Lane Cardwell

Hold Your Line!

In cycling this shout means that you need to keep your bike in as straight a line as possible to keep from hitting other cyclers near you. Ignore it at your peril. Unfortunately, in the restaurant industry we don’t have a similar cry to keep other concepts from encroaching on our traditional space. And today the land grab for someone else’s market and customers is taking on a frenetic pace. 

A recent USA Today article titled “Restaurants cross lines as they struggle through recession” included this quote from the ever-quotable, always correct, Dennis Lombardi of WD Partners: “Everyone is looking in everyone else’s backyard to see if they can find any green grass.” There is probably not a better sentence to describe what is going on out there.

The examples listed in the article as evidence include the following:

·         McDonald’s is selling designer coffee

·         Pizza Hut is selling pasta

·         Domino’s is selling subs

·         Boston Market is selling crispy chicken

·         Arby’s is selling Roast Burgers (well, some people are holding their line)

·         Cheesecake Factory is selling small portions

·         Morton’s is selling $5 burgers (no doubt to compete with Friday’s)

      
      

USA Today quotes another industry source, Hudson Riehle of the NRA: “The financial crisis has brought with it a redefining of boundaries.” The article goes on to mention what many of us have concluded a few years ago:

This is a more fundamental change taking place deep inside the restaurant industry’s R & D departments. This product mill isn’t necessarily about buffing restaurants’ brand images. They are just desperately trying to give folks what they want.

But the new menu items also are about more than bad times. They are also about changing times. Consumer tastes, particularly for better-for-you foods, have evolved in recent years.

Things used to be so easy. McDonald’s competed against Burger King, not Starbucks. Domino’s competed against Pizza Hut, not Subway. Pizza Hut competed against Papa John’s, not Olive Garden. And Morton’s competed against Ruth’s Chris, not Friday’s.

The marketers and R & D chefs are more important in the organization than ever before, and their already healthy egos are on the rise. The winners will clearly be the ones who introduce products that can hold their own against brands that specialize in them. If not, their brand image will take a hit and they will wish that they had “held their line”.

Posted by Lane Cardwell on May 28, 2009 | Comments (6)