ENTERTAINMENT: 4 Alternative TV Content & Entertainment Options for Bars & Restaurants
Outside of mainstream sports, the search for great restaurant TV content can be tough. The good news, there are some great and viable options out there to expand your audience and draw in a crowd – everything from OTT sports, digital signage entertainment, and mobile entertainment.
DID YOU KNOWS…
GOOD McWILL HUNTING
You may remember our story on July 31st about McDonald’s Monopoly being rigged, well now it seems Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been tapped to write and star in a film about this fiasco. Being that the story starts in Rhode Island and has mob/underworld elements this is no surprise to us, hopefully we end up lovin’ it when it releases…
SQUARE PAY? WHAT A POS…
Most of us should be familiar with Square at this point. Just recently they’ve begun rolling out hardware that supports a custom point of sale (POS) program and we’re sure the rest of the industry is just as psyched as we are. Their system is super easy and convenient so the fact that this is around might be a game changer for the industry.
WUBBA LUBBA DUB PUB!
Fans of the show Rick and Morty have been known to be, umm… passionate to say the least. Well it is a great day for them as a new pop up bar is opening August 8thin Washington D.C. until October for all of their interdimensional alcoholic needs. The owner says she is absolutely expecting crowds but nothing like the Szechuan sauce fiasco we all remember.
GOIN’ STRAIGHT TO THE SOURCE
Why it matters to you: An NYC burger joint has built their business around single-source meat and we should all consider something similar.
We all know eating locally sourced was “a trend” at first until people realized just how much better and more sustainable it is. Well, one NYC burger joint’s business model is taking it one step further by only sourcing their meat from a single local farm! What an awesome way to flip the script on a restaurant model that we’ve seen a million times over already. To our knowledge there aren’t that many establishments doing this in America up to this point, and certainly not in big cities so to see this hit New York is truly awesome.
So, why does this matter to us? We think this is a missed opportunity for restaurants closer to the source(s). Many establishments not in cities are close to local farms and famers and the fact that so many of us still order from the big suppliers is unfortunate. We could be feeding our guest great quality meat and produce from our areaand showing how great the food is from where we come are located as opposed to the norm. Making this type of switch can absolutely happen little by little, if that’s the route taken be sure to highlight this fact as you do so and we bet you’ll be surprised how many people are ready to embrace this “new” way of eating.
[Source: Restaurant-Hospitality]
WHEN BAD MARKETING PLOYS GO GOOD
Why it matters to you: IHOP’s ‘IHOb’ marketing ploy ended up being a success against all odds and we can all learn from it.
Back in June we reported on the unveiling of IHOP’s “name change” to ‘IHOb’ and by all accounts we were sure this would be a massive failure. Well, we are never too proud to admit when we were wrong and… We were wrong. Apparently this bit of lazy marketing with a national roll-out actually worked for them well and during this campaign they actually sold 4 times more burgers than they ever had before! We had our doubts due to IHOP historically being a breakfast destination that offered these other items but nobody ventured into the territory, but apparently there was more demand for non-breakfast there than we could have ever fathomed. This just goes to show you; the market can surprise everyone.
What can we all learn from this though? Mainly to not be afraid to take some marketing and advertising risks on occasion. We can all try our best using the past as reference for what may and may-not work for marketing and advertising but the reality is a lot of the time this highly educated-guesswork can get it wrong or under/overestimate how any campaign will be received. Good job IHOP, you had just about everyone in every industry doubting you and you pulled it off somehow… We still don’t like the campaign much though though ;)
[Source: Munchies]
