In this space, we use to talk about food, however, I want us to start with an example from the world of technology to illustrate and make evident one of the most common mistakes in communication strategies that still do not use the advances of applied neurogastronomy.
Imagine that you are a company that sells cell phones and you are ready to launch your most advanced product so far, it has it all. You ask your advertising agency to design the advertising campaign and its commercial proposal is as follows:
The moment has arrived, now you can buy the smartphone you have been waiting for. With our advanced technology you can make phone calls to your loved ones and send text messages to whoever you want…
Surely, you must be thinking that this advertisement is too silly, how are they going to market phone calls, right?
Well, now ask yourself why a restaurant, as part of its sales pitch, offers good food or good service. For the consumer’s brain this strategy is empty and goes unnoticed; however, most independent restaurants continue to try to attract new diners with this poor strategy.
In the book “The marketing power of emotion”, by John O’Shaughnessy and Nicholas Jackson O’Shaughnessy, they explain that: “Consumer motivations are made up not only of a set of wants and needs, but also of the ability to imagine; a general yearning for novelty as well as stability, and a disposition to be moved by the emotional resonance of events”.
Based on this concept and understanding that a restaurant is the preferred place to celebrate the most important moments of our lives or, on the contrary, overcome the most difficult ones, share with loved ones, do good business, enjoy an ethnic experience, among for many other reasons, it is important that we start directing our communication campaigns in another direction.
Let’s leave behind what everyone does: post photos of beautiful dishes and special offers, because it’s what social media users least want to see. As Donald Burns, creator of The Restaurant Coach podcast, rightly says, it’s about showing the energy of your brand, the emotionality of the team, what moves them, the culture that makes them who they are, the one that makes them different.
With so much information that we are bombarded with every day, our mind is not prepared to remember a photo of a dish, much less a brand or a commercial name, what it is prepared for is to remember everything that reflects its culture, philosophy of life and civic values.
The best strategy to create loyal customers is for them to know that we share more than a promotion. The main objective of being present in the social media is to achieve what is known as mental availability or brand recognizability. To the extent that we share the reasons why we do what we do, together with how and what we do, we will be guaranteeing to be mentally available when the customer has a specific purchase situation.
Always keep this in mind: social networks are social, not a sales catalogue.
We co-created this content with @neurogastronomo to help your business grow.