I had the great pleasure last Saturday of being taken out to ‘Maze’; a top Michelin-starred restaurant with a reputation for fantastic and innovative food. The food was indeed out of this world but it was the extraordinary personal service that really struck a chord. The attentive (but not annoyingly so) waiter passionately explained every dish on the menu and after the meal we were invited on a personal tour of the kitchen by the head chef! Not only was this a great surprise – topping off a wonderful dining experience – but I have been jabbering away about it to everyone and anyone who will listen ever since!
Albeit one would expect excellent service from a top restaurant, it was delivering above and beyond this expectation that really got me talking. An important lesson for restaurants of all shapes and sizes. This year’s Promise Index included a number of key players in the industry and gives a good indication of which restaurant brands are managing to exceed customer expectations. 
Following on from last year, value brands have once again continued to rise up the index. This is epitomised by both KFC and McDonald’s doing extremely well in terms of image, showing the benefits of relevant value messages combined with a ‘softening of feeling’ towards brands which are seen to be supporting customers during tough times. These findings correlate with our consumer trends research carried out earlier this year, which identified a much tougher post-recession consumer, with value still high on the agenda.
However, previously successful and innovative brands like Subway and Starbucks are suffering in terms of consumer experience. As image scores of restaurant chains are rising, the experience needs to keep up with this growth in order to avoid disappointing consumers. McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are showing that this disparity is on the increase.
Things to think about
- How can restaurant brands keep innovating to provide great service and keep the customer interested?
- The current consumer trend for regression and familiarity clearly show the need for brands to maximise their heritage.
- How can restaurant environments and staff live and breathe the brand on the front line?
- How else can restaurant brands build trust with a far more ruthless, pragmatic and cynical post recession consumer?
If you would like to find out how your brand performed or discuss any of the above in further detail, please feel free to contact the team at Promise.
Promise Communities are really proud to be showcased in Marketing Week’s cover feature this week on how “online communities are key to brand development”.
We are also very pleased to have some of our exciting insight, innovation and strategy development work mentioned – big thanks to our clients at Danone, Virgin Media and LateRooms.com for sharing their story.
Why not take a moment to read our story here and the full cover feature here?
If in the mean time you are keen to find out what all the fuss about online communities is or how we have helped brands achieve success using them, please contact Ash Arya on aarya@promisecorp.com or call on +44 20 7290 0290.
I’m really chuffed that the Co-Creation Association has asked me to open the 2nd Co-Creation Event in Eindhoven this September. The CCA is still in its infancy, but I think it’s important that, as the popularity of co-creation as an idea grows, we take stock and share experiences.
I’ve been increasingly worried by the proliferation of posts, tweets and articles that refer to co-creation in a way that’s confusing if not an out and out misrepresentation of what’s really going on. Nike announced recently that its customisation portal Nike ID has generated over $100m in sales to date. But is this co-creation? Or a subset of co-creation? Definitions and contra-definitions abound. For some co-creation is a strategic innovation tool, for others it’s about in-use value creation (iPod as co-created experience). And by far and away the most common source of posts is examples of mass customisation (t-shirt, shoes, chocolates – you name it, it’s being customised!). Recently I heard about an ad man who dismissed co-creation as being “so last year”; user generated advertising and name crowdsourcing may or may not be ephemera, but they only represent a tiny sliver of the potential of co-creation.
In our report Co-creation: new pathways to value, which was produced with LSE Enterprise in 2009, we attempted to untangle some of the conceptual threads and put some clear water between co-creation and sister concepts like mass collaboration (wikipedia, human genome project), co-production (ATMs, self-service checkouts) and mass customisation (NikeID). In Eindhoven I want to revisit the landscape and think about three things:
1. What’s changed since we reviewed the key players and the case studies?
2. Where does co-creation actually come from? What’s the genesis and what ingredients help explain the current ’schools’ of co-creation?
3. What challenges lie in store? What will co-creation look like in 3-5 years?
I’m particularly keen to make sure that we all recognise the breadth in practice from more open to more tightly controlled processes. Mass customisation leaves little to the imagination despite its overt focus on choice and personalisation. As we move forward how do we ensure the right mix of creativity as well as control, play as well as process?
So, a question to everyone out there: what are your predictions? What would you like to see co-creation ‘professionals’ do more or less of?
With an empty stomach and emptier fridge, I finally took the plunge yesterday and boarded the forty seven bus to my local supermarket preparing to tackle my ‘weekly’ shop. Walking through the first eight aisles I could have bought myself a new wardrobe of clothes, indulged in the latest surround sound system and redecorated half my house – all I wanted was a basket of groceries! I think supermarkets have got their experience all wrong in trying to offer all things to all people! Slightly bemused, this experience inspired me to publish our Promise Index findings on this sector and investigate whether my personal opinion was mirrored in any way.
Lower consumer expectations during the recession led to an increase in experience as supermarkets focused heavily on value. This years’ scores, however, reflect a return to normal and a reduction in experience implies value is no longer isolated at the top of the priority list, as supermarkets battle to re-position themselves in the mind of the post-recession consumer.
People want to be entertained and retail spaces need to become desirable destinations. Supermarkets need to innovate around offering a meaningful experience to prevent more and more consumers migrating onto the online world (Ocado was the big winner in the sector this year).
For example, are self check-outs still perceived as new, whizzy and time-saving innovations focused on making life easier for the customer? Or are they now just seen as a lazy answer to customer service and a waste of space?
Consumer trends research carried out by Promise earlier this year also recognised that people want to feel closer to brands; could this be manifesting itself into an anti-corporate and regressive movement towards local independent stores? How can supermarkets continue to dial up levels of localness, community and old-fashioned craft?
Do get in touch if you would like to know more about how your brand performed or even share your own personal supermarket experience!
The Promise Gap narrows for the restaurant sector
Perhaps because it’s almost teatime – or just because I’m greedy – today I’ve decided to write about how restaurants have fared in this year’s Promise Index. We asked a family-bucket-load of consumers to compare seven of the UK’s most popular eateries in terms of image and experience. Here’s what we found….
Continuing the trend of last year, value brands have once again continued to rise up the index. This is epitomised by both KFC and McDonalds doing extremely well in terms of image, showing the benefits of relevant value messaging combined with a ‘softening’ of feelings towards brands who are seen to be supporting customers through tough times. These findings correlate with our consumer trends research carried out earlier this year which identified a much tougher consumer, with value still high on the agenda. Restaurant brands now need to think about how they can build trust – and impress – a far more ruthless, pragmatic and cynical post recession consumer…
But there is a ‘watch out’: previously successful, innovative brands like Subway and Starbucks are suffering in terms of consumer experience. This seems typical of a number of brands, like Starbucks, who are great innovators: once innovations are launched, received and subsequently ‘absorbed’ into the overall experience, the brand then needs to refocus its attention on the service proposition to ensure that it matches up to product and/or brand innovation. In short – as image scores of restaurants are rising, the experience needs to keep up with the growth in order to avoid disappointing consumers. But a disparity between image and experience is on the increase. How can restaurant brands keep innovating to provide great service and keep the customer interested, so that restaurants don’t fall flat (white) on their faces?
On our communities, members set the agenda as much as we do. This month one of our members quite bravely asked the other community members ‘What is the Big Society? (I have no idea what it means!)’
The question and responses raise a vital point that determines in our business whether communities succeed or fail. It also reveals some important lessons for anyone in Westminster tasked with orchestrating the Big Society.
To explain what I mean, let’s start with the world of research.
The aim of old school research was and in some cases still is, transactional. Wave a crisp £50 in front of the nose of Mr Consumer, assuming that this is what motivates him in return for insights. In this world Mr Consumer has no incentive to go the extra mile or really connect with the bigger task at hand, quite simply because he hasn’t been told what it is. As a result he goes about answering questions in a one dimensional way, understandably a little confused as to why you’re asking him about his hopes and dreams, his needs or whether he would buy product x at £5.99 or £6.99. In the back room behind the glass mirror sits Mr Client, crossing his fingers and hoping for the best that Mr Consumer will hit the nail on the head. OK, a bit crude I admit, but that’s the general sentiment.
In our work at Promise Communities, we are not asking participants to join us for an evening behind a two-way mirror but to be part of a living, breathing community where they are empowered to be the experts. (Sound familiar?)
Cultivating this kind of engagement is not easy and each community has its own challenges but one of the most important foundations of any community is revealing The Big Idea.
We tell our members why we are asking them the questions we do. We give them insider knowledge on the issues we are trying to solve, the bigger idea behind the community.
It stems from the Co-Creation logic that you can’t expect people to truly engage with the problem you’re trying to solve without handing over insider information. As a result, in Co-Creation members are not motivated purely by cash, but become insiders in our clients’ businesses, plugging the voice of the consumer back into their decision-making. (I’m sure by now you can see the parallels).
This involves some heavy engagement work from us from the very start of every community. We share insider info, project plans, forthcoming topics and make sure that our clients are responding personally to member comments. If you don’t do this early on you lose your audience and don’t have much of a community at all, you have a forum or a panel.
Big Society, regardless of whether you agree with its politics, sounds pretty revolutionary on paper. Scaling back the state by developing local communities where voters are experts. (I think).
The results of our community member’s question this month demonstrate that most people don’t really understand what the Big Society is. Quite a few are ironically denouncing it as a smoke and mirrors exercise.
If you get these responses in our work it becomes pretty obvious that you haven’t done your job in laying the foundations for your community, in fact they’re pretty wobbly.
Similarly it seems that the Big Society has a lot of work to do in communicating its own Big Idea.
The results of the Promise Index 2010 are out and they certainly make for some interesting reading. Over the next month on the blog we will be exploring the performances of the various sectors surveyed in the Index. Starting with the one that had the most to gain after a tough couple of years!
The Financial Sector
Image and reputation increased across the industry, as it appears the crisis of confidence that engulfed the financial sector during the darkest days of the recession, is on the mend. However the recovery is fragile and financial brands still have some way to go before winning the hearts and minds of consumers.
High Street banks just can’t seem to get their customer experience right. Consumer trend research carried out by Promise earlier this year, identified the emergence of a hardened and battle scarred post-recession consumer, one who is far more cynical towards brands. In this sector, are consumer expectations even higher, as they expect banks to desperately try and claw back lost trust? Is everyone waiting for the next big innovation to restore confidence in the industry?
Our consumer trends research also identified a desire for speed and simplicity; could this be why Visa and MasterCard both performed so well? Both brands have a simple and obvious consumer benefit; improving the ease of making payments whilst fuelling the trend towards a cashless society. Consumers are quickly and easily able to articulate the role these brands play in their day to day lives. By offering a wide array of services, are other financial brands offering too much choice? Pushing consumers to part with their cash on a wide range of products and services, when really all they want is security and growth on their investments.
Watch this space for more Promise Index Industry reports and get in touch if you would like to know more about how your brand performed.
