Article
Bulking up the brand with a barbell strategy
McDonald's serves as a case study of best practices that brands newer to the game could learn from.
May 18, 2010 by Lori Walderich — CMO, Top That! Pizza
As QSRs are increasingly turning to a barbell marketing and menu strategy to boost sagging sales, Lori Walderich, chief creative officer for IdeaStudio, examines the strategy and how McDonald's does it right.
Narrower in the middle; big at the ends; balanced side to side: That's your basic barbell.
On many levels, the barbell offers an apt metaphor for the growing QSR industry practice of offering customers a balanced selection of value- and premium-priced menu items to flank the brand's core products.
That is, it's apt for restaurants that use the strategy by design and keep the offerings within the parameters of their brand. In saying this, we presume that it will not serve every QSR. What might work for price-driven chains such as Taco Bell might not be so successful for a brand like Sonic that relies heavily on differentiation and experience to cement its brand identity.
In the latter case, use of a barbell strategy would seem incongruous and false to the chain's core users. For this reason, it's essential for management to carefully consider whether a value-price/premium-product balance fits with their concept's brand strengths and image. It's not even a bad idea to test the strategy with user groups before committing to it systemwide.
Where the barbell strategy does coincide with a QSR's brand objectives, success depends on a carefully crafted menu that includes a manageable, balanced, brand-appropriate range of choices designed to please core customers and pique interest among current non-users.
The narrower "barbell handle" selections will represent the basic items and combos that are most familiar to customers and thus most identified with the brand — the Doubles and Quarter Pounders and family-sized Buckets of Chicken.
Again, the key word is "manageable." The scope of this section of the menu must be controlled so that the kitchen can maintain operational standards. If this portion of the menu is too large, the kitchen cannot keep pace with value item demand — or maintain quality for its premium offerings.
On each side of core offerings lie the "wow" values and specialties that can allow an established QSR to flex some marketing muscle: the big attention-getters and profit generators (those qualities not necessarily being limited to one side of the barbell or the other).
McDonald's balances both ends
Here, balance becomes as crucial as it is tricky. And one QSR that has achieved it (and dexterously maintained it) is McDonald's. During — and despite — an economic downturn, McDonald's has used the barbell as a tool to help the company ramp up its brand power, introducing premium and dollar menu items with equal fanfare.
Premium menu additions such as the McCafé line of fancy coffee beverages represented a conscious effort by the brand to pick off customers from upscale (i.e., pricier) fast casual specialty coffee providers.
As consumers retrenched and re-budgeted, McDonald's stepped up to provide a lower-priced alternative to Starbucks and Panera Bread. The success of this effort could have been measured by the increased Lexus count at the drive-up, if anybody had bothered to track it.
To go along with this upmarket offering, the chain also carried out a nationwide rollout of its Angus Third Pounder burger in 2009, capitalizing on a growing consumer preference for 100 percent Angus beef, based on its presumed superior taste and quality. In cooperation with the American Angus Association, Backyard Burger and Carl's Jr. had been pumping up the benefits of Angus burgers for years. The McDonald's rollout allowed the company to ante up to these QSR competitors while again presenting customers with a lower-priced option to casual and fast casual dining.
At the same time that McDonald's was reaching out to capture premium product consumers, the company was also positioning itself to accommodate customers feeling the economy's pinch. The introduction of an extensive range of adequate (if not exciting) dollar menu items appealed to customers who wanted to continue to enjoy the convenience and simple indulgence of a QSR meal within a tightened budget.
Crucially, McDonald's was careful not to confuse or weaken the brand with any of its new lines. The company stayed true to its brand with new products that easily fit within recognized product and operations boundaries. Indeed, rather than departures from the traditional menu, the new premium products could be perceived simply as "grown up" versions of traditional hamburger-and-shake offerings.
Additionally, the chain stayed true to its brand promise by emphasizing high quality and attractive price point in the marketing for both its premium and value menus. The value menu was positioned not as a compromise, but almost as something more along the lines of a customer service.
In the final analysis, McDonald's set a QSR casebook example of the barbell at its best: A durable core menu made up of brand favorites and sized right for comfort with weighted ends hefty enough to build up the brand without overtaxing it. And an ideal balance between one side (value) and the other (premium) to help avoid brand injury.
No wonder McD's "guns" rule the show.
*Idea Studio is a marketing company specializing in chain-restaurant marketing and promotion.
About Lori Walderich
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