June 2017

How to attract millennial’s to your restaurant

You gotta get ‘em while they’re young!

Millennials are loyal, social and they like to talk, which means they can also be your best brand ambassadors! Consider the divisive forces of brands – are you team Zizzi or Prezzo. Millennials are looking for support in their lifestyle, therefore, brands who interact with millennial customers to help define a certain lifestyle create stronger followings.

Here are several ways to attract the millennial’s:

An inventive menu
This doesn’t mean put unheard-of-combinations of ingredients on the menu. The key is to more interesting vocabulary in how you describe the food. So instead of a ‘chicken breasts with cheese chutney and spinach in a roll’ describe it as ‘Succulent chicken breasts joined by crispy skin melting cheddar cheese, smoky red pepper chutney and baby spinach in a bolo do caco – a soft, sweet roll. Deliciously messy!’

Social media
This may seem pretty obvious but it’s one of the quickest ways to ensure millennials are promoting your restaurant on social media channels. Promote your own social media profiles by putting them on your menu and dotted around as reminders. Also don’t forget about those creative hashtags!

Lights. Camera. Food!
Eating it and staring at it. Which is exactly what millennials prefer, to eat and then stare at food online. Food photography is single-handedly changing the restaurant industry. According to research carried out by Zizzi, 18-29 year-olds spend an impressive 5 whole days a year browsing food images on Instagram and a staggering 30% would avoid restaurants if their Instagram presence was weak (Hosie, 2017).

Attend Freshers’ Fairs
Nando’s have acknowledged the importance of attending fresher fairs to increase engagement amongst the millennials consumers, which they have NAILED! The campaign was very simple, yet very effective. The individual had to spin the mighty wheel to claim a PERI-PERI reward. They utilised social media alongside it by explaining how it worked and announcing that there were tonnes of prizes to be given away to entice more millennials to attend.

Millennials will challenge, expect more, and desire a better idea for how to live: Ignoring them may well lead to the demise of your brand. This generation is just realising their purchasing power; as another decade passes, the brands they have built relationships with today will be the ones they are loyal to tomorrow.

If you need help or advice on how to communicate your brand message to students, please get in touch today!

Written by: Lois Gower, Media Partnership Account Coordinator, BAM Agency Ltd

Do you fully understand students?

Students are an ever evolving segment of youth, they are more career orientated, they have more interest in life experiences such as travel, they are more savvy and are more interested in what is happening in our world than ever before. Students however, will always be students and there are certain segments we can divide them into to better position ourselves as marketeers.

One particular category we have spent a significant amount of time researching is students attitude towards University and life in general – the “Last Minuters” and the “Overachievers”. We currently believe there to be circa 15% in the Overachievers segment and 30% in the Last Minuters segment. The remainder of the student population will be somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum.

But what do we mean when we say Overachievers and Last Minuters?

Overachievers can be described as those students who have a keen desire to achieve, to be the best they can be and who are willing to go above and beyond to ensure they achieve the very best results throughout their time at University, in everything that they do. The doers, the triers, the proactive kind.

Last Minuters as you may have guessed are much the opposite. These students are renowned for leaving everything to the last minute, failing to prepare, most likely to be that friend who is always late. These students live on the edge, scraping through University and life by the skin of their teeth.

So now we have identified these two segments, how do you market to them to hit their key motivators to buy?

Overachievers

The Overachiever’s motivators to buy usually comes from their own personal drive but can also come from pressure from parents/guardians or other family members to succeed. They want to impress, they want to be the best.

These students will be attracted to a product or service that promises to make them better. Whether this is a pair of the very best trainers that will make them win that race or a learning resource that will show them exactly how to ace that dissertation, if you can convince these students that they “need” your product to help them become the best they can be, you will hit their motivators to buy.

Don’t forget your timing, timing is very important. Bare in mind the nature of Overachievers, they fact that they are likely to be trying to get ahead of the game, looking for a product or service way in advance of when they actually need it so that they are prepared to succeed. With this in mind spend some time understanding the key times of the year when students of this segment are most likely to purchase your product, planning your campaign dates in advance of these key times.

Last Minuters

Classic Last Minuter

With the clue in the title, Last Minuters are going to want things quickly and with ease. These students are attracted to products or services that promise to get them out of that tight spot they have gotten themselves into, they are looking for their hero! Whether this is ordering takeaway because they forgot to shop again, or completely forgot to get a thoughtful gift for a friends birthday, if you can be the saving grace for these students in their hour of need, you will hit their motivators to buy.

It will come as no surprise that marketing to the Last Minuters well in advance of when they need your service or product will fall on deaf ears. You need to clearly identify when they will be in that tricky situation and come to their rescue.

At BAM we spend a lot of time working with our clients to find out exactly who their audience is so that we understand them and best position our clients to market to them. For most brands their audience will be made up of a mixture of both Overachievers and Last Minuters so you must create your strategy in line with their varying motivations to buy.

Some brands however you may find that they are more attractive to Overachievers than Last Minuters or vice versa. If this is the case they must strongly focus on their attributes and motivators to buy when developing their marketing strategy.

Brands mustn’t forget that message and tone is of utmost important. This was shown in a recent presentation from Tim Bodenham at the YMS17, asking the question “are all students the same?”. From our intense research we have found that brands need to engage with students, not talk at them. Their message must be aimed towards them personally, in a language that they not only understand, but gain a connection with and find comfort and trust in.

To find out more about your brand’s student audience, about the segmentation of students or the routes to market, get in touch!

An Englishman in Kazakhstan

I still have to pinch myself that over the last 12 months we have been working hand in hand with Burger King in Kazakhstan. When we were first contacted by them we weren’t sure if the inquiry was a prank as we knew nothing about the country however we do know students and that was what Burger King needed support with.

One year on and we will shortly be heading back to Kazakhstan for the third time in the last year having supported Burger King with their expansion plans. I will be heading there for a week to review how our first year partnership has gone and to agree our strategy for 2017/18. It seemed like an opportune time to take stock of my experience working with our friends 4,500 miles away.

I could tell you about how we conducted research; focus groups and scoped out a 12 month marketing strategy, how we have helped them develop their brand proposition and tone of voice for students, how we have helped create a student mini-site, built a gamified app and launched what we believe to be the first student Brand Ambassador programme in Kazakhstan. Check out my video blog –

But that’s just BAM’s bread and butter right?

So I thought it would be far more interesting to share my experience working across time zones, across language barriers and in a country which I admit to knowing nothing about before being approached by Burger King a year ago. So here is my own run down of the top things I’ve learnt about working in Kazakhstan:

Kazakhstan is home to 18 million people.

Kazakhstan is big! Very big! In fact it’s the world’s biggest landlocked country. Similar to the US they take internal flights like we hail a taxi!

Kazakhstan is a former Soviet state which gained independence in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It’s around and 8hr flight from the UK. KLM is better than Aeroflot and the flight has a change in Amsterdam which is officially home to the best Airport bar going.

It’s around an 8hr flight from the UK. KLM is better than Aeroflot because the flight has a change in Amsterdam which is officially home to the best Airport bar going.

Russian is the main language but everyone speaks good English… meaning we have only had to learn a handful of Russian words during our work there – Spasibo ?

In the winter it is freezing! On our visits during December and January it was deep snow everywhere and -13 degrees. Brrrrrr

Kazakhstan are hoping to host the winter olympics within the next 10 years which will really put the country on the map. Based on our trip up in the mountains it’s definitely got the required slopes and snow combo going on!

Good news is when we are there in late June we will be melting as the weather shifts to a sweltering 33 degrees. Ah, I’m melting!

On our first visit we were taken for a traditional meal consisting of – Mutton Soup, various Horse related platters, Goat, and sour dairy products such as Kurt made from mares Milk!

If the team at Burger King are anything to go by, they work really hard. The office is always busy from morning until late in the evening. They are passionate about what they are doing, keen to learn and very ambitious. All things we love here at BAM!

Kazakhstan folk are so welcoming and hospitable and very ambassadorial for their country. Wherever we went outside of working time locals were keen to chat and tell us about the wonderful things we should do and see.

Almaty is the biggest city in Kazakhstan with 1.8million residents. It was the capital city until 1997. The name Almaty means ‘Father of Apples’ and locally is referred to as Apple Town with many claiming it is the home of the first apple. Hmm fruity!

The Capital city is Astana. It is a modern planned city like Brasilia housing the central seat of Government. It represents the new ambitious forward thinking plans the country has and has many new futuristic buildings.

There are around 660,000 university students studying at 188 different Universities. Students there have the same hopes, dreams , aspirations and reassuringly behave in pretty much the same way to how we see UK students. They want to work hard in Uni and spend time with their friends and family.

Students are super enthusiastic and are really excited to see new brands. If we hadn’t mentioned it before (ah hem) BAM recently launched the first Student Brand Ambassador programme….just look at those lovely students. Gotta love them.