly homemade-looking club (which thankfully is missing the fancy toothpicks). It’s what makes Locos feel so right.
As a concept, Locos is nearly unrivaled in its pub style. Each location feels like its own location. The food is good but not overly celebrated. The name, the atmosphere and the attitude are quite possibly the most perfectly duplicated pub concept to exist.
Conversely, having the best food in the world or the best service in the world is not only unlikely considering the wide latitude of variables, but the authenticity consumers perceive when the concept is "we have great food" will be low, if existent at all.
It is well known and often pointed out that customers can get a sandwich any number of places. And service in a restaurant can range from non-existent to overbearing. This is not to say that a quality product and great service are not important. They are, in fact, a crucial part of a larger point.
As consumers progress the marketing communications spectrum, different media can be used to enable progression according to the media’s capabilities and strength.
The resulting materials and systems that occurred as a result of the strategy development included effective and award winning advertising, training videos, press relation strategies and corporate strategies that act in concert to more solidify Locos as the true American pub.
Fast casual dining has been a sector of great interest to our firm. Only in fast casual dining is there such a rapid product cycle and competitive battlefield, and neither guarantee a steady stream of customers coming through the door. The inherent challenge with fast casual dining is the sheer number of competitors, the number one competitor being the choice to stay at home and not go out at all. As options grow and more restaurants adapt their product, personas and operating procedures for battle, fast casual and casual restaurants will remain a demanding and constantly changing sector.
Our first fast casual client was a marketer's dream. The bustling 20-plus location franchise offered a very relaxed atmosphere, a strong brand presence and a loyal fan base of individuals that ensured success of new outlets when new stores opened in neighboring cities. Our first efforts with this particular client were quite straightforward. We attempted to position the restaurant with messages displaying its personality as a "no nonsense with no gimmicks" dining experience. Our initial material poked fun at the franchise’s competitors. In one series we spoofed the competitions' own advertising and consumers told us via letters to the editor in various newspapers that they enjoyed it. Over time, however, we found a need to succinctly position the brand based on its more solid attributes.
With deeper investigation, we found that the brand exuded particular strengths in the persona of being a modern American pub. The idea of a pub has been used by many restaurants and adapted into formats such as sports bars and even family pubs, though I'm not really sure what that means. Our search led us into investigating what a public house actually is and how consumers interact with it. We also put this investigation internally into the brand to find the parallels between the public house and our client’s operation. What we found was that public houses were truly congregation points for the public with wide open halls and broad menu options that allow a group of individuals to meet up without the concern that there would not be something on the menu that everyone could enjoy. The relaxed atmosphere of a pub made it more of a meeting point rather than a place simply to eat. We found that consumers went to our client's establishment simply as a place to meet with their friends and have conversation, much the way that pubs were used in England and early America. We began to understand the pub and its role in the community by talking with consumers and studying case histories. The marketing for this particular client began to transcend simple limited time offers and price off strategies and instead entered the world of social psychology and the need of our consumers to interact with other people.
The major challenges facing the casual dining sector have much to do with consumer desire and available brands. The brand personas often put out there seemed to have no real base concept. In the fast casual dining sector, all brands seem to be claiming a relaxed atmosphere. All brands seem to have the same assorted junk littering their walls. All brands seem to have the same staples on their menus, leaving consumers to wonder what the real difference really is. While operators seem to be able to state the differentiating factor of their brand versus the competition, the truth is consumers see a scene of sameness and are not driven to any particular brand simply because they're all pretty much the same.
My recommendations for the casual dining sector are quite simple. First we recommend that restaurant brands pick a distinct position and seek to take it wholeheartedly. We have seen very successful maneuvers in brands which first pick the persona that matches consumer draw, and then integrate the persona not only into mass media marketing but also into individual marketing efforts such as training the brand persona into frontline staff operations. We recommend developing a strong brand persona and operation guidelines and then integrating such into the function of the establishment and the function of the corporate brand that is promoted.
Casual restaurant marketers would be wise to think deeply about their individual positions. It would be equally wise to discuss this position with consumers, particularly heavy users of the particular brand. It is through such that marketers can discover hidden points of potency in recruiting customers and retaining brand loyal lists for the long-term.