FIVE GUYS: DEVELOPING A

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE

FUTURE

MARCH 25th, 2020

EBRAHIM MAZAHERI

BU362 A2

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What

Five Guys has recently experienced rapid growth and the company’s promotional budget has

expanded accordingly. Now Jerry Murrell, founder and CEO, has been tasked with determining

how to allocate said budget and re-adjust the company’s promotional strategy moving forward. I

recommend maintaining their current promotions while adding an additional annual sweepstakes

campaign entitled Follow the Food Truck. During this five-week long campaign taking place in

July and August, Five Guys will send food trucks across the United States to various events

selling their current menu offerings (Exhibit 1). Five golden burger wrappers will be randomly

placed amongst these food trucks (Exhibit 1). The lucky five guys, and girls, who unwrap their

burger to find the gold foil inside will win an all-expenses-paid trip for four to Washington, D.C.

to tour the original Five Guys restaurant (Exhibit 2). Meanwhile, any customers who visit a Five

Guys restaurant or food truck during this time can post a picture on social media with the

#FollowTheFoodTruck to be entered into a draw to win one of 1000 $50 Five Guys’ gift cards.

Why

Five Guys’ existing promotional strategy focused on word-of-mouth marketing has been

extremely successful and enabled them to occupy a unique and favourable position in the fast

casual market (Exhibit 3). My recommended market penetration strategy allows Five Guys to

continue down this successful route and abide by their management preferences to avoid

traditional advertising media. Sweepstakes serve as an effective tool to amplify word-of-mouth

marketing (Kane, 2012), thereby complementing Five Guys’ current strategy and magnifying

their main strength found in their earned media presence (Exhibit 4). Five Guys’ main target

market of millennials with young families, (Exhibit 5), value experiences (Saiidi, 2016).

Therefore, they will value this campaign as it gives them the chance to win an experience

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travelling to Washington, D.C. with their family. Smaller prizes will also be awarded as 72% of

people will enter a sweepstakes if the odds of winning are high whereas 67% will enter

based on the size of the reward (HelloWorld, 2018). By offering both large trips and

small gift cards, customers will view the sweepstake as both valuable and attainable,

thereby attracting a large number of entrants. Financially, similar sweepstake campaigns

have increased sales 5.6% (The Star, 2010). Based on those numbers, this campaign will

generate an expected profit of over $6,000,000 (Exhibit 6).

How

In implementing the Follow the Food Truck campaign, Five Guys’ positioning, products and

prices will remain the same. The company should utilize a continuous advertising schedule on all

social media platforms, beginning one month before the campaign, to inform, persuade and

remind customers of this new sweepstake (Exhibit 7). Five Guys’ social media accounts have a

large following of loyal customers and will cost them no additional expenses as all content

creation and posting will be performed by their current marketing team. During the campaign,

the majority of posts will be content that customers have uploaded with the

#FollowTheFoodTruck. This aligns with Five Guys’ current usage of user-generated content and

will be effective as 84% of millennials do not like traditional advertising methods and trust

customer opinions more than brands (Arnold, 2018). Logistically, five food trucks will be sent

across the country beginning in July 2019. Each truck will visit up to ten states where they will

attend various events targeted towards young families, thereby bringing Five Guys directly to its

customers (Exhibit 8 & 9). Winners will have one year from the date they win to claim their trip,

during which they will take control of social media accounts to share their incredible experience

visiting the original Five Guys and highlight the company’s origin story. Once the campaign is

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over, focus will switch to measuring its impact to determine if the promotion should be expanded

into more countries in the future (Exhibit 10).

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 Appendices

Exhibit 1 – Sample Food Truck and Wrapper

*All quotes on the truck are real quotes featured on Five Guys’ restaurant walls

Exhibit 2 – Trip Itinerary and Cost Breakdown

Component Price Day 1 Arrive in Washington, D.C.;
Round-trip Flight ~$100 / person; $400 total (Google Flights, 2020) check into hotel; travel to
*Based on flight from California as this is one of Arlington, Virginia for tour of
the farthest states from Washington and therefore is original Five Guys in the
likely the maximum price afternoon; dinner at Five Guys
Accommodations (2 nights) $471 for a family room (The Wink Hotel, 2020) Day 2 Family has whole day to go on
outings of choice (examples
Allowance provided for family $1000 / family include visiting museums, the
outings of choice Washington Monument,
Total Cost for Five Winners = $9355 Lincoln Memorial, United
States Capitol, etc.)
Exhibit 3 – Fast Casual Market Positioning Map Day 3 Check out of hotel, fly home

Exhibit 4 – SWOT Analysis

Strengths
- Earned media presence
- Customization
- Social media accounts
- Strong brand awareness
- Large promotional budget
($187 million)
- High quality products
- Supply chain management
- Committed employees
- Reputation / awards
Weaknesses
- Conflicting management
preferences between father
and sons
- Some negative publicity
around being unhealthy
Opportunities
- 72% of Americans use social
media in 2017 (Pew, 2019)
- Consumers trust customer
reviews over brands (Consumer
Affairs, 2016)
- Sweepstakes serve as an
effective tool to amplify word-
of-mouth marketing (Kane,
2012)
Threats
- 84% of millennial do not like
traditional advertising methods
(Arnold, 2018)
- Consumers are demanding
healthy fast food (Majumdar,
2018)

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 Exhibit 5 – Target Market Information
*Through an analysis of Five Guys’ social media accounts in 2018, it can be determined that their main target market is millennials
with young families as seen in the pictures below:

Segment Name The Burger Bunch

Benefits Sought A quick, easy, tasty meal made with high-quality ingredients that the whole family will enjoy.
Demographic 25-38 years old; married with young children; average family income of $69,000 (Grabar, 2018).
Geographic Dispersed in urban and suburban neighbourhoods across the United States.
Psychographic Heavy usage - eat out on average five times per week (Tulp, 2017); value experiences (Saiidi, 2016) and
convenience (Rajgopal, 2018); respond well to customization and personalization (Nichols, 2018)

Exhibit 6 – Follow the Food Truck Income Statement 2019

*Using a standard deviation of ~1.5% from the mean, even in the worst case scenario, the Follow the Food Truck campaign will earn
Five Guys over $4,000,000

Exhibit 7 – Social Media Chart (Including Samples with Captions)

Sample INFORM
Purpose Description
Inform Start one month prior to launch, posted up until launch; These posts will
provide details of the contest and prizes to inform customers of this new
promotion; Posted to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Persuade During the five-week campaign; Re-posted user-generated content to
showcase the delicious meals and fun times customers are having at the
Food Trucks; Also includes posts when winners are announced to excite
customers about the possibility to win and persuade them to visit the food
truck themselves; Posted to Facebook and Instagram as these are their main
media-sharing platforms (Twitter is more for responding to customer
questions and complaints)
Remind During the five-week campaign; Geotargeted posts to those living in states
where a Five Guys food truck currently is or will be soon arriving; Remind
people of their opportunity to visit the events and potentially win prizes;
Includes posts to Instagram and Facebook as well as interactive Snapchat
stories with content from both Five Guys and customers
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 Sample PERSUADE Sample REMIND

Exhibit 8 – Food Truck Schedules

Exhibit 9 – Sample Events List / Route for Truck 4

Total miles = 4553 + 200 safety miles for trips to hotels, gas
stations, etc. = 4753 miles / truck (To be conservative in
calculations, I used truck 4 as the sample as it has the longest route and
therefore this is the maximum miles / truck)

Exhibit 10 – Implementation Plan

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information on events in 2019 (when the campaign would be occurring)

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