Five Guys Future Promotional Strategy

In the past, Five Guys has “always stayed away from traditional advertising media” (Di Muro,
2019) and has put their focus on great food, great people and thus a great image. Even though
they have entered new markets and increased revenue, they have held on to their belief that
their success relies not on exposure through brand-owned channels, but on customer
satisfaction and positive publicity. Even though this seems like a simple approach, “Five Guys’
biggest struggle is to stay the same” (Weise, 2011). When thinking about the future marketing
communications strategy for the brand, this challenge needs to be addressed effectively.

The first suggestion for Five Guys’ communications strategy is to streamline social media.
Throughout the past few year, Five Guys has established a presence on Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Google Plus. Due to their diverse presence, the company
has failed to establish large followings on all of their social media handles. In order to express
their philosophy, do few things but do them really well, Five Guys should focus on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Facebook and Instagram should be used to facilitate word
of mouth by offering geo tags and mentions. Twitter should be used to communicate with
their brand-voice, meaning sharing testimonials and anecdotal evidence as well as comedic,
short phrases about their brand in order to gain exposure. An idea for a campaign could be a
“trust them, and then us” slogan accompanied by customer comments. Even though the
company has, in the past, stayed away from political comments, social impact campaigns like
“the world is as diverse as our burgers” could further increase their image and is just what a
company should do in this day in age. Snapchat should be utilized to offer branded filters near
their locations and create brand-content on their story for brand overs.

The second suggestion is to increase the budget for contests and event marketing. Ideas for
how the company could utilize this budget is a “#6Guys” contest of Facebook, where 5 Guys
reaches out to fans and lets them go to extreme lengths to declare their love for the brand
and reward one of them by making them their sixth guy.

Another opportunity for Five Guys is guerilla marketing-type events at their stores. They
could set up instagramable photo ops or plan pop up events at their stores. Triggers could be
sporting events or national holidays like 4th of July. This is another way the company could
facilitate word of mouth and get large exposure on social media, especially when entering
new markets.

Lastly, and controversially, Five Guys should keep doing ‘nothing’. While this sounds
unreasonable and is, of course, to be taken with a grain of salt (after shaking the fries 15
times), this is what Five Guys is perceived to be doing from the general public. For the brand,
this means that any marketing efforts they plan in the future should carefully involve their
customers, not just place an ad in front of them. The reason why Five Guys’ marketing
practices are so successful is that they succeed in facilitating positive, customer owned
communications. This has given them a reputation unlike any other within the industry. While
it has worked for them in the past, it is a very fragile competitive advantage that needs to be
managed for deliberately at every customer touchpoint.
 References

Di Muro, F. (2019, May 10). Five Guys: Developing A Promotional Strategy For The Future
[Editorial]. Ivey Business School Foundation.

Weise, K. (2011, August 16). Five Guys' biggest struggle is to stay the same. Retrieved June
03, 2020, from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44138062/ns/business-
us_business/t/five-guys-biggest-struggle-stay-same/

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