INSTITUTE OF RURAL MANAGEMENT ANAND

MARKETING MANAGEMENT (MMT) PRM-41 | Term - II | SEC – B | GROUP - 9

FIVE GUYS: DEVELOPING A PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE FUTURE

Situation Analysis

Five guys, a privately held company, started in 1986 based in the United States. It was a fast-
casual burger and fries’ restaurant which stayed away from traditional advertising. It offered a
straightforward menu consisting of hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and fries along with an
assortment of beverages. Five guys provided custom made products which created more
combinations of burgers and soft drinks at outlets. It had 1500 outlets operating across various
countries. Five guys generally fast-casual industry focused on providing customers with high-
quality food made and with quality ingredients. Promotional strategy of The Five Guys entirely
centred upon word of mouth publicity and social media.

It always believed that customers were the best marketers, so they highly focused on product -
the food, spent little on advertising. To ensure high quality they used to conduct third party
audits per week in store as secret shopper and safety audit, these audits kept the crew motivated
to provide a top consumer experience consistently. Five guys used a variety of social media
platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snap-chat to interact with customers and answer
their questions along with expansion efforts, general promotions and new store openings. It
also created a cross-functional social media team to monitor social media operations which is
a major part of the promotional campaign. Unlike social media and word of mouth, it also
relied on publicity as a promotional tool. Murrell, the company’s founder and CEO wants to
re-adjust the company’s promotional strategy for the future.

Problem Statement.

To re-adjust Five Guy’s promotional strategy and decide on where to spend the company’s
promotion funds.

Defining Criteria

To gain a competitive advantage over the market.

Generating Alternatives

In-Store Promotions

They can introduce loyalty programs where customers earn points per dollar spent at the store
and these points can be redeemed in the future. Offers running for a limited time can also be
introduced during certain times of the year like festivals, Independence Day and New Year.
Loyalty programs are very popular and effective because they force the customers to return to
the stores to redeem their points. After all, these points cannot be utilised anywhere else.

Merchandising

They can sell various products such as T-shirts, Coffee Mugs and Key Chains at the stores so
that loyal customers and people like millennials will buy them as an accessory and this will
also help in the promotion of the brand.

Brand Collaborations

They can collaborate with food-related magazines and insert a page smelling of food so that
consumers can smell the food before they can actually taste it. This was once done by Times
of India to advertise a particular product.

They can collaborate with local brands to distribute coupons at partner stores which will help
them increase their visibility locally with minimum added expenditure.

No changes Required

They can also choose to not tamper with the existing successful strategy, which is working out
pretty well for them. Why fix it if it ain't broke. Instead, The Five Guys can use the surplus to
continue giving out bonuses and focus on bettering the offerings on their menu. This will give
customers more variety of dishes to choose from, and people will be willing to visit them to try
out the new offerings on the menu.

Action Plan

They can go for merchandising and also collaborate with brands to distribute the coupons at
partner stores so that they can get more customers. Apart from this, the current strategy seems
to be fine, and no further modifications are needed.