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Reimage Your Restaurants

MRCA Event

Reimagine Your Restaurants: Digital Evolution During The Pandemic In Malaysia

MRCA Academy presented a talk on how to drive the restaurant business forward amidst the pandemic which has resulted in tremendous consumer shifts.

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ith the state of lockdown at different levels in Asian markets, international travel restrictions and safety priority, the restaurant business in Malaysia has had to adapt to evolving consumer shifts amidst the challenges posed by the pandemic. On 25 June 2021, MRCA Academy presented speakers from Facebook Malaysia and KFC Malaysia, among others, to share their perspectives on the evolution of the restaurant industry.

CONSUMER TRENDS

In 2020, the food service industry was heavily impacted resulting in a 20 percent decline in value compared to 2019. Past gains of restaurant businesses were wiped out in the span of a year. Amidst these challenging times, the million-dollar question is “What can we do to drive the business forward?” The answer is to obtain valuable insights. In driving recovery, businesses have to focus more on ‘recovery forces’ to achieve more sustainable growth. Although cautious, consumers are slowly but surely returning to socialising, thus offering the restaurant business a silver lining amidst tough times.

Recovery forces in action now include the amplified need for escape or to unwind, the increase in demand for small indulgences, the emphasis on self-care including healthy eating and fitness, return to socialising, accelerated switch to new channels, and loyalty to trusted brands.

As consumer behaviours evolve, key trends shaping the restaurant business include discovery instore or online, taste, convenience and value, awareness, traditional advertising, social media, all-day ordering, and an omni-channel value chain.

Flavor of Social Report 2019 stated that, “Over time, our digital and physical food and drink habits have slowly integrated and reengineered how we think about eating and drinking. We live out our food desires through social.”

Deloitte’s Future of Food Report concludes that social media is increasingly driving food choices and trends. Aside from taste, consumers are drawn to food and drink for its aesthetic appeal, novelty, content capital, experiential value, or reflection of social aspirations. Between 2014 and 2017, there has been a 5,850% increase in worldwide views of

social media videos containing the word avocado. A total of 388 million posts on Instagram are tagged #food. Facebook is consistently the top platform for awareness and discovery of food and restaurants in Malaysia.

Consumer values have experienced a paradigm shift with taste, convenience and value as core drivers. Factors for consideration include good value for money, high quality food, variety and speed of delivery. In addition to that, all day dining is now a common trend among consumers.

Striking a balance between brand building and sales investment is mission critical because strong brands recover fast. It was found that strong brands recovered nine times faster following the financial crisis of 2008. According to Kantar Brand Lift Analysis, based on brand lift percentage and sales lift percentage a ratio of 60-40 to 40-60 is recommended for brand building to sales performance investment in the new normal.

With consumers looking for more ways to enjoy, escape and indulge, it has been discovered that time spent watching online video streaming has increased by more than 67 percent, and time spent on social media is 73 percent higher than television. Social media and video growth in Malaysia alone is at more than 50 percent since 2015.

As restrictions hinder consumers from dining out, takeaway and food delivery is here to stay with in-home cooking declining in the new normal.

CREATIVE BEST PRACTICES IN DRIVING THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS

With consumers constantly turning to mobile applications and connectivity, optimising reach through devices and the internet is crucial for the survival of restaurants. Six simple steps to drive restaurant brands via mobile devices is by showcasing the brand early and often, achieving perfect timing for messages (less than 15 seconds), capturing attention with content, building for where people are by reaching out through various channels, designing visual storytelling, and creating more content.

A pilot study with 9 Creative Shop clients showed that visual identity drove impact and conversion, with audiences captivated by interesting in-stream video advertisements. According to Bea Coronel of McDonald’s Philippines, “The campaign proved that Facebook in-stream is a great solution for driving video views and reaching new audiences. After seeing the results, we have scaled up and implemented in-stream video ads across other campaigns.”

The speakers pointed out that today marketers are able to reach potential buyers more rapidly and easily through their mobile phones. Key to riding on this trend is to constantly stay connected with consumers by communicating about the moment. They stressed that personalising experiences in marketing enhances relevance and consumer choices.

REIMAGINE YOUR SALES

Speaking about driving purchases to restaurants, the speakers pointed out the benefits of messenger bots and dynamic advertisements. The way to do it is quite simple – simply connect with consumers where they naturally shop online, choose messenger bot partner to build the messenger shop, and drive the consumer to the messenger.

According to Steff Yong, Digital Manager of QSR Brands (M) Holdings Sdn Bhd (KFC Malaysia), “With food delivery becoming increasingly popular in Malaysia, it’s our mission to be where consumers are and to provide them with a great, simple and instinctive user experience when making orders. The bot for Messenger is a great avenue to achieve this, while also helping us glean more insights into consumers’ needs and demands when ordering food.”

Christine Lorusso, Digital Marketing Manager of Firebirds Wood Fired Frill says, “Advertising on Facebook has had a positive impact on our business and plays a key role in our digital marketing strategy. The ability to create multiple audiences and drill down on who we are marketing to has helped us increase our overall return on investment and better connect with our guests.”

Facebook’s Store Traffic feature makes it easy for shoppers to get to the merchants’ stores. “The store traffic objective is a great way to gain insights into offline conversions and store sales, which in turn allowed us to deepen our partnership with department stores. This campaign has demonstrated how digital channels can be highly effective in supporting offline partners and driving targeted sales for them,” says Benjamin Kinsong, Brand General Manager, Clinique.

The global skincare brand ran a Facebook and Instagram campaign in collaboration with department stores in Thailand and used the store traffic advertising objective to drive offline sales, which brought an 8.8-times return on advertising spend. Through Facebook, Clinique managed to reach 1.3 million consumers while lowering cost per purchase by 6.9 times compared to other online campaigns.

In addition to that, Dynamic Ads feature on Facebook restaurants to drive users to their stores. Using Dynamic Ads has proven to help decrease cost per incremental bookings by 42 percent. Basically, Facebook offers great potential for restaurants to leverage on its platform to penetrate and capture the market and consumers’ interest.

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