Technology
Panda Express celebrates Lunar New Year with specialty campaign
Panda Express, a 2,200-unit family-owned American Chinese brand, has created a specialty game just in time for the Lunar New Year. Kevin Holmes, executive director of marketing communications, explains how the game fits into the company's Lunar New Year marketing campaign.
February 1, 2022 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group
Headquartered in Rosemead, California, Panda Express is the largest Asian dining concept in the U.S. Family-owned and operated since 1983 by Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Andrew and Peggy Cherng, the company celebrates the Lunar New Year each year with a special promotion designed to showcase the company's Asian roots and provide customers with a great deal.
QSRweb talked with Kevin Holmes, executive director of marketing communications at Panda Restaurant Group, via an email interview, to learn about this year's promotion and what the 2,200-unit company is doing to expand.
Q: What has Panda Express done in the past to celebrate the Lunar New Year?
A: Every year, Panda Express celebrates the first day of Lunar New Year, also known as celebration day, in-store by passing out customary lucky red envelopes that include special rewards and promotions. Each envelope is meant to share good fortune with our guests for the new year.
Our Lunar New Year campaigns emphasize authentic storytelling through the legend, food symbolism, and the values behind the holiday. In recent years, we shifted our strategy from desktop learning to experiential and interactive digital activations because this holiday is so sensorial. Our goal with each celebration is to make the experience inclusive, educational, and entertaining through different channels, in which our guests can immerse themselves in the sounds, smells, sights/colors, and taste of this rich holiday.
In 2019, we created a Lunar New Year pop-up called House of Good Fortune in the heart of one of the busiest malls in West Los Angeles. The pop-up included distinct rooms that brought five Lunar New Year traditions to life, like the flying red envelope room, lantern festival room, and the long noodle maze room, just to name a few. Guests got to play and explore through their physical senses, while learning about the symbolism behind each tradition.
Taking the multi-sensorial experience virtual, we developed the first- ever Lunar New Year themed mobile AR experience so more guests can experience the holiday outside of our in-store initiative. Through Instagram and Facebook mobile platforms, the Celebration of Good Fortune AR experience gave guests a chance to jump into five distinct traditions and share with their friends and family. Each AR filter brought to life a sense of childlike wonder and provides an interactive way for all ages to engage with the rich culture and symbolism behind Lunar New Year, such as a game to snack on lucky foods.
With festivities looking a bit different than years before, we decided to take the red envelope experience digital in 2021, allowing us to spread the much-needed good fortune to even more people nationwide. Through pandalny.com, guests could send their own virtual celebrations and personalized well-wishes as well as special Panda offers to loved ones. One of my favorite Lunar New Year projects is the short film we developed called 'Traditions Shared,' telling a story through the lens of a young man discovering the meaning of the holiday in his own way. The short explores key Lunar New Year themes and how family and togetherness are shared values that connect us all.
Our approach trickles down to hyper local activities to build connection and a sense of community around this holiday with our guests. As digital learning continues to be essential for educators and parents nationwide, Panda has made cultural learning easier and fun through its free interactive online program — Let's Explore!: Lunar New Year — giving educators and parents the interactive tools, games and content they need to spark cultural curiosity in students. To date, more than 180,000 students will be experiencing the magic and joy of Lunar New Year through this community resource from Panda.
Q:Why is the Lunar New Year important to the company's marketing program?
A: As a family-owned business founded by Chinese immigrants, we have a unique role of being a culture ambassador through food and storytelling. Panda Express is often the first taste of Chinese culture and food for many people, and we are honored to be a gateway of cultural exploration, understanding and appreciation. Lunar New Year is an important way for us to share a bit about who we are as a company and what we stand for.
Q:This year, you've created the Good Fortune Arcade. What is it and how did it come about?
A: When planning for this year's Lunar New Year celebration, we wanted to create an authentic and inclusive way to bring people together over good fun and good food, virtually. And what better way to do that than a game! The Good Fortune Arcade is a unique online 8-bit game developed for guests as a hands-on exploration of time-honored Lunar New Year traditions. Available now through Feb. 15 guests can visit PandaLNY.com to play the Good Fortune Arcade virtual game and learn more about the origin story and food symbolism of Lunar New Year, while also receiving exclusive online offers at each level of the game. The Good Fortune Arcade aims to evoke a sense of nostalgia while introducing a modern way of telling the Lunar New Year story. It consists of four levels, and players are tasked with catching the legendary monster behind the holiday's origin story, Nian, who has stolen their lucky foods. In each level, players will work to collect these lucky dishes, while dodging obstacles along the way.
Q:Why is the brand leveraging the popularity of online gaming to reach new audiences?
A:With the launch of our Good Fortune Arcade game, we wanted to create an approachable experience that will make people simply smile and feel like a winner, especially after the past two years we've all had. There is such a strong sense of community and togetherness in the gaming landscape, and Lunar New Year so perfectly brings those qualities to life.
The online game offers an all-encompassing virtual Lunar New Year experience that provides educational touchpoints around the holiday and lucky dishes throughout the entire game. Our thinking was to keep the game logical, educational, and narrative- driven, but still fantastical, mythical, and imaginative to drive engagement. When it comes to our website pandalny.com, it's important to balance an engaging story with a functionality that drives clicks, shares, and ultimately sales. With the rise of games like Roblox and Minecraft over the past few years, it was just the perfect time and environment to create Panda's Good Fortune Arcade.
Q: How has Panda Express been fairing with the pandemic?
A: The pandemic brought changes to the industry that we never expected, but we were able to adapt and evolve quickly to recover. With all of the health and safety protocols we implemented, Panda was named #1 in health and safety in the food and beverage industry by a leading mystery shopper research firm for two years in a row. All the hard work our operators and Covid-19 Task Force put into keeping our people and guests safe has paid off in building brand trust in our communities.
Currently, we are focused on recruiting for our stores, given the industry wide labor shortage. We've invested heavily in our people, offering a comprehensive benefits package and raising our average hourly wages to over $16, with certain regions offering $23 per hour for a starting counterhelp role. Our general managers can earn over $100,000 annually, with a clear growth trajectory. Panda's focus on people development is really why people stay at Panda. The learning and educational offerings through University of Panda for professional, personal and financial growth are outstanding.
Q: What is Panda Express doing differently now than it did two years ago to compete in a crowded QSR field?
A: The pandemic accelerated consumer trends that will guide the way restaurants are designed and the technology used in different concepts. Because of this, we are rethinking our future restaurant layouts and offering touchless payment options, like Venmo, to best accommodate these trends. Last year, we debuted the Panda Delivers, our own delivery platform, as well as Panda's first Digital Kitchen — all focused on driving convenience and ease for our guests.
Leaning further into convenience, our menu innovation strategy expanded to include hand-held items like The Original Orange Chicken Sandwich. We are looking to continue to offer easy to-go options with the flavor that guests love and the quality that guests trust. One of the food and consumer trends that came out of this pandemic is guests' increasing preference for quality ingredients and nutrition-forward options. We've been doing a lot of behind the scenes work to elevate our American Chinese recipes, like reducing sodium and sugar and rolling out chicken that is raised without antibiotics and cage-free eggs. We are also working on removing all artificial colors and flavors as part of our Panda Promise initiative. In fact, we recently launched Panda Cub Meal sets that are created based on USDA dietary recommendations for children. These meals are nutrition forward and comes with apple crisp and a beverage. Having options and variety is what Panda Express innovation is known for. We've even expanded into plant-based protein with Beyond The Original Orange Chicken in 2021.
Q:What's the philosophy of "Wok hei" and why is it important to the brand?
A: "Wok hei," the breadth of the wok, is created with the right temperature, flames and precise timing to impart the signature smoky flavor in Panda Express dishes that can only be created through wok cooking. Not only is wok cooking the root to Panda's Chinese heritage, but it is also what differentiates Panda from other fast casual and QSR brands. We don't cook our food in microwaves — we hand prep ingredients and wok over open fire to serve our dishes fresh and hot. A Panda dish is never thrown together — it's skillfully and meticulously composed by a trained store associate and chef.
Q:Where is the company looking to grow?
A: We are continuing to grow our digital and off-premise business, such as opening more drive-thru locations. With store growth, the need to grow our work force becomes even more crucial, and we are well on our way with one of the most competitive wages and growth potential being offered in the industry. What's exciting about new stores is the growth of our philanthropic efforts through Panda Cares Foundation. Our associates fund raise every day in store and 100% of the guest and associate donations go back to each store's local community organization, such as Children's Miracle Network Hospital and Boys and Girls Club. Our guests' generosity has gone toward local disaster relief and helped over 13 million youths get the health and education resources they need.
Outside of growth domestically, we are continuing to expand our international presence, especially in Japan and the Philippines. We are in 12 countries and are excited to introduce and share our American Chinese cuisine with more people all over the world.
About Mandy Wolf Detwiler
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.
An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.
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