I have no idea, honestly .. but I want to know!
But have you seen this campaign? During Football season, they are offering free Chicken Shack sandwiches with $10 purchase every Sunday thru December.
While no where in any of the marketing material does it mention Chick-fil-A its 100% apparent in the subtext. Chick-fil-A is known for chicken sandwiches and is closed on Sundays.
Take a look at the email they sent for full details.
I would pay money to have been in the boardroom on the day this decision was made. I have so many many questions!
- How many Shake Shack's are there within 1-2 miles of a Chick-fil-A?
- Why football Sundays?
- Which Chicken Sandwiches?
- Does someone on the Shake Shack corporate team have a vendetta against Chick-fil-A?
- Did Shake Shack run out of ideas and this was a cutesy, fun campaign that their agency came up with?
- JUST WHY?
- What are the 9 other ideas that got pushed aside for this?!?!?!
Let's go deeper:
- Shake Shack has ~510 locations. Chick-fil-A has ~3,059.
The nearest Shake Shack to me is in Paramus, NJ and the nearest Chick-fil-A is about 4 miles away. Does that really put them in competition?
Supposedly the Chick-fil-A across from the Barclays center in Brooklyn is one of the busiest in the country and technically it is next-door to a Shake Shack but then it’s also next-door to hundreds of other restaurants and an extremely trafficked and highly populated area.
The Chick-fil-A in Fort Worth, Texas is reported to be the number one location outside of the East Coast. The nearest Shake Shack to them is also about 5 miles.
I could go on here, but I think the results are going to continue to bring up questions.
2. Chick-fil-A’s average unit value is 9.3 million while Shake Shack has a 3.6 average unit value.
OK, that’s a sizable difference but is free chicken sandwiches on Sundays going to add 5+ million dollars a year to each Shake Shack’s bottom line?
Now I’ve done this research at Handcraft Burgers and Brew and I know for a fact that people who visit at least five times or more all gravitate towards our spicy chicken sandwich. (We use Bikky for this.)
People who visit less than five times typically have not eaten it. This to me means it’s a retention item and therefore I should market it earlier in our customer's journey to get my guests to try one.
Let’s say that Shake Shack has done similar research with similar results. If that’s the case, then why only promote the chicken sandwich on Sundays?
The free chicken sandwich with purchase offer is ONLY available when an order is placed in the Shake Shack app, their website or via kiosk. It is not available in the drive-thru, order at the counter redemptions or via third-party. So is this about app adoption or just a drive to acquire more customer contact info? Those would be good initiatives.
But then again, why only chicken sandwiches and why only on Sundays?
I help a lot of restaurants with their marketing and have lots of playbooks, frameworks and creative ideas. Ill pat myself a little on the back here, when it comes to restaurant marketing, I know what I am doing. Which is why I have so many questions here!
I can pick apart nearly any restaurant marketing campaign and tell you why and how. But this one, I just can't figure out.
I am asking earnestly here as I would love to learn more.
>> So if you have the answer, you work at Shake Shack or their agency or can introduce me to someone at Shake Shack, this is a full on invite to help us all understand this campaign. Im happy to interview someone at the brand or their agency live on LinkedIn and put them on my podcast if they are willing to discuss. <<
Seriously.
Since I promise that my content always has actionable marketing tips in them, here's what I would suggest you do.
Here's a playbook for driving additional revenue:
1. CREATE A VALUE PROMOTION
Market conditions have us in a price sensitive moment. Find a way to create value for value seekers.
I'll say it again, a $5 cheeseburger near Times Square has given us massive success at Handcraft Burgers & Brew. But then again, so have combo meals.
2. CREATE A PREMIUM OFFER
We keep hearing about using a "Barbell Marketing Strategy" (thanks Evocalize) where you have value promotions running concurrently with premium offers. You need both to make this work.
Some great ideas that work:
- Premium menu items
- Limited Time Offers (LTOs)
- Catering
- Unique experiences
If you're paying attention, Shake Shack is also doing this. They just announced a Black Truffle Menu.
3. IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITY
Where do you need help? Its about a day or day part? Is it about increasing average order value? Is it about top line revenue? Do you need new guests? Do you need to get to get guests who have only dined twice but not a third time?
Determine what is the simplest, fastest, easiest way to increase revenue.
Use this formula:
*Highest area of opportunity + lowest effort of marketing and or operations = win.
For Handcraft Burgers & Brew, we knew it was about value pricing since we already have an ongoing premium offer with our Burger of the month. Do you know how easy it is to market $5 cheeseburgers near Times Square? (It's really easy, especially when you work with Targetable!)
4. DEFINE & TRACK KPIs
Know before you start how you will determine if your campaign is a success. PS if it increase average order value, shortens time between visits and adds top line, you won.
5. WRITE IT DOWN
This might actually be the BIGGEST mistake I see restaurants make with their marketing. If your campaign is a success, you'll want to do it again. If you don't have the notes, you can't create a playbook. Write it all down ... the goal, the method, the campaign, the channels used, the tracking, etc.
We ran a promotion at Crazy Pita in the fall of 2023 around National Crazy Day. It created almost 3x revenue at all stores for 3 days. Who doesn't want that? We wrote down EVERYTHING we did.
In Spring of 2024 we used the framework for National Pita Day and got almost the same results. Boy was I glad we wrote that down. Which reminds me .... Mehdi! Only 6 weeks until National Crazy Pita Day!
Summary: if you know why Shake Shack is running this promotion, please share. If your restaurant needs to drive top line revenue, identify the easiest way to do that and attack. Be sure to take notes.
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Do you need help with any of this? Send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.