<\/p>\n
Chili’s tied an offer to the Outlook outage while jabbing at its fast-food peers | Photo from X<\/p>\n
The restaurant industry is filled with the most creative marketers on the planet and that\u2019s a hill I\u2019m willing to die on. Can you imagine any other industry jumping into cultural conversations as quickly and cheekily as restaurant brands?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Take Arby\u2019s. In 2014, the chain noticed that singer Pharrell\u2019s oversized hat resembled its logo, tweeting, \u201cHey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back?\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2017, someone on Twitter noticed that the locations of several Outback Steakhouse restaurants formed a pentagram. The casual-dining chain responded with an image of its Bloomin\u2019 Onion and joked that it was plotting its signature dish instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The phrase \u201ctatted like a Chipotle bag\u201d gained traction during the 2019 Super Bowl halftime performance when fans on social media compared Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine\u2019s tattoos to the artwork on Chipotle\u2019s to-go bags. Chipotle has since run several \u201cTatted Like a Chipotle Bag\u201d promotions, offering tattooed customers \u2014 whether donning permanent or temporary ink \u2014 a buy-one-get-one entr\u00e9e free. The latest promotion in March set a single-day sales record for the brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement, several brands from Krispy Kreme to Portillo\u2019s and Carl\u2019s Jr. celebrated the occasion with real-time promotions. The list goes on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, perhaps we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that plenty of restaurant chains pounced on this week\u2019s global Microsoft\/Outlook outage that has impacted millions of users across 74 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wendy\u2019s, known for its acerbic social media tone, used the outage to poke fun at rival McDonald\u2019s and its frozen beef. Torchy\u2019s Tacos eased guests\u2019 fears by noting, \u201cOutlook might be down, but our Margarita machines are still working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crumbl played on its brand, suggesting that Outlook users \u201cshould have accepted those cookies.\u201d Burger King recommended going out and getting a Whopper while the Outlook issue was being resolved. McDonald\u2019s asked if \u201cthey\u2019ve tried putting our emails in Sprite.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noodles & Company posted, \u201cSooo Microsoft is down. Leave your office. Buy some noodles. BE FREEEEEE.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Chili\u2019s, which went beyond dragging Microsoft or rejoicing at the quiet of an idle inbox. The casual-dining chain once again took an opportunity to take a swing at its fast-food competitors \u2014 a marketing message that has helped drive its robust sales and traffic throughout the past three years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chili\u2019s even tacked on an offer: \u201cEMAILS ARE DOWN AND FAST FOOD PRICES ARE UP!! Keep ignoring your emails and quote this with #chilis3forme and tell us how much you paid for your last overpriced fast food \u2018value meal\u2019 and we\u2019ll pick 500 people and give them a free 3 For Me on us!!\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, Chili\u2019s connected two timely conversations \u2014 the Microsoft outage and consumer frustration over fast-food prices \u2014 and used it to promote its own value proposition. This is more than just a funny reactive post; it\u2019s product promotion, a competitive jab, and a consumer-engagement campaign rolled into one.<\/p>\n
Moving at the speed of culture, as IHOP President Lawrence Kim once described, is no easy feat. But restaurant brands do it because it presents an opportunity to become part of a conversation consumers are already having. They\u2019re speaking with them rather than at them and creating top-of-mind awareness organically, which is tough to do when things are particularly noisy. A clever post can travel well beyond a brand\u2019s existing followers and generate a ton of impressions without a traditional media buy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That said, risks exist; you have to know when the moment has passed and be aware that your brand may not seamlessly fit into a broader conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the risk can be worth it. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, restaurant brands aren\u2019t just competing for stomachs or wallets. They\u2019re competing for relevancy, and real-time marketing gives them an opportunity to earn attention, reinforce their positioning and, if they\u2019re lucky, turn a joke into traffic.<\/p>\n
Contact Alicia Kelso at alicia.kelso@informa.com<\/p>\n
Follow her on TikTok: @aliciakelso\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chili’s tied an offer to the Outlook outage while jabbing at its fast-food peers | Photo from X The restaurant industry is filled with the most creative marketers on the planet and that\u2019s a hill I\u2019m willing to die on. Can you imagine any other industry jumping into cultural conversations as quickly and cheekily as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41932,120,7,8],"class_list":["post-57045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-restaurants","tag-marketing-bites","tag-news","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117610768239811904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}