Ian Roche
Professor Leake
WRIT 1133
23 April 2013
Marketing:
What decisions are made to be successful?
The
goal of a business is to have a product and outcompete other companies with the
same type of product to receive a larger share of the market. The food business
is no different and in fact has another facet to their marketing. This
additional facet is the restaurants must attract people to their product and entice
them to return to the restaurant for food time and again. To do this the
restaurant must attract people with deals and all the other aspects that other
companies use to attract their target audience and then with the mood,
atmosphere, and food the restaurant needs to entice the target audience. Mood
and atmosphere are so crucial to a restaurant because everyone wants to feel in
place and this is not accomplished by creating a mood unsuitable for the
desired demographic. Food quality and style is also important, first, because
no one wants to eat disgusting food and, secondly, the style of food is
important. Overall, to create a successful restaurant it is incredibly
important to blend the appropriate mood and atmosphere with the appropriate
food.
Mood
and atmosphere are needed to create a suitable environment for the desired
customers. Mood and atmosphere are two very similar concepts concerning the
physical environment of a restaurant. However, in this paper mood will be used
to discuss the psychological decisions made by the restaurant such as music and
employee attitudes, while atmosphere is referring to the physical
characteristics that make up the restaurant. These include layout, features,
and employee looks. Restaurants have to make many decisions to appeal to the psyche
of their customers. Many people have gotten the feeling of being out of place
when they enter a restaurant; this is a sign that the customer is not the
target audience of the restaurant. One may feel out of the target audience due
to the mood, atmosphere, or both. These aspects are used to establish a
familiar or comfortable setting for the patrons of the target audience. Creating
such an environment promotes customers to return because of the pleasurable
experience of dining at the particular restaurant. This idea is supported by a
Taiwanese study completed by Lin Yann-Jou and colleagues, “The results suggest mat restaurant operators should
provide quality services mat appeal to customers' intentions when they are
searching for pleasant dining experiences […]”3 As
mentioned above music, employee attitudes, and physical characteristics are all
used to create the favorable and desired restaurant environment.
Music is an additive to
most restaurant scenarios. While the music seems to be purely background noise
to the customers, this subliminal sensing is targeted by the restaurants. Many
studies have been done on the musical choices of restaurants. One study done on
the fast-food industry showed a softening in music volume led to a decreased
amount of eating and a rise in the restaurant approval of the customers.1
This shows not only promise to possibly reduce calorie intake of American
citizens, it also can be used to explain the musical choices of higher tier
restaurants as well. These restaurants are typically playing barely audible classical
music with low lighting. The low lighting was another aspect of the study done
by van Ittersum and Wasink. Their study showed that low lighting had the same
positive effects as soft music.1 The specificity of classical music
is referencing the study done by Wilson showing that classical music made
customers expect and inclined to spend more money at the restaurant.2
However, many other types of restaurants do not play this music. These
restaurants tend to be more “hip” restaurants trying to appeal to a younger,
less sophisticated, and lower socioeconomic class target audience. Therefore,
it seems playing music that appeals to the target audience is more important
than playing soft classical music to boost sales. Snarf’s is a very good
example of this change in musical style and volume. The colorful and college
oriented sandwich shop near the University of Denver blares music from the
1980s and 1990s. Snarf’s has the ability to do this and continue to be a
successful restaurant because their target customers are the college kids
passing by and intrigued by the loud music and vibrant atmosphere. While music
establishes mood another important characteristic is the employee interactions
with the restaurant goers. This phenomenon varies widely from restaurant to
restaurant, again greatly depending on the target audience. In a relaxed college-aged
environment the employees are much more relaxed and tend to be much louder. This
was shown in a Dallas taco stand, Fuzzy Taco’s. The young man working behind
the counter was yelling at the top of his lungs to get people to come get their
food. At a high tier restaurant this would be an instant firing. First of all
it is not how the patrons want their food delivered at a high tier restaurant.
Second, a high tier restaurant is typically more sophisticated, leading to a
much more professional environment. While it has been constantly reiterated in
this paper, target audience is the basis of all of these marketing decisions.
Atmosphere is another
incredibly important aspect of a successful restaurant. To create the proper
atmosphere the restaurant must decide on décor, features of the restaurant, and
the physical appearance of the employees. Décor is important because this sets
the vibes of the restaurant. Snarf’s does a very good job with their décor. As
a restaurant attracting college students Snarf’s combines the loud lively mood
with bright neon colors and stainless steel tables to create a lively
atmosphere that is attractive to most college students. However, when one goes
to a higher tier restaurant they can observe a stark difference in the décor.
Similar to the music and employee-patron interactions the décor will be much
more refined and professional. These two characteristics give the restaurant
some ethos because of the pathos they invoke. Seeing professional and refined décor
gives many people a sense of respect for the establishment and likely have a
similar effect to classical music, promoting more spending.2 While,
it is necessary to establish the atmosphere with décor, the employee looks also
establish the atmosphere. Tokyo Joe’s, a fast-food Asian restaurant here in
Denver, is an example of employee looks. Each employee is seems to be covered
in tattoos and piercings, giving the fast food and relaxed atmosphere, while at
this archetypal higher tier restaurant would never have employees that gave off
any sense of lackadaisical or unprofessional. The third and final major part of
atmosphere is the other features of the restaurant. During observations at
Snarf’s there were many features that were signals of a college restaurant. The
presence of arcade games and a bar were give-a-ways that the target audience was
a younger audience, who wanted to drink and have fun, two characteristics of
college students. While in a higher tier restaurant one usually finds a classy
bar that is there to attract social conversations and no arcade games would be
found in a restaurant appealing more to refined adults. Appealing to the target
audience is the job of a marketer and restaurants must continue the process of
marketing throughout the entire dining process to have repeat customers.
Appropriate
food is the food that will appeal to the needs and desires of the target
audience. Food is the central material object of a restaurant. While, people
may venture to restaurants for social interactions the food is the material
component that draws people back. Once enticed by the appropriate mood and
atmosphere a restaurant goer will then venture to the menu and find the desired
food. It is essential to know what the quality and type of food should be. Here
at the University of Denver there are many restaurants surrounding campus, as
mentioned above each has varying moods and atmospheres that appeal to the
masses of college students that comprise the majority of their businesses. The
quick service is one component of the food that seems to be incredibly
important to these restaurants. From experience college students lead
incredibly busy lives and this creates the need for quick food. Horwitz, an
author and professor, discusses this idea of how our lives are becoming more
hectic and on-the-go resulting in this quick restaurant appeal. She exhibits
this by writing, “[…] calories consumed from what people call snacks, while the
calories consumed at meals, particularly at dinner, actually decreased during
the same period of observation. On such a frontier, I am more tempted to pause
than to parse—to pause to reflect on how temporal-spatial patterns of eating
shift over time.”4 This quote in “Eating at the Edge” is discussing
the above idea that we are transitioning from the typical eating styles of
sitting down to eat with family to eating meals quickly and solitary. Also, the
quote is discussing the change in typical eating habits. The habits have
shifted from minimal snacking and three major sit down meals to nearly constant
eating which comprises of lots of snacking and small meals. This style of
eating, referred to as “eating on your own time” by Horwitz seems to be a large
reason for the increase in our countries weight.4 Another essential
aspect of college food is low cost. The ingredients need to be the highest
quality for the lowest cost. This is where “appropriate” food comes into the
restaurant business. While it may seem that choosing the highest possible
quality food, this is not the case. A restaurant must chose the level of their
food quality and around a college campus the food quality seems to take a
slight dip to accommodate a price drop. The price drop is an appeal to college
students because it allows them to escape the typically sub-par cafeteria food
for higher quality food in a more appealing setting.
What
can be taken from the argument is that mood, atmosphere, and food are all
important aspects of a successful restaurant, however, these aspects vary from
restaurant. Appropriate is a key term in the argument. This is shown in each
example used because restaurants make their decisions based on their audience.
When a restaurant is aiming to attract a high class customer base they will
make decisions based on that demographic. While these may seem like the
decisions to attract customers with money a fast food place does not make these
same decisions because their target audience is not attracted by these
decisions. A restaurant that can capture the mood, atmosphere, and food types
to appeal to the psychological desires of the appropriate demographic will be a
successful business.
Bibliography
1van
Ittersum, Koert, and Brian Wansink. “Fast Food Restaurant Lighting and Music can Reduce Calorie
Intake and Increase Sastisfaction1,2.” Psychological Reports. 111.1 (2012):
228-232. Online.
2Wilson,
Stephanie. “The Effect of Music on Perceived Atmosphere and
Purchase Intentions in a Restaurant.” Psychology
of Music. 31.1 (2003): 93-112. Online.
3Lin,
Yann-Jou, and Liu, His-Lin, and Chiang, Wan-Erh. “The Effect of Experiential
Providers on Restaurant Patronage Decisions.” Social Behavior and Personality. 40.7 (2012): 1065-1066. Online.
4Horwitz,
Jamie. “Eating at the Edge.” Gastonomica:
The Journal of Food and Culture. 9.3 (2009): 42-47. Online.
No comments:
Post a Comment