And you’ve guiltily enjoyed the social media “meltdown”?

You never win a fight with the internet. That’s a rule for all of us—but to fight with such spectacular lack of awareness, such complete blindness to how this was going to play out. Delicious.

News today from Eater announces that these Kitchen Nightmare rejects are going to open again after sullenly shutting their doors and chasing away reporters. They’ll donate proceeds to a cyber bullying charity.

Wow, Amy. Wow, Samy.

Okay, I’ll grant that in a reality TV show edit room, with a skilled and snarky editor, footage can be manipulated to tell more than one story. And I grant that the Kitchen Nightmares reality TV show staff is always going to make host Gordon Ramsay look firm-even-fiery-but-ultimately-fair. Still. You can’t deny that this is a good example of how not to behave when you know there are cameras.

Still, the focus should probably be on the social media response, captured thoroughly here by BuzzFeed.

They got up the next morning and decided to claim they got hacked; so did Representative Anthony Wiener. And him, I wanted to believe.

Learning to navigate efficient food prep, personnel management, cost control and other demands of the restaurant biz often leaves smaller places like Amy’s Baking Company with very little time to think through their marketing plan.

But make this a rule—if you’re not sure how a particular social media site tends to function, proceed with caution: Don’t hurl insults. No caps lock, no threats, no invocations of whichever God is on your side. Don’t whine you’re being bullied. Be unfailingly civil.

In absence of a plan, that’ll be the plan.

Thank you, Amy and Samy, for providing the latest teaching moment for social media advisors.

And for your sake, I hope that soon you may echo the first words out of Gerald Ford’s mouth here:

This summer, there will be an online music documentary about indie bands Wildcat! Wildcat! and Passion Pit. The documentary will incorporate Tweets and other social media messages posted during the bands’ performances at the South by Southwest music festival.

So, see, there’s this buzzword “content,” and Taco Bell is all over it.

I’ve talked about how alive Taco Bell appears in non-traditional media.

I think, for purposes of this discussion, you can define content as “something the brand’s fans are genuinely interested in, and do not interpret as dumb, hype-y, old-fashioned promotion (though everyone quietly realizes that it’s all part of an overall corporate initiative).”

All content isn’t about third-party-topics like South by Southwest. A lot of it is about Taco Bell.

It’s just not crass. It fits with the way their fans think.

Here’s a couple selections from their YouTube channel:

The key, which Taco Bell gets, is to tap into the mindset of the people you want to get in a conversation with. People are doing these Draw My Life videos—and Taco Bell knows it.

(If you don’t know about Draw My Life, I bet that video looked incredibly self-serving. Here, let Smosh fill you in. It’s a current thing.)

That’s how content works. You look like you get it. You look like you like their bands, play their games, and (because we all know people who might work there) kind of are them in a way.

So how should a restaurant approach content? First, get a clear idea of your best customers, and know what they do when they’re out in the world.

Know their memes. Know when their memes are played out. Get their jokes. Make jokes they get. Humbly understand your place in their universe, especially if it’s currently pretty limited.

Invite them behind the scenes to see you’re basically just like them.

Tweeting is not, strictly speaking, content, and this isn’t new news, but when the corporation behaves so much like a person it sounds like your friends having a Twitter War, the result can become content: most major news outlets have at least mentioned this. Whoever was manning the tweet desk at Taco Bell that day and jumped to the smart-assed defense really, really converted a lot of fans.

Look, everyone has online relationships with actual people they have never and probably will never meet—it isn’t such a stretch for customers to have relationships with actual people who work at Taco Bell whom we can infer exist as potential online “friends” even though they’re acting on behalf of the company. We don’t mind anymore. If they’re cool.

And Taco Bell content strategists seem cool.

Everybody knows it’s part of a capitalist strategy.

But if it’s interesting, and it feels like something they agree with, and they feel invited in to respond, and it demonstrates that the brand is on their wavelength, it’s okay.

That Taco Bell Flower Shop Speakeasy video has over a million views.

That’s not just the marketing department at Taco Bell and the production company’s interns watching that content.

But you know what? I love their pizza tracker. It’s a gizmo, and it knows it’s a gizmo, and the whole brand positioning of transparency and honesty in dealing with problems is more important than whether I realllllly want to watch a Mormon’s MeatZZa Feast’s pepperonis being applied.

Which, no, I don’t. I have a lot of important things I said I’d do that I haven’t done, and if I’m going to waste time, I’m going to waste time in a more entertaining way.

Or I’m going to read about Nyan cat’s Federal court case and watch the meme for a few minutes.

(sigh) I admit it:

Nyan Cat Meme = Random Mormon Pizza Prep

But this Utah pizza almost-a-stunt is really all about paying off the campaign yet again. Which it does a fine job of doing.

Here is a brand notion that just keeps proving itself useful—first they confess they let their quality slip to the point where they’re a punchline. They take themselves to task, show us where the foods are sourced, show us the employees who want our feedback, provide easy places for us to provide that feedback.

I can even know unsavory things about them as a company, but still accept they’re honestly trying to get better all the time.

And yeah, watching that pizza is boring if you’re not hungry and it’s not your pizza.

It’s still kinda neat.

In related news, here is a box design that can still appear lovely the morning after, laying on the ground by the gas pump I was using:

A very durable brand, is Domino’s.

I can’t believe I ate the whole bones thing, is what comes to my mind.

Try the bones, you’ll like the bones. Mama Mia, that’s some spicy bones.

What’s really interesting is, these KFC ads are running simultaneously with the new K-Mart catchphrase attempt.

Talk about your zeitgeist. Does this mean that we’ll soon be battling gasoline shortages, high inflation, and a jowl-shaking president who is forced to resign in disgrace after bumbling hired thieves are caught burgling the opposition’s political headquarters in a DC hotel? Hope not, because that means we have to live through the 80s and Duran Duran again.

Hahahahahahaha.

Anyway. I enjoy those “I ate the bones” ads, and I think they do a good job of making people: 1. pay attention 2. understand what exactly is going on here which is, for some, big news and 3. tend to remember, repeat, and even re-use the line in the personal lives with their friends. There is practically no higher praise for a piece of creative work (besides, “it sold stuff”).

Let’s screen another one:

(I do like the voice of the actor who says, “Original recipe.” I wish I could talk that good.)

Here’s my only quibble. When they roll out most creative lines in other media—billboards are the classic example—often the creative team talks about it and ultimately decides to feature the catchphrase prominently, especially on media with limited story-telling abilities. Like billboards. Or parking lot lightpole signage:

It’s a mysterious sign in the parking lot that, having not seen the TV, makes the experience seem somewhat questionable. Should we go ahead and hang it up?

And if that parking lot lightpole sign said, “I just shipped my pants!” or “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” we’d be through here. But it says, “I ate the bones!” And though there might be a viral component to this (I mostly only saw the K-Mart ad on my Facebook feed), the days are gone, gone, gone where you can assume that Mr. and Mrs. America are watching the very episode of All In The Family in which you have chosen to run your “I ate the bones” campaign. Mr. and Mrs. A. tend to miss a lot of TV ads these days.

And if you (like me, actually) are driving through town and see the lightpole sign that says “I ate the bones!” (like I did) you might be forced to think about it a little too much and come up with the idea (as I did, before I knew the score) that the bones might be ground up and included like Jamie Oliver’s nugget paste right in the goo they make the chicken from. That’s not what I really thought, but I had to consider that as one possible interpretation.

Whatever. It’s not what most people will think, probably, but it does point out that we can’t assume that anyone has seen any other part of our campaign, especially if it’s a TV campaign running in this fragmented media landscape. And we always have to consider how an uninformed person might read the sign, and whether the conclusion they might reach (or the image that might come to mind) isn’t really what we want them to be thinking.

I misinterpreted the bones!

And here we have a sign for one of my favorite corporate overlords that says absolutely nothing in the loudest voice possible.

Since Starbucks is (kind of incredibly, when you think about it) the top Quick Serve Restaurant Brand—beating out (I mean, look at this list) Taco Bell, Chipotle, KFC, Burger King and McDonald’s, in that order—I will seize this occasion.

Starting with the next paragraph, I will try to articulate why I am so annoyed by the tone of Starbucks’ writing voice.

ARRRRR-RARRHHHHHRRRRRR I hate that cloying ootsy bootsy cutesy wootsy godawful tone of voice.

….(calming down) …Look, I’m an addict.

Not getting a tall bold coffee from Starbucks (I do not want it from McDonald’s, no thank you) prevents a day from seeming like it began.

I go back after lunch with the cup I hung onto and get a cup discount on another hit (which is often, disappointingly, their meh-flavored Pike Place Roast because in late morning they often stop brewing the thick, oozy, chewy, oily, over-roasted dark stuff that I adore).

If I happen to be near the one Clover brewing device in Indiana, I pay a little extra for that. A little something for me. I deserve a treat, right? Affordable Luxury is a trend, after all.

But it isn’t just the coffee. Mr. Schultz’s idea of “the Third Place” seems invented for me: I do see that cozy, bourgeois décor as a haven. 

I cannot count the excellent musicians I have discovered through their Hear Music samplers, which I usually purchase with my Rewards Card without hesitation and then lose under the seat of my car.

I AM ADDICTED NOT JUST TO THE COFFEE BUT TO THE BRAND EXPERIENCE.

All of this information I am submitting as context for my revulsion at what I must with a heavy grudge admit is their brand tonality.

Now, their graphic design is wonderful: again, it hits my pseudo-refined middle-class sense of cool and tastefulness square on the nailhead. But the language on that design is cloying and smug.

When they’re running low on food in their refrigerated case, there’s copy underneath where the food was that apologizes for the missing items—a clever concept—but they ruin it with presumption: [something like this, I’m quoting from irritated memory] “Wow! You really liked that! Don’t worry, there’ll be more tomorrow.”

Shut up!

And I know I’m spending money on myself that I should probably save for the kids’ college fund, so don’t put up a sign that says, “Take time for you with a Signature Hot Chocolate. Experience the comforting taste of steamed milk and rich chocolate with a magical swirl of whipped cream…” SHUT UP. You’re all breathy. You’re all sexy talking. You’re calling your own merchandise magical, you egotist. Plus you’re all cooing and sighing and rubbing my shoulder GET YOUR HAND OFF MY NECK I DO NOT WANT A NECK MASSAGE. Stop misreading me and don’t be so familiar.

“We roasted it up with a Christmas wish.” “Pass the cheer!” “Discover the taste that inspires you.”

Whatever plump-cheeked cartoon bird sings that stuff is so frickin’ chirpy I want to find it and kill it.

It’s this combination of chatty cuteness and the assumption that I am ready to cuddle combined with an overt attempt to manipulate me that I can’t tolerate. I think it’s the combination of elements that does it. Even the warning on the cups irritates me: “Careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot.” It winks. It jollies. It makes its voice go low and tucks in its chin like Shirley Temple imitating a stern grownup. Careful, [somehow they imply “you silly old thing”], the beverage [what a weirdly stiff word in this world of furry lovability] you’re about to enjoy [STOP FORCING ME TO ADMIT I ENJOY IT YOU MANIPULATIVE EXPLETIVE DELETEDS] is extremely hot [you’re only talking right now because the lawyers forced you to do it: just say what you have to say and shut up].

Look, I’m the first to advocate casual, conversational language and unnecessary playfulness. I’m also the first, if at all possible, to say that I believe people enjoy good, up-front, charming salespeople who make no pretense about the fact they’re selling you something. Every brand ought to do everything it can to establish a strong relationship with those who love you. BUT STARBUCKS, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT.

Again, I think it’s this assumption that I’m in love with you that’s at the root of the trouble.

Keep your distance. Notice the power of self-deprecation. You’re in America, where we demand even our most talented actresses and fabulous athletes affect modesty and pretend they ain’t nothin’ special, just everyday folks like yourself. Here in the U.S.A. we don’t like you to put on airs. We invented the word high falutin, and it’s not a compliment.

And if I catch you being pretentious and taking liberties with our relationship, I will never allow you closer than arm’s length, even if I do spend approximately 10% of my annual income at your store.

Whatever. Basic message, I guess, is don’t assume I love you. Don’t wink when you say things.

Just back off, Starbucks.

I haven’t had my coffee yet.

An article in Dezeen Magazine (passed along by friend-of-the-blog Lindsay) makes the promise—but then sort of dodges it. It’s kind of funny because the interviewer is really interested in the concept, but the designer just keeps saying there’s nobody backing it so there’s no way to know when it will be a reality.

Still, it’s pretty fascinating to contemplate.

More interesting than this video I found where basically they take a 3-D printer and convert it into a cake decorator:

Burgers are a lot more interesting. Look for the brand marriage of Kinko’s and McDonald’s one of these days along an interstate or strip mall near your subdivision.

Once the 3-D printer can manufacture two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion and a sesame seed bun, it’s just a matter of time till these are on every corner. I typed that 1970s McDonald’s ad copy from memory, incidentally. I should probably be horrified. Or at least embarrassed.

Some of the laughingest nights I can remember I have spent at big tables in the cozy spaces of various Buca di Beppos, a concept which has created an experience that actually stokes social interaction and light-heartedness. EXCEPT FOR CATERING, where they can try to export the fun but it’s just not the same.

How I interpret the enormous san serif all caps “WE CATER” on this rolling brand expression: “Please please please call us for catering PLEASE OH PLEASE.”

Over and over again, when one talks to restaurant management, one can sense they’re happy to talk about whatever but what they REALLY want to talk about is catering. Yet it’s not central to any of their brand concepts.

What a moneymaker. What a great business to be in. What a conundrum.

All the work has gone in to figuring out how operations can deliver the brand in the restaurant. Work has gone into the food, and possibly into figuring out the menu items that travel best and the best way to deliver them (Buca brings tablecloths—a nice touch).

But what about the brand promise? Can it go in the sack? Does it survive being transported in a styrofoam box?

In this age of food trucks, it seems possible.

But I can’t think of a brand that’s successfully managed to cater in a way that really exploits their brand promise. Can you? (If so, to the comment section with you.) Many are trying, like Einstein here in this Nation’s Restaurant News article. It may be that restaurants that specialize in carbs are set up best for the catering challenge— I’ve witnessed a successful Olive Garden catering moment with a bunch of non-judgemental soccer player families shoveling it in: not exactly the fake Tuscan family get-together they try to evoke, but close enough, maybe. One of my co-workers speaks fondly of the Fazoli’s that was catered at his son’s cross country events.

To be honest, I don’t think the in-store experience of Fazoli’s is all that crucial, in the way that Buca’s is. I would it eat it here or there—say, I would eat it anywhere.

That’s as opposed to Red Lobster, which explicitly says on their website:

Red Lobster does not offer catering services, but we’re always happy to help you plan a special event in our restaurant. Contact your local Red Lobster for more information.”

You can imagine why. Lobsterfest set up on the long tables in the church basement for the youth group meeting would not feature too many manicured lemon squeezes.

Whither catering? How does the marketing department deal with the overall move to put the branding in a van and schlep it to the Marriott meeting room for the soccer tournament kids?

My antennae are up, but so far I haven’t picked up any strong singles.

Single-mindedness, check.

Clarity, check.

Demographically hip casual middlebrow dude, check.

Restrained, down-played, good-natured humor, check, I guess.

Racially diverse cast, check.

Enormously solid brand iconography throughout (effortlessly achieved by use of clean-looking, modern, standalone storefront with a positively giant logo), enormous check.

Effective distribution through social media channels (this showed up sponsored on my Facebook yesterday and lured me into watching it), check.

So what’s missing?

I think three things.

One is, mystery.

So many companies fail (and I am sympathetic to their dark nights of crisis on this point) to maintain mystery properly. They know most of their customers are disengaged and easily distracted and they worry that their primary message will not be delivered. That’s fair. They know that tons and tons of money is going to be spent. That’s true. Their job and reputation and ability to pay for braces when their kids get a little older is all on the line. That’s America.

But the game of marketing is simple: if I’m not actively seeking information about your company, I will only pay attention until I figure out what you’re saying (almost always concluding that it’s safe for me to dismiss the information as soon as I understand it).

Playing out the mystery is an art—teasing me just long enough to keep me engaged, not so long that I become frustrated. It’s hard to do. Taco Bell did a great job of it with their initial Locos Tacos launch. I made fun of them (see photo from my Tumblr, The Boss Told Me To Change The Sign), but it worked. I didn’t know what to expect.

[sort of a sponsored link] You might enjoy my Tumblr, which I call “The Boss Told Me To Change The Sign,” and I heartily invite you to email me contributions to it: http://thebosstoldmetochangethesign.tumblr.com/

The payoff. Locos Tacos was a huge, once-every-few-years-in-the-history-of-QSR kind of payoff, so it’s a little unfair to compare KFC or anyone else to them.

But why wouldn’t this boneless original recipe product already exist? I’m more confused than anything. You had the boneless chicken already, I assume (I confess I don’t go to KFC all that often, but I assume I can get a chicken finger or two if my kid wants one) (or two). KFC of all companies has access to the recipe.

My main question after this bit of tease is, Why did it take so long?

Maybe I don’t understand it. I’m reacting as a true consumer here, not a restaurant marketer: hate to be cornered into the confession, KFC, but I don’t love you enough to know that you don’t already do this.

Which then leads me to tack on my third missing thing, which is a peeve that all advertisers end up guilty of at some point: DON’T BASE THE SO-CALLED HUMOR OF THE ADVERTISING ON HOW MUCH I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU. It’s just lazy.

Dear Marketing Team, I know you’re simply negotiating a compromise with the C-titled people up the marketing chain whose C-suite bathrooms have marble countertops. You needed to get them to approve your storyboards, so you put a little counterfeit humor on top of a spot about how much a guy loves the product. See, the C-people almost never really understand how communication works. That’s not their gift. Their gift is climbing the ladder.

Making the humor toothless and easy-to-approve is never a good (or original) recipe for success.

And I have to say: this ad is toothless. Which is appropriate for a product that’s boneless, I guess.

So even though a lot of the elements are in place for KFC’s teaser campaign, well, I pretty quickly figure out, “Oh, they’re breading chicken fingers with their original recipe. That’s probably pretty good but I’m surprised they weren’t doing it already. They sure are hyping it, aren’t they? Well, I just got a text on my iPhone and I’m going to think about something else now.”

Maybe that’s enough of an impression and a success. But is “enough” really enough?

Oh, and I see by my Facebook feed that now they’ve borrowed some interest from Daym Drops by giving him a “preview.” I know you’re not a super official journalist, Daym, but I really like you. Be careful with your objectivity, because your credibility grows out of it. Just sayin’.

Laughing, being laughed at, being laughed with. Making big decisions about life. Making little decisions about the nerdy details of favorite movies and books. Connecting with people I care about, or realizing that I care about someone I barely knew when we sat down.

I think this aspect of restaurant marketing is generally missing from most communications. For years I’ve thought this.

It didn’t help that the restaurant’s most fervent disciple was famously overweight and eventually lost the ability to eat. His eloquence made up for it.

Today I take as my inspiration an article in The New York Times, which I “rabbit-holed” my way to while reading one of the many encomiums that have come pouring out of the internet upon the passing of Roger Ebert.

Here is the passage of the the Times piece that applies here (referencing the fact, in case you don’t know it, that a few years ago Ebert was diagnosed with cancer and lost his jaw, taste buds, and ability to eat—which, almost ironically, sent America’s highest profile movie critic into a whole new level of wise and witty communications through blogs and social media):

But he remembers everything about the food at the Steak ’n Shake. In the hospital, he told me, he ate Steak ’n Shake meals a bite at a time in his mind. Still, what he longs for most is the talk and fellowship of the table.

“The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss,” he wrote…

If you poke at this blog you know I had a nearly two-decade relationship with Steak ’n Shake, developing marketing. When I was a dedicated promoter of Steak ’n Shake (it’s very important to me that the apostrophe be a true apostrophe, not a hash mark, and that it scoop to the left like an apostrophe and not to the right like an open-single-quote, which is what your computer wants to do if you don’t control it), I was pleased and proud of Roger’s love of the brand, because I felt it, too. And he was always so eloquent about it.

There is something vivid about moments spent bonding in the spaces provided by a certain kind of restaurant that cannot be exaggerated.

This is why “Home Meal Replacement” and carry-out have only been small profit centers for most restaurants. It’s those tables that make your restaurant valuable. In a lot of cases, your delicious food that you spent months researching in the test kitchen and thousands maybe millions bringing to market is nothing more than rent.

People agree to pay the rent and eat the food just so they can sit there in your place of business.

Those renters who have Big Moments are fans for life. They develop a love and an attachment that goes beyond anything you could reasonably ask.

So why don’t more restaurants actively promote or enable these moments?

Sonic does a good job suggesting it (even better when the campaign featured three or four different recurring pairs of customers enjoying their time in the car instead of just the two guys). Olive Garden does such a ham-fisted job of falsely, manipulatively evoking restaurant-table-camaraderie it’s become a punchline.

Friday’s does a good job with its kid menus, encouraging parents and kids to relate to each other.

But this is an area that could stand more deliberate leveraging, in my opinion.

The Fellowship of the Table.

Okay, not literally.

I guess it’s okay to joke about now, since he’s a harmless senior citizen.

Whatever. He’s not the first person to misbehave in the state of Indiana and turn it into something to talk about for money.

What I will say is this: when a brand starts borrowing old jokes from randomly placed mini-celebrities to sell its $20 Bourbon Street whatever-they-saids, I think they have abandoned any hope of figuring out what makes them different from everybody else. We might enjoy visiting with the celebs and mini-celebs, but whatever implied endorsement they make is pretty irrelevant, and in the end all it does it make you say, “Did you see Knight in that ad? It was for a restaurant or something.”

I think Applebee’s current agency—a talented bunch of people, by reputation—started out trying to position them with at least a clear point of view.

But those days are gone. Apparently.

So many of these big chains struggle to come up with a clear strategy, an “own-able” voice, and a promise that separates them in some way from the next restaurant on the strip by the mall.

So they do a temporary fix. They bask mildly in some other entity’s glow. In the old days we called this “borrowed interest.”

By the way, friend of the blog Eric pointed out that this ad also borrows interest (noticeable if you’re one of the 15 million who viewed this stupid thing) of the following meme bait.

Advice? Do not invest any time in the preceding YouTube video. I’d sooner have you put on the 10-hour loop of Nyan cat. It’s way more enjoyable. (Fun note: I went to get the link for Nyan cat and there was a :15-second ad for Olive Garden right before the ten endless hours begins. Who’s borrowing whose interest, now?)