Have you ever wondered what makes something a legacy brand? A legacy brand is usually defined as one that’s really well-known, been around a long time and has visible signs of success. Over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to be involved with some fantastic food and drink companies, helping make their brand stand out above the rest and paving the way for legacy brand status. We’ve also taken the time to delve into other legacy brand food campaigns, gaining inspiration and seeing what works.
So take a look at our latest blog - looking at the key ingredients behind our top 4 legacy food campaigns, including two of our own - and be inspired!
Even if you’re not a fan of the Colonel and his secret chicken recipe, you’ll probably know that KFC is known for being ‘finger lickin’ good’, earning its status as a top legacy brand in the world of fast food. Yet, the recent pandemic almost put a halt to their world famous logo, although they did use it in a way, putting a humorous spin on it in their 2020 branding by blurring out the ‘finger lickin’ logo from its bucket of chicken and instead ending on the line: ‘That thing we always say? Ignore it. For now.’
KFC then began their legacy brand revival after the end of the first lockdown by announcing they were ‘back’, and in 2021, their ‘finger lickin’ good’ tagline was at the forefront of their ads once more.
The key ingredient that food business can take away from KFC’s brand legacy status is that reinforcing your brand’s strapline can drive brand salience, ensuring customers return, warm in the knowledge that they’re coming back to something they know and love.
You can also take a look at our blog on KFC, which offers a great insight into the marketing of KFC and how that creates such a strong brand legacy.
Simpsons Fish and Chips epitomises legacy branding that takes its offering one step further by showing off its quirky personality across a multitude of marketing channels, whilst still displaying its homage to the tradition of fish and chips. To do this, the brand needed expression, impact and a marketing approach that was different to other, more traditional fish and chip branding.
Starting with their ethos of ‘Long live fish and chips’ to reflect their solid commitment and grounding in producing great tasting food steeped in tradition, we then added a modern touch with the look and feel.
From the unique tattoo illustration style of mermaids and sailors to the strong typographic logo, crest symbol, and packaging, right through to the kids characters and out-of-the-box social posting – such as battered creme eggs or black batter for Halloween, we created a unique expression for Simpsons. That, along with their consistent style and tone of voice, reflects the personality of the business, resonating with the target market in Cheltenham, Stroud and across the UK.
The key ingredient that food business can take away from Simpsons’ brand legacy status is that having the confidence to display knock-out branding and shouting out about your years of experience, knowledge and expertise is great for brand trust.
You can also take a look at our blog on Simpsons, which offers a great insight into our approach when it came to marketing Simpsons, and how that created such a strong brand legacy.
Guinness is a hugely iconic brand that can truly lay claim to brand legacy. Their brilliant, post-Covid comeback ad: #LooksLikeGuiness features a series of black and white images set against a heartfelt rendition of the classic ballad Always On My Mind. The notion being that fans of the brand are missing the iconic black pint so much, they’re seeing them everywhere!
The way the ad ends plays to their brand legacy status too: a group of friends sharing pints of Guinness together with the iconic Guinness slogan saying: ‘good things come to those who wait’. But it doesn’t end there: Guinness’ £30M pledge to support UK hospitality and pub businesses also helped increase their brand legacy, showing them as leaders in the drinks industry.
The key ingredient that food business can take away from Guinness’ brand legacy status is that maintaining brand reputation through confidently reinforcing customer loyalty works.
It’s not just big, multinational businesses who can lay claim to brand legacy status, small, local, independent businesses can too!
Located in the heart of Lichfield, Larder is well known for offering a wonderfully relaxed fine dining experience to its customers. Post-pandemic, we helped them utilise their local brand legacy status by refreshing their brand and branching out by offering outdoor dining and takeaway orders; both of which proved to be a big success, allowing customers to experience their favourite food again.
Learn more about how we helped Larder redefine their marketing in our case study.
The key ingredient that food business can take away from Larder’s brand legacy status is that it’s crucial to adapt to the current external environment and benefit from building and sustaining engagement over the entire customer journey.
Image Sources: 1) https://pngimg.com/image/82056 2) https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/ipo/sapphire-foods-ipo-kfc-operator-sets-price-band-of-rs-1120-1180-a-share-7667461.html 3) https://www.meanwhileinireland.com/new-guinness-ad-has-made-us-so-excited-for-pubs-reopening/ 4) https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/05/13/ad-the-day-guinness-welcomes-us-all-back-the-pub-finally 5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness
Deliveroo, JustEat and UberEats - do the delivery dons really make life easier as an independent food business or reduce your margins significantly?
We take a closer look at why you shouldn’t be tempted to sell your shop’s soul to a third-party delivery partner.
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a sudden shift of consumer behaviour in the food industry overnight. Without the opportunity to build rapport and relationships with customers physically visiting their premises, food businesses needed a new way to retain customer loyalty and revenue.
In 2020, more than 6 million people ordered from 115,000 restaurants through Deliveroo every month. With a streamlined process for onboarding new food brands and a network of delivery couriers in place meaning no hassle of recruiting or managing a team of drivers, many shop owners were drawn in by the reach larger delivery partners offer them.
Delivery apps also promise to promote your food business to a new customer base outside your local target area without the work of planning logistics or extra marketing. Sound too good to be true?
Deliveroo, UberEats and Just Eat all charge restaurants and takeaways a commission for each order. Although they’re fairly hush hush about how much this is, Big Hospitality reports it’s generally 25-30% commission - a hefty amount when it comes to smaller takeaways or restaurants.
In 2020, Deliveroo’s net revenues, consisting of mostly fees charged to restaurants and consumers, were up by a massive 54% (£1.2bn) compared to 2019.
Although Deliveroo says it encourages restaurants to use the same pricing model for delivery as for in-house menus, many food businesses feel compelled to charge more to make up for the high commission.
In a fickle market it’s already difficult to keep customers loyal. Although your food business may now be visible on a larger online ordering platform that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get more orders.
With the majority of these delivery firms having more than 100,000 restaurant and takeaway partners listed on their platforms, it means your business will be sat amongst a whole range of other brands.
They’re effectively in the driving seat of your business - you’re completely in the hands of the third party’s algorithm and where you appear on their app.
Customers are also now well versed in scouring multiple delivery platforms to identify the best deals for their favourite meals. This influx of choice across multiple third-party platforms has had a huge impact on customer loyalty. In fact, according to Second Measure, the average 6-month repeat custom rate is just 21%.
Working with a delivery giant will also limit the insight you have into the purchasing patterns of your consumers, as they can retain the rights to your customer data.
This means no remarketing campaigns, no loyalty scheme incentives and no information on who your online customers really are.
Instead, why not consider setting up your own online ordering system on your website? You’ll have control over your brand experience online and have access to any customer data.
Like the sound of being in control?
To help you resist temptation, we’ve outlined three stages to get your food business set up for online ordering - whether that’s for Click & Collect, delivery or both.
Stage 1 - Branching out
A good place to start is setting up your own online ordering system on your website that offers Click & Collect. If you wanted to also offer delivery, consider pairing up with a large third-party to help ease the pressure on your team.
With your own online ordering platform for Click & Collect, you’ll have full control over your customers’ experience, with minimum costs and access to data.
Stage 2 - Expanding your offering
Once you feel confident following the roll out of Click & Collect, next consider how to take ownership of your delivery service. This could involve partnering up with a local firm such as a taxi company to introduce delivery to your online ordering system.
Stage 3 - Take control
For complete control of the journey your food delivery takes - from leaving your kitchen to arriving at a customer’s front door - introduce your own branded mopeds or cars with a team of dedicated delivery staff.
Branded vehicles offer free advertising whilst your delivery team are out on the move, raising brand awareness and showing customers you really care about the whole process from start to finish.
Instead of selling your food business’s soul to a larger third party delivery firm, why not explore the alternative options out there first? From doing it yourself to partnering with a local taxi company, there are plenty of ways you can offer your customers a fantastic experience.
Did you know 70% of websites have already switched to mobile-first indexing in preparation for Google’s latest algorithm update?
The algorithm update is rolling out this month, meaning it’s time to ensure your website is mobile optimised and not just ‘mobile-friendly’.
Originally due to go live from September 2020, Google pushed back the roll out, stating: “We realise that in these uncertain times, it's not always easy to focus on work as otherwise, so we've decided to extend the timeframe to the end of March 2021.”
Now Google is switching to its mobile-first algorithm indexing and if you’ve not made the necessary changes, you could soon see a dip in website performance and traffic.
The mobile-first algorithm will give priority to mobile-first websites over desktop. Once the update is rolled out, it will change the way Google indexes websites on its search engine results page (SERP).
Previously Google viewed desktop traffic as a priority, however recent reports show mobile usage is outgrowing desktop usage.
Compared to other search engines, Google also has the highest share of organic mobile search traffic (54%) - which is predicted to keep rising over the next couple of years.
Today is the perfect opportunity to evaluate your website design and content, identifying areas to optimise in time for the roll out.
Use this period to analyse and address whether your website is just friendly to mobile users, or actually optimised for a smaller screen device.
Mobile optimisation is true responsive-mobile design. This means content will resize for multiple screens, resolutions and orientations to provide visitors with just as good a browsing experience as using a desktop.
Consider your website design, is it providing the best possible experience for your users?
Even if your design is mobile optimised but your content is still targeted towards desktop users, you could also face difficulties being indexed by Google following the update.
Consider your audience’s experience with your website when they are visiting via a mobile device. Long paragraphs of text or large images will not be easy to scroll past on a small screen.
By shortening sentences, paragraphs and optimising videos and images, you’ll be improving user experience and also satisfying Google’s algorithm.
However you don’t want to remove important content. While your mobile site’s content doesn’t have to be identical to your desktop site’s content, important content should be kept.
Removing smaller features like email opt-ins won’t have a major impact from an SEO point of view, but excluding things purely because it feels too long for a mobile layout can have a negative impact.
For example, important content includes internal links. You’ll want to ensure all of the important links still exist on your website’s mobile version, as removing these could negatively impact your rankings as they may change how Google judges the value of your website pages.
You’ll also want to ensure your site speed isn’t hindering your user's mobile experience. According to Google, 53% of mobile users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Ideally your website’s load time for both desktop and mobile will be under 1 second, but under 3 seconds is still acceptable.
There is still time to get prepared for Google’s mobile first algorithm update, if you take action today to analyse your website and make important changes.
Discover how to optimise your design and content for mobile with a detailed website audit, and ensure your food business doesn’t suffer from a decline in visitors in the future.
It’s more important than ever before to have an online presence and websites can act as a digital storefront. Today, customers expect access to answers swiftly, the ability to view menus and find up to date opening hours all online.
In short, no it won’t. But it all depends on what you want your website to do for your business. If it’s just a landing page you’re looking for that directs customers to your business’s location, then a budget website would be enough.
However if you want to talk more about your food and services, then you’ll need something that’s got the flexibility to tailor content and design.
We explore the benefits of budget vs bespoke website design, to help you choose an option that’s right for your business.
So you’re looking for a website, but don’t have the budget or time to go for a more bespoke option. We hear you. That’s why we offer budget landing page designs, that provide pretty much everything you need to get your message and products across to your audience.
As we’re working in a set website structure and framework, these landing pages are quicker for us to design, meaning you’ll be up and running in no time at all.
Unlike with a third party platform website builder such as Wix or Squarespace, you’ll have our team of experts doing the hard work for you. Plus our friendly UK-based team are always around to answer any questions or provide advice after we’ve created your website unlike larger, international website firms.
We want your food brand to be the centre of attention, not us. That’s why even with our budget service, we don’t plaster our branding everywhere on your website, unlike others. Instead, we’ll do all we can to make your brand look irresistible to visitors.
Included with an Eat Marketing landing page is the ability for customers to download your menu, read recent news and access business information. You’ll also be able to easily make any updates to content yourself in the future.
Want a website that’s as unique as your business? Then bespoke is the best option for you.
With a bespoke website design, you’ll be able to add as many pages as you need. So if your food business is passionate about sustainability or supporting the local community, you’ll have plenty of space to talk about your brand values and story.
We’ll be there to offer copywriting support and make sure your website is optimised for local search engines such as Google, meaning customers will be able to find you online.
Got a vision for how you’d like your website to look? Let’s make that happen. With our bespoke website package the overall design is unique to you and your business, using a custom design layout across every page. You’ll find no cut and paste templates here.
When 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on their website design, it’s important your website stands out amongst competitors for all the right reasons.
We’ll use our branding knowhow to make your food business look its very best online and ensure your website cannot be hacked by adding extra security. Plus by going bespoke, you’ll receive monthly tailored website traffic reports to help you understand where your visitors are coming from and what they’re looking at.
Choosing an experienced independent agency to create your website will mean you have more time to focus on your business. We’ll work with you to tell your brand story in the most engaging way and integrate seamless online ordering to open up new revenue streams.
Whether you’d prefer a budget or bespoke website design, choose the option that works for your business in the long term, rather than just a short-term solution.
When faced with the prospect of creating a new website, it can sometimes feel a little daunting. Trying to decide what content you need and where it should sit is quite a big task. However, spending time to draw up wireframes beforehand can really make designing a new website easier for your food business.
What exactly is a wireframe?
A wireframe is simply a skeleton of your future website. It gives both you and your designer the chance to consider how a user will interact with your business and any content online by mapping out pages and customer journeys.
What are the top 5 reasons to use wireframes for your website design?
1. Confirm the structure of your website design
By mapping out the functionality of each web page, it helps confirm what pages will work and what pages can be scrapped to improve a user journey. You’ll want to ensure each page has a clear purpose and achieves the goals set out in your original brief. It’s also at this stage where your site navigation, footer and categories can be confirmed.
2. Catch potential problems early
It’s much easier to make a change, add or scrap pages in a wireframe than at a later design stage. Investing time at the beginning of your website project will benefit you in the long run and cut down on the amount of back and forth in the development phase.
3. Focus on each task in hand
Without the distraction of placeholder images, fonts or colour palettes, wireframes offer a distraction-free way of viewing the structural elements of your website in one glance. It offers you a rare chance to view your food business from a customer’s point of view.
4. Your chance to provide feedback
Presenting all the pages of your future website together allows for a complete view of how your customers will interact with your food brand. As wireframes focus on usability, it’s a perfect time to make changes or revise layouts if you feel a page isn’t functioning properly.
5. Prioritise content
Wireframing provides a prime opportunity to confirm the elements and content to be included within your website. By creating an informational hierarchy, it helps establish what information needs to be provided and where on your website, to help move a user along on their journey.
When it comes to developing a food brand website, if shortcuts are taken early on then the design suffers at a later stage. Investing the time and thought in creating a thorough wireframe at the start of your project, will not only help you get a great website but also ensure your customers have a great brand experience.
For more information about the importance of wireframes or to start your website design journey, contact our team at Eat Marketing today.