Darden Restaurants : An Advertising Approach Participate: Restaurant Coupons are at stake!!!

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

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

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

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 Darden’s total sales

Image Appeals  Saving Red Lobster  Lagging sales  Marketing Research  Red Lobster’s challenge  Old image

The New Red Lobster  Changing the menu  Regional dishes  Physical appearance  Staff  Sales Recovering

A New Chain  Bahama Breeze  Caribbean Atmosphere  Performance Assessment

Darden’s Restaurant Success  Customer Focus  Demographic Trends  Competitors  A step ahead

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

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).

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

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

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

Think…  A marketing problem asks: what information is needed and how it can be obtained? 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 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. This information can be obtained through surveys and focus groups.

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. This information can be obtained through focus groups, surveys, and secondary data.

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

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.

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.

Sonic  What is their campaign about?  New Breakfast at Sonic?  Do you like it? Why/not?  Let’s see their commercials and discuss them