TV advertising is a mass-marketing tactic that the largest national restaurant chains use to raise brand awareness and boost sales. It’s also a tool that a chain with a handful of units can employ in a small market to achieve the same goal.
Two new TV campaigns, by 7,200-plus-unit Dunkin’ Donuts and the 19-unit Pat & Oscar’s fast-casual chain in Southern California, illustrate how TV spots meet the brand needs of two chains that vary widely in size.
Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Donuts, the quick-service chain owned by Dunkin’ Brands Inc., strives to build national brand awareness with its new multimillion-dollar campaign on national, regional and local TV.
At the same time, Pat & Oscar’s seeks to solidify its brand in its home market of San Diego, where it has 10 units, with ads on local broadcast TV.
The campaigns come amid a general slowdown in restaurant ad spending. Overall spending by restaurants fell 7.6 percent during the first quarter, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
The Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, created by Hill Holliday of Boston, extend the chain’s “America Runs on Dunkin’” campaign and expand its use of celebrities as a way to give the brand exposure in new markets.
The spots feature temperamental supermodel Naomi Campbell and aging Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley poking fun at themselves to show how “regular folks” make America run, said Frances Allen, Dunkin’ Donuts brand marketing officer.
The spot featuring Campbell opens in a garden behind a suburban home. The voice-over says that Dunkin’ Donuts knows how hard it is to be a “typical everyday suburbanite.” The camera cuts to Campbell, who vamps it up before trying to plant a tree. She immediately breaks the heel of her shoe on the shovel, becomes enraged and flings the shoe through a window of the home.
The camera cuts to a “regular” suburban woman who has no trouble planting the tree because she’s fortified with Dunkin’ Donuts’ new iced tea.
The spot featuring Frehley focuses on the “regular, everyday office worker.” It opens on a financial meeting in a boardroom, with Frehley riffing on his guitar as the workers look on.
The man who’s conducting the meeting says, “Beautiful, Ace, but what about the P&L statement?”
Frehley adjusts the guitar and replies, “I’ll give you the P&L statement,” and sparks shoot out from the guitar top.
The spots are designed to showcase the “very down-to-earth people, the very busy people who are making things happen” by juxtaposing them against celebrities who can’t do the same things, Allen said.
And such celebrities as Frehley, Campbell and Rachael Ray—who became an ad spokeswoman earlier this year—can draw attention to the Dunkin’ brand as it expands into new markets, Allen said.
The chain plans to triple in size within 10 years, bringing it to almost 15,000 domestic units.
Campaigns later this year will feature more celebrities, Allen said.
Pat & Oscar’s campaign, however, does not use celebrities.
The commercial opens on the “Pat & Oscar’s Research Lab,” where a group of “scientists” are testing the summer menu to determine why customers like the chain’s Rib Lover’s combo meal. The scientists tick off reasons: the ribs themselves and the barbecue sauce, the small cheese pizza, the salad, the breadsticks, and the $17.99 price. Finally, a female scientist looks at the camera and says: “This isn’t rocket science. It’s just great food at a fantastic price.”
She has a colander on her head that looks like an electrode device.
“It’s kind of kooky,” marketing director Brian Horne said of the spot. “It’s fun, it’s quirky, and it’s still focused on the food.”
Except for three actors—and a real rocket scientist—everyone in the ad is either a Pat & Oscar’s store manager or an executive team member.
“We’ve gotten some very good feedback for that spot,” Horne said. “We’ll continue to use the lab coat guys as our central theme going forward.”
Although it’s not unprecedented for a small chain to advertise on TV, it’s unusual in this case because Pat & Oscar’s is on the air only in the San Diego market, where it has 10 restaurants. It doesn’t have sufficient penetration in other markets to justify airing TV spots, Horne said.
AdMatrix of Orange, Calif., created the spot.
The chain also wanted to emphasize its bundled meals, he said.
“We tried some LTOs, and that didn’t work,” Horne said. “We wanted to get out of couponing and give permanent value to our guests, and bundles reinforce that.”
Horne declined to say how much the chain spends on advertising, but noted that more money is put into the media buy than into the creative.
