Food for thought

Is it just me, or are restaurants missing a trick? They come and they go, the décor changes, the food styles go through fusion and then separate out into rustic traditionalism. It’s like a great big game of okey-cokey, with everyone playing to the same rules, not wanting to break the circle and, at the end of the day, all about the metrics of menu and bums on seats. But, this is a restaurant. What about the experience?

With so many bars and restaurants copying one another on décor menu and logo design, why is that no one has realised that the one thing that can distinguish them is the way they behave. Brand behaviour, even in the twittering, social interactive world we now live in, has always been more important than what the brand’s logo looks like. I can’t remember what came first: Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Hamburger Union - they all have similar typefaces and neutral blonde wood interiors (bit like the burgers).

As with burgers, so with dim sum restaurants – out with the blonde wood and in with lots of glossy black décor and modernist fleuro typeface logos – different flavours, décor, but same blank behavioural landscape. Our work for Ping Pong sidestepped talking about the menu and sets up more of an expectation and promise of the lunch or dinner ahead. We featured the food in such a way that it ticks the quality/style boxes straight away. Once the food was sorted we were freed up to set up the brand behaviour – owning sociability and conversation, and creating a reason to come back to Ping Pong that’s as sticky as their traditional sticky rice parcels (No.37, in case you’re interested).

With a campaign like this you can both meet the metrics and put bums on seats, but start a buzz that will get people ping ponging till the cows come home…

Now where shall I go for a burger? GBK? BGK? Errr…

Written by Andy McLane, Aqueduct's Creative Director.