Dairy Queen to debut 5 Buck Lunch value menu

Dairy Queen is looking forward to spring and summer — the peak of its sales season — with a new lunch value menu, smoothies and an updated marketing campaign.

“Winter will end soon, contrary to reports,” Barry Westrum, Dairy Queen executive vice president of marketing, told Nation’s Restaurant News.

The Minneapolis-based quick-service chain, which has about 4,600 North American units and is a division of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will introduce the 5 Buck Lunch as a permanent combo, offered from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Customers can choose from a Grillburger with cheese, chicken strips or a chili cheese dog, plus medium fries, a medium soft drink and a soft-serve sundae.

Later this spring, all Dairy Queen restaurants will begin carrying Orange Julius Premium Fruit Smoothies, leveraging the chain’s co-branding partnership with Orange Julius, to begin competing in the smoothie space with rivals such as McDonald’s and Burger King. Dairy Queen will also debut new Blizzard flavors in April, May and June. A new marketing campaign with its new agency of record will break in June as well.

Westrum spoke with Nation’s Restaurant News about the new products and marketing initiatives.

How long was the 5 Buck Lunch in development? Was it created this year in response to the slower consumer spending?

This has been in development for some time. We started this work last summer. Even though some might say the recession has improved, the fact is that these improvements just aren’t coming fast enough for consumers. In order to be competitive going forward, we needed everyday value the consumer could rely on, so we could steal share from our competitors who constantly bewilder consumers with inconsistent value offers.

We found with our consumers that, while they love the Dairy Queen brand, they were looking for more value options from ourselves and our competitors. They told us no Dairy Queen experience is complete without enjoying our soft serve. … What they dislike from our competitors are offers that are here for a short period of time and then gone. They’re looking for someone they can depend on for having great offers on a day-in-day-out basis.