Sigh. Sometimes you wonder if self-interest blinders are just too hard to remove. Whey-ninny.
Advertising Age carried this article recently: Want to Boost Sales? Tell Consumers to Dress Like Cows.
The results as reported in the article are impressive. Same store sales are up by 10% over last year. And projected new store openings for 2009 have increased by 8%.
And according to the article, all the credit goes to...their ad campaigns featuring gimmicks and giveaways ...even if it means having customers get dressed as cows.
Think again, even with your blinders on. Or research the long-established track record of success by Chick-Fil-A since its inception...with its first store opening in...1967. You see, since that time, double digit annual growth is the norm, not the exception, for 42 years.
This rate of growth was driven not by gimmicks, or even their 14-year ad campaign of Eat Mor' Chik'n...but by their founding purpose. From Chick-Fil-A's website:
The Chick-Fil-A corporate purpose says that we strive to “glorify God by being a faitful steward of that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-Fil-A. It’s why we care about the greater community in which we live and operate and why we choose to support kids and youth first and foremost. And we remain closed on Sundays to allow our corporate staff and franchised Operators and their employees and customers to take a day to rest, spend time with family and friends and worship if they choose.
It's this purpose and its execution that leads them to cook a delicious chicken sandwich, hire/train/motivate excellent employees in all their stores. It's why their Operators have historically generated revenues for their stores nearly twice as great as their competitors who are open ...7 days a week, not 6.
It's this purpose and its execution that makes people line up the night before a new Chick-Fil-A store opens. ( Newsflash to some in the ad industry: customers don't line up the night before a restaurant opens just for a cow-costume. That thinking may be why your industry is having a hard time reaching customers. )
It's this purpose that has helped them drive annual double-digit for...42 years, long before funny ads with cows in office buildings and now customers willing to dress in cow makeup.
Even hundreds of thousands of customers.
The customers are celebrating their experience with Chick-Fil-A. They're celebrating all the great sandwiches they've had and the great service offered by the great employees. Chick-Fil-A first gave them a reason to celebrate, the means to look good to their tribe when they recommend Chick-Fil-A and Chick-Fil-A doesn't let them down. And now, as a way of saying thanks, and having fun, the customers will don the costumes.
Give 'em a bad sandwich and they'll burn those costumes, together and publicly, as they slowly and publicly roast that brand.
Claiming gimmicks and giveaways drives the sales growth an establish franchise and brand like Chick-Fil-A has accomplished for 42 years...is like saying the cart comes before the horse. Or in this example, you can achieve double digit revenue growth by asking your customers to wear costumes.
Want to boost sales? Inspire your customers everyday with an excellent, consistent, delivery of your brand promise...and some of them may tell their friends and neighbors about you. Whether they wear a costume to do it, is irrelevant.
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