The pillars of branding successThe pillars of branding success

It’s rare to find a developing chain that seems to be doing everything right.

Smashburger might be that chain.

In just six years, the Denver-based fast-casual chain has grown to 220 units. Smashburger had estimated U.S. systemwide sales of $162 million in 2012, according to Nation’s Restaurant News’ Top 200 census.

Almost every step Smashburger has taken follows the most important principles of marketing, in my opinion. They are: a focus, a position, a visual hammer and a powerful name.

An upscale hamburger focus. What happened in coffee is happening in hamburgers. The category is diverging.

Years ago, America was saturated with coffee shops, including Dunkin’ Donuts, the leading brand. Then Starbucks entered the market and the category diverged. We still have the mainstream players, plus Starbucks and other brands at the high end.

In hamburgers, over the past few years, we’ve seen the emergence of a new category called better burgers.

There’s a pattern to this development. Early on, the mainstream players see upscale food items as just another way to increase overall sales. So in 2009, the same year McCafé drinks were rolled out, McDonald’s introduced the Angus Third Pounder. The other mainstream chains also added upscale burgers to their menus.

Oddly enough, these upscale food products validate the diverging category and actually funnel consumers to the more-focused upscale brands, like Five Guys Burgers and Fries and Smashburger.

The computer industry illustrates the inability of mainstream players to move into a diverging category. For many years, IBM dominated the mainframe computer industry. Then, with the rise of Apple and other personal-computer brands, IBM jumped into the market in 1981.

Within a few years, many other companies also got into personal computers, including AT&T, Burroughs, Dictaphone, Digital Equipment, ITT, Lanier, Mitel, NCR, NEC, Siemens, Xerox, Motorola and Sony.

None of these companies were successful in that market.

Invariably, it’s a start-up company that wins an emerging-category battle. In personal computers, the big winner was Dell.

Started in 1984 by Michael Dell, a second-year student at the University of Texas, Dell Computer Corp. became the world’s largest seller of personal computers.

Dell’s focus: personal computers sold directly to businesses.

Today, Dell is in trouble. Why? The company lost its focus by moving into retail distribution and the consumer field, as well as into a host of other products and services.

Without a focus, most startups are likely to fail. That’s true in restaurants and in every other category.

A 'smashing' position

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Smashburger takes fresh, never-frozen Angus beef and forms it into loosely packed meatballs.

The meatballs are smashed on a grill with a custom-designed, five-sided tool.

It’s amazing that a simple idea like this could become the basis for a restaurant chain with the potential to become a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

Yet consider Burger King. In 1982 the chain launched its “Broiling, not frying” campaign. Per-unit sales that year went from $750,000 to $840,000, an increase of 12 percent.

Factoring in inflation, that would be $1.97 million today. Burger King’s actual per-unit sales are $1.19 million.

One wonders why Burger King walked away from its “Broiling, not frying” position. One also wonders why it took three decades for someone to invent a new way of cooking a hamburger.

A visual hammer. One of the most effective ways to build a brand today is with a visual hammer to figuratively hammer a verbal idea into consumers’ minds.

The cowboy made Marlboro the world’s best-selling cigarette by hammering in the concept of masculinity. Before Marlboro, all cigarette brands were unisex.

The lime made Corona the largest-selling imported beer by hammering in the idea of “authentic Mexican beer.”

The straw in the orange made Tropicana the largest-selling orange juice by hammering home the “not from concentrate” idea.

You might think the restaurant industry would be big users of visual hammers. After all, most food dishes are easy to visualize. But it’s not.

With hundreds of restaurant chains, I can think of only three with effective visual hammers: McDonald’s Golden Arches, KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Papa John’s spokesman, John Schnatter.

In the future, maybe there will be a fourth: the five-sided Smashburger tool.

A powerful name. Smashburger’s original name was Icon Burger. Could Smashburger have had a chance to become a big, successful chain with a name like Icon Burger?

I think not.

In our work with clients, we often hear comments like: “Names don’t matter. What matters is the quality of the product and service.”

But names do matter. Names are the way consumers file ideas in their minds.

Take hamburgers, for example. A consumer might think, “I’d like a burger tonight.” Then the person would search his or her mind for words associated with burgers — words like Burger King, and even Wendy’s and McDonald’s.

But it would be difficult to associate “burger” with “icon.” It would take massive amounts of advertising and publicity to help consumers make the connection.

Even worse, there’s no advantage in eating an “icon” burger.

“Smashburger” is different. It connects with the brand’s visual hammer and the brand’s “smashing” position.

The fifth key to success. A brand can have all four marketing principles covered and still fail if it neglects one more thing: publicity. No brand has had enormous success without reams of publicity and a focus on public relations.

Smashburger seems to be succeeding in the PR arena, too. In 2011 Forbes magazine selected Smashburger as America’s Most Promising Company. In August USA Today ran a story on the chain, quoting chief executive David Prokupek as saying, “We want to become the Starbucks of burgers.”

We’ll see. 

Laura Ries is president of Ries & Ries, a marketing consulting firm located in Atlanta. She can be reached at [email protected].