Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

FIVE GUYS

BRAND POSITIONING PACKET

Gloom+Gijinka GG001 compiled by Nicholas Ezyk

2 May 2014

internal information: identifier • ezyk2

project • ADV150 SP14 assignment no. • 1+2, combined

supervisor • Quinn Qin

Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

BRAND Five Guys TEN BRAND FACTS [all facts on this page are presented in ascending order of importance, 5/10-1]

● Five Guys currently has 1000 locations in three countries (as of 2011), with another 1500 currently in development. The majority are franchised.

● Five Guys locations have no freezers, as everything is fresh on-site. ● Five Guys has their potatoes out in the open because in their formative years, they didn’t have the

room to stow them in the back. ● As of 2011, five new franchises were opening every week. ● In each Five Guys location, there is a sign up that shows where exactly the potatoes being served

came from. ● Five Guys is the 26th largest fast food franchise in the United States. ● The chain as a whole had over one billion dollars in revenue in 2012, with each store averaging

about $1.05 million in annual sales. ● Apart from continual expansion in North America, Five Guys is looking to expand into Western

Europe as well. ● Between 2010 and 2012, Five Guys has grown by a staggering 62%, making them far and away

the fastest-growing fast food chain in the United States. ● In spite of these massive gains, Five Guys has almost no national marketing, relying almost

exclusively on word of mouth. DEMOGRAPHIC 18-49yo, male

● Respond favorably to outward displays of price (“this sandwich is only a dollar!”) ● Additionally prized by advertisers for their large amounts of disposable income. ● Comprises a large segment of the demographic landscape. ● Financially independent, save for college students and certain other young adults. ● Typically respond well to celebrity tie-ins and other large promotional stunts. ● Attracted toward spectacle at the lower end of the age range. ● Attracted toward nostalgia at the upper end of the age range. ● Upward mobility is on the mind of many of them ● Much more motivated by impulse than most market segments. ● Prized by advertisers for their limited brand loyalty.

COMPETITOR FACTS

● Five Guys sits in an unfilled niche (the “gourmet burger” fast food chain) in most markets. ● As a result, it faces competition on several fronts. ● Its service format is much like a quickservice chain; however, its prices are slightly higher than

most fast food franchises (e.g., Wendy’s, Culver’s). ● However, its prices are slightly lower than sitdown chains with similar portions (e.g., Applebee’s,

Ruby Tuesday’s). ● In addition, it faces challenges in certain markets from entrenched local chains with great brand

loyalty in their markets (e.g., In-n-Out in California, Steak n’ Shake in the Midwest, Portillo’s in the Chicago area).

Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

CREATIVE BRIEF prepared by Nicholas Ezyk, 05.02.2014 Client Five Guys Job GG001 • Five Guys national advertising rollout campaign Delivery 09.11.2014 Budget $420,000.00

PRODUCT OVERVIEW • A newly national gourmet burger chain whose emphasis on freshness gives it “cult-like” brand loyalty. POSITIONING+COMPETITION • From a single store in Arlington, VA in 1986, Five Guys has exploded to 1200 franchises in the US, UK, and Canada, with a 62 percent growth in the past two years. Combining Five Guys’ strong brand loyalty with a cohesive national campaign could place it in the same league of popularity as McDonald’s or Subway. Its position as a quick-service gourmet burger chain distinguishes it in many markets; however, equally brand loyal gourmet burger chains serve certain regional markets, like In-N-Out Burger on the West Coast and Steak n’ Shake in the Midwest. Its price point is situated just below popular national sitdown chains like Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesday, but just above large-scale fast food chains like Wendy’s and Burger King. As a result, Five Guys needs to focus on separating its brand perception from all these competitors at once to truly position itself as a market leader. DEMOGRAPHICS • Targeting an 18-49 year old, middle to upper middle class, male demographic is the quickest path to entrenching brand loyalty, as many in this demographic range have limited brand loyalty. Our target demographic has plenty of disposable income and enjoy dining out. Younger members of this segment are attracted to spectacle and bombast, while older members resonate with nostalgia. These two emotions can be sparked through tie-ins with celebrities and advertisements with a large internal scale. CONCERNS+PERCEPTION • Five Guys has spectacular brand loyalty, excellent popular perception, and strong word-of-mouth. As a result, currently covered markets will likely carry a strong built-in customer base. Marketing should focus on bringing non- and irregular customers into the restaurant. STATEMENT • To solidify Five Guys’ positioning as a pinnacle of quality, a national campaign will be built around the slogan “It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This.” We want consumers to perceive Five Guys as in a class of its own, separated from the rest by sheer quality. OUR APPROACH • Atypical and new promotion formats like guerrilla marketing and social media targeting will present our brand as unique and relevant to younger consumers, while strong traditional marketing outlets will appeal to older consumers more tied to old media formats like TV and radio. TONE • A confrontational, sly, and self-aware tone connects well with the 18-49 year old male demographic. This will work well with our new media-styled approach. Our central message means we can experiment with many different styles of advertising and still keep a cohesive brand focus.

Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

SAMPLE AD • 182 dpi for printing on A4 (8.5x11”) paper • full size at https://i.imgur.com/tbt1z57.jpg

Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT CONCEPT • Integrating Five Guys with a branded entertainment venture would greatly amplify the effects of a national marketing campaign. A great focus for dining establishments is product integration in television shows on major networks. CBS seems most receptive to this, considering the successful Microsoft placements on programs like Hawaii Five-O and NCIS: Los Angeles. Brand integrations for dining establishments are a winning strategy due to their positioning as a necessary good (everyone needs to eat, after all), and a season-long placement on a major television program would give millions of North Americans a look at Five Guys, some for the first time, some for the millionth time. In terms of targeting by income, Five Guys’ price point seems better focused on higher-income households, middle class but not quite upper middle class. According to data recently released by Nielsen, the television program with the highest median income among its viewers is ABC’s Modern Family; viewers average a household annual salary of $81,100. NBC’s Parks and Recreation is just behind, averaging a household annual salary of $81,000. Leading income candidates on the other two major networks are CBS’s The Amazing Race and FOX’s The Mindy Project, with average household annual salaries of $75,700 and $73,800 respectively. Of these four, Parks and Recreation has the youngest demographic skew, which serves well for the 18-49 year old male demographic that our advertising campaign plans on targeting. It is a relatively popular sitcom for its timeslot with an established fanbase, its sixth season just completed, and a seventh likely debuting later this year. A Five Guys-themed branded entertainment could be accomplished both subtly and unsubtly, dependent on the context that we would want to fill. More overt product placement has been done successfully (e.g., the running theme of “product integration” in NBC’s 30 Rock) in the past, but in the grand majority of cases, excessively obvious product placement has been universally derided in the media, such as Subway’s nearly minute-long placement in an episode of Hawaii Five-O, featuring no less than six Subway logos visible on screen at any given moment in the placement. Consumers dislike this form of product integration, as it blurs the line between television programming and television advertising to an unacceptable extent in the eyes of the public. Hence, a good product placement will be subtle; for instance, many television shows have one brand of computer used, the result of product placements by companies like Apple and Dell. Five Guys could be inserted into a show like Parks and Recreation in many ways--recurrent appearances of its storefront in establishing shots, prominent positioning of the its cups on the desks of people with beverages, or a one-off appearance in an episode where its branding is integrated into the plot of the show itself.

Nicholas Ezyk • 2 May 2014 • FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

EVENT SPONSORSHIP CONCEPT • Brand sponsorships on music festivals and tours have paid off very handsomely for their promoters (e.g. Vans Warped Tour, individual stage sponsorships at music festivals like Summerfest in Milwaukee and Lollapalooza in Chicago). To truly push Five Guys as a brand, a truly unique marketing strategy would be a popup show, a musical act with minimal promotion and ad hoc construction. A single stage with one performer at a time would be set up, with a kitchen setup nearby to serve up Five Guys’ delicious burgers and fries at a discounted rate. Drinks may or may not be served, dependent on additional cost concerns and the availability of liquor licenses in the area targeted. This event sponsorship would take advantage of guerrilla, “non-marketed” marketing, like the sudden release of Beyoncé’s self-titled studio album last December, a release with absolutely no hype beforehand that still led to one million copies sold in its first week. However, viral marketing doesn’t necessarily require no advance marketing in other forms. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have been used to great success in the past by firms that participate in viral marketing strategies. Anticipation and discussion through a minimalist, subtle marketing strategy. For instance, the placement of cryptic construction photos on the accounts of local Twitter users with good pull (e.g., college and professional athletes with 5 or 6-figure follower counts) in a short time frame before the event would reach a demographic perfect for a successful viral event--tech-savvy social media users, college age and older, likely with expensive smartphones and a great demand for live entertainment. As a logistical example, a great location for a pilot demonstration of this project would be in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the largest cultural gathering points in the center of a 2.7 million resident city and an easy access point for travel, sitting blocks away from eight metro lines, eleven commuter rail lines, and many buses and trolleys. The location itself is iconic and easily identifiable both by city residents and by outsiders. It has a vibrant outdoor ambience with its large array of fountains and giant Picasso sculpture and has been featured in films from The Blues Brothers to The Dark Knight. As a result, the space has been very successfully in the past to host all varieties of public gatherings and special events. A performance from the mid-afternoon into the early evening on a Friday in June or July would be the optimal timeframe to host such an event, as you get a doubly advantageous combination of businessmen ending their workweek and tourists and suburbanites hitting the city for the weekend. Over a six-hour period (a standard time to acquire a performance permit from a major metro area), three headline performers could put on an hour set a piece, with many opportunities in between for DJs, local acts, and promotional material for Five Guys itself. Having a series of shorter headliners allow for a larger group of people to be targeted; as an example, you could choose to target a young general demographic through a popular Top 40 artist like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, an artist popular with 30 and 40 somethings like Steve Winwood, and an artist with viral appeal on the internet like Action Bronson. In the same sphere of influence would sit a shaded area where delicious Five Guys food would be served to hungry patrons, allowing them to watch the show from the comfort of their seats while having a great meal and, more importantly, getting a unique positive brand impression that will stay in their minds and put the thought of Five Guys in their head every time they go on lunch break.