Boston Market Goes for the Funny Bone

Boston Market is determined to appeal to the appetites of fast-casual diners—many of whom have lapsed from the category—with a little bit of humor in these gloomy times. The restaurant chain has kicked off a campaign, via new lead agency Fallon, highlighting the just-introduced Crispy Country Chicken in a series of funny TV spots. (One 30-second spot, for instance, shows a man bull-riding his colleague as part of a “dare” at the office, in exchange for his cubicle buddy’s Boston Market meal.) Boston Market is currently fourth among the nation’s top 100 fast-casual brands, per research firm Technomic. Chief brand officer Judy Cantrell says the restaurant is set on introducing new menu items that meet the flavor profiles of consumers, such as baked crispy chicken tenders, which Boston Market will begin testing in the South. That's not the only introduction the company is cooking up. Brandweek recently chatted with Cantrell about Boston Market's humorous ads and how the chain is coping with the recession.Brandweek: What made you select Fallon as your new lead agency?Judy Cantrell: We engaged Fallon back in the beginning of January 2009. We are on a mission to regain our top of mind presence with consumers, to rejuvenate the brand’s personality. Boston Market has a history of being just a real favorite with our consumers for many years, but certainly in these competitive economic times, we have the opportunity to just step out there again and get people excited about remembering what great quality and value Boston Market offers and to also entice them with some interesting flavors and we’ve engaged Fallon to do that in a new and creative way.Fallon showed us a real ability to dig deep into consumer insight and help us understand that as a brand, there are certain triggers and attachments that consumers make with us that they might not make with other [brands] and we want them to help us find those triggers and act against them in strategy and creative. BW: How is Boston Market trying to refresh the brand?JC: It’s more kind of product-personality driven at this point. We are going to be really developing our brand positioning over 2009. We had a great opportunity to introduce our Crispy Country Chicken breaded chicken product. It’s new and different, but still keeps us deeply rooted in our heritage of the quality of the chicken as our base product. And when Fallon went out and did a bit of research into this insight, they found that people connected with this product, but also found their experience with Boston Market to be something that was warm and comfortable and almost down-home, as if you were putting out a nice dinner spread on a great country kitchen table. It seemed a natural for us to connect this product with how our guests feel about Boston Market as a brand. We really took it and did a bit of stretching and one of the things we did was use a line, "Leave country to the experts," but we made sure to tag it with, "From the chicken experts at Boston Market." We don’t look at ourselves as country experts. That’s kind of tongue in cheek. We do see ourselves as the chicken experts and we want to bring a bit of the country flair to this campaign.BW: Humor is clearly an element in the ads. Why so?JC: In tough times, people look for relief in a lot of places. This isn’t rocket science. This is just great food. We want our guests to enjoy our food; we want to remind them of their brand experience with us with a bit of levity. People need a bit of humor, especially in these days. This is not totally new for Boston Market. We have always said that we are a brand that likes to communicate with a wink and a smile. I’d say we’ve tried to take that smile now and put it to more of a ‘grin’ status.BW: And why is the meal occasion the perfect opportunity to do that?JC: The meal occasion is where we get to say, "This is a wrap up to the day." It’s a time to forget about some of the issues out there and to just sort of say, "We just want to have a good meal and have a few laughs together." It represents where people are with the state of the economy nowadays.BW: What value tactics have worked well thus far?JC: Since last fall, we have been promoting a $5 value menu. We attend to both individual diners as well as to the family dining occasion, both on and off premise. We try to offer the whole value equation with a two-prong approach: The $5 menu gives individual guests the opportunity to enjoy a complete meal with us, which is of a little better value right now, when we have tight pocketbooks. The family dinner, which we have been promoting for several months, includes a $1.99 whole, add-on chicken and a $2 large, add-on side to enhance one of the family meals. And both of those promotions have been very successful for us. It’s just played off of our strengths. It’s giving people a little bit of an extra value shot at a time when things are pretty tough.BW: Boston Market recently kicked off a $50,000 Fresh Start sweepstakes (a first in its 24-year history). Why?JC: It’s been very successful for us. Everyone wants to win $50,000. It allows us to connect with guests who may be interested in getting out there and receiving news and information from us. When consumers enter the contest online, it gives us an opportunity to include guests in our database and through that, we’ve developed a nice program where we send out additional offers and communication to further engage those guests from a loyalty standpoint. We also have regular daily prizes we award on a much smaller scale and that gives us another opportunity to connect with consumers as well.BW: What menu items have been doing well these days?JC: Our family meals are always a huge hit, especially in these times of people hunkering down and dining more at home. We offer a family value meal where you can order that whole rotisserie chicken, or our old time favorites—our mashed potatoes and gravy and mac and cheese. Those are products that die-hard fans and new fans usually get engaged with pretty quickly. That kind of family meal dining experience is something we can offer that allows consumers to actually take that meal home and not have to spend the time or money shopping for it and actually cooking it, but to be able to lay out a very nice, home cooked quality meal for the family at a very reasonable price at a time when that’s tough to do. Our family meal, our off premise business, is moving, as is our sandwich line. We introduced a new artisan bread in a white and a whole grain version this past year and that bread is phenomenal. It has added an extra element to Boston Market. Not only do we have great bread, but we also offer, I think, unsurpassed protein in our sandwiches. We do carved, off-the-bone rotisserie chicken as well as hand-carved turkey. Those are high quality meats.BW: Give us a sneak peek of the Boston Market we’ll see in the coming months.JC: With summer coming quickly, we will focus our business on a summer barbecue. And again, having the family meal products, as well as the individual meal products, gives people the opportunity to enjoy that in a lot of places because with spring and summertime comes a lot of large group celebrations. We have a great product lineup with summer barbecues and beverages and chilled/fried items. We can offer them for picnics and family reunions and graduations. A lot of times, people want to gather together and have great food to share with family and friends, but making it isn’t an easy process. We are also about to test our Crispy Chicken tenders, which I believe is a huge opportunity for us to reach yet an additional guest. That is a breaded product. But just like the Crispy Country Chicken product that we have right now, we do not finish fry that product in our restaurants. We bake that product off. It just offers really good, wholesome [food]. Chicken tenders are one of those products that are huge sellers these days everywhere. They are highly desirable products, they are popular and all segments and categories in the restaurant business tend to get into chicken tenders. It has great multi-use for snacking, on the go, sitting down and dining.BW: Which markets are you testing it in?JC: We haven’t totally decided yet. Most likely a market or two in the South.BW: Favorite item on the menu?JC: I love our mashed potatoes and gravy. I’m like every other consumer on the face of this Earth. And I am also a big fan of the spinach soufflé. It’s a hardier product on our menu. The nice thing is, you can really pick and choose. Those are on days when I want to be a little indulgent and on days when I try to be a little more disciplined, I’m a big fan of our Caesar salad with rotisserie chicken on top.BW: So what are you cooking up in the culinary kitchen nowadays?JC: One of the things we’re very focused on from a product standpoint is paying attention to different flavor profiles out there. We’re seeing a lot of activity around spicy [foods] and dipping sauces, and we’re even open to looking at seasonings for our proteins and side items. We’ve seen over the years how salsas and dips have become replacements for ketchup. We’re doing a lot of homework around what the consumer is looking for in their flavor profiles in the future.

Brand Marketing

Boston Market Goes for the Funny Bone

Elaine Wong

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Elaine Wong