MARKETING: How to Effectively Market Your Special Event or New Menu
Developing a new menu or hosting a special event is a lot of work, and you want the result of that effort to be a full house and happy patrons. So how do you go about promoting your menu or event? How do you attract guests to your venue? Here are some useful tips.
DID YOU KNOWS…
ESPN Looks Toward Multiculture
ESPN is set to launch corresponding multicultural late-night shows on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes. Now or Never (ESPN2) and Ahora o Nunca (Deportes) will feature an emphasis on covering the intersection of sports and pop culture. This is ESPN’s latest attempt to reach out to young, multicultural sports fans.
Losing Trust
Facebook has had a tough year. Compared to other tech companies, they have lost a lot of public confidence with their ability to adequately handle people's personal data. Out of 1,000 people surveyed by Toluna, 40% said they trust Facebook the least with their personal information. Twitter and Amazon came in a distant second and third for tech companies people trust least with their personal information.
Shortest-Serving US National Security Advisors
Last year Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the presidential transition. Flynn will be sentenced this Tuesday for that guilty plea. As it stands now, Flynn is the shortest-serving National Security Advisor, having served in the position for 24 days before resigning. William H. Jackson, who served under Eisenhower, previously held the title, holding the position for just 129 days.
DON’T BUY US PEANUTS OR CRACKER JACKS
Why it matters to you: For the love of your deity of choice, you’re not as bad as this, right?
According to an ESPN investigation, the concession stands at US stadiums are just one giant food safety violation. Everything from live mice in the Cracker Jacks to beef blood dripping off shelves, mouse droppings everywhere, food festering at dangerous temperatures, and cooks sweating into fans’ food. In 28% of US pro stadiums, 50%+ of the food service outlets had at least one high-level sanitation violation which poses a risk for a foodborne illness. Ugh. Our stomach is churning just thinking about it.
Take this a friendly reminder to do your own due-diligence around your restaurant, especially the kitchen and inventory storage. Make sure the food is stored at proper temps, your food hasn’t expired or gone moldy, all the equipment is clean, your staff’s wearing the right gear, etc. We’ve done a slew of food safety posts over the past few years if you’re looking for more specific thoughts on the subject.
Honestly, we’re sure you’re doing all this anyways, but always better off safe than sorry. No one wants to get hit with a reputation that some of these stadiums are getting. They can bounce back; most restaurants can’t.
Source: [ESPN]
DESTROYED IN AN INSTANT
Why it matters to you: Reacting too fast to poor social PR can just make things worse.
Chipotle has found itself in the center of a lot of controversy over the past few years, but this one has nothing to do with E.coli – though you could say it’s still crappy. A manager at a St. Paul, MN location asked a group of black men to pay for their meals in advance but didn’t to a white woman who was also in line. The incident was caught on video and, as we’ve come to expect nowadays, went viral. Chipotle fired the manager virtually immediately and proclaimed that the staff is “being retrained to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
This story has a twist, however, in that the manager identified one of the men as a former dine-n-dasher (which seemed to be confirmed by the complainant’s Twitter account). Head spinning yet?
Our culture’s expectations for dealing with these sorts of issues has gotten extremely high and we expect instant sentencing when stories like this go viral. It forced Chipotle’s hand in the firing, and the re-hiring added fuel to the PR fire and kept the story in the news longer. And while we hope your business never runs into this, we suggest being careful and thoughtful about the incident. Show everyone respect; try to keep the social media torches & pitchforks at bay by showing your followers you’re working on getting to the bottom of things but need time to make it fair and thorough. You won’t please everyone, of course, but better to get it right on the first try.
Source: [Eater]
