This blog post by Jeff Fromm originally appeared on FastCasual.com.

Pizza might be one of the most versatile ways to grab a quick bite to eat. It comes in takeout, delivery, dine-in, frozen and take-and-bake. Pizza is a staple during college, and research shows that Millennials form habits during that time that stick with them throughout their lives. Four in 10 Americans say they eat pizza at least once a week, according to research by Technomic. This is up from one in four Americans just a few years ago. So, it’s safe to say that pizza’s popularity is rising.

Here are 5 reasons Millennials love pizza.

1.  Quick and easy — usually
Millennials are known for their busy schedules. A typical Millennial may go to a workout class at 6 a.m., go to work from 8 to 5, and then a community event afterward. According to an NPD report, “Reaching the Millennial Generation,” Millennials report they spend half their food budget on takeout. So, whether they have a pizza delivered to their apartment or grab a frozen pizza at the grocery store, it’s a quick and easy option to add to their busy lives.

2. Customizable
Millennials are known for being active co-creators. This means they want to interact with brands, but they also want to interact with their food. They want to make it their own. That’s a reason pizza works so well for them. Pie Five Pizza Co., a Texas-based company, touts its “interactive pizza experience.” Customers can create their own personal pizzas and choose their crust, sauce, meat and veggies.

3. Never gets old
With unique combinations and customizable pies, pizza is a meal that never gets old. One night it’s classic cheese and marinara, and the next is a Greek-inspired creation with humus. With unlimited possibilities, pizza can adapt to Millennials ever changing palette desires. Restaurants have tapped into this desire for new pizza creations, most recent being Chili’s. Chili’s has added a variety of pizza offerings to its menu, one of which is a taco pizza that includes four cheeses, seasoned ground beef and pico de gallo.

4. Good value
Millennials are a cash-strapped generation, and they like a good deal. Pizza can be a cheap meal when having friends over to watch the big game or can be a quick bite to eat with leftovers for lunch the next day. Blaze Pizza, a California fast casual that plans to expand to 15 cities by the end of the year, is capitalizing on Millennials wanting a good deal.

5. Shareable with my friends
Millennials like brands that are shareworthy, according to research by Barkley, Boston Consulting Group and SMG. While this normally means that Millennials want to talk about brands online through social media, it doesn’t discount the desire to share with their friends. Pizza has always been a food that you buy to share with a crowd. So, whether you’re ordering delivery before the big game or going out to eat, pizza allows Millennials to mix, match and share.

photo credit: Adam Kuban via photopin cc

In QSR, many brands operate with a model that’s dependent on franchisees to successfully execute national or corporate marketing efforts. But from time to time, franchisors launch new campaigns and one or more of negative outcomes occurs.

The corporate effort drives traffic in-store but:

1. Traffic is below franchisee expectations.
2. Low margins on the advertised item don’t lead to a bigger basket which may reflect challenges in upsell/cross-sell of the advertised item.
3. The promotion doesn’t build consumer loyalty and the immediate sales increase isn’t sustainable long-term.

There’s natural tension built into a “conflict relationship” as each party is required to adopt their perspective:

• Franchisors are responsible for looking at the brand from a macro level.
• Franchisees are responsible for looking for the brand at a micro level.

According to Michael Seid at MSA Worldwide, “conflict can occur because the parties don’t always have the same goals.”  Further, from time to time, the products advertised aren’t as successful as planned or the advertising doesn’t connect with consumers.

The opportunity then is to develop an ongoing, robust discussion with franchisees.  This allows them to be aware of the plan even if they may not agree.

Seid says Arby’s “met this challenge” when they worked to launch the Market Fresh Sandwich line. Even though they struggled for a time, an open dialogue with franchisees about the operational problems ultimately led to solutions that made the effort successful for both parties.

Five secrets to having success in conflict situations:

1. Treat the franchisees with respect.
2. Listen objectively to their concerns.
3. Talk to them even if you disagree.
4. Form a Franchise Advisory Council (FAC) and engage them in both macro level and micro level discussions.
5. Seek ideas that will drive traffic and build brand loyalty when possible.

Millennials tend to prefer fast casual restaurant brands to casual dining.

This preference was seen in a large-scale study conducted by Barkley in partnership with The Boston Consulting Group and Service Management Group.  This study of more than four thousand Millennials and more than one thousand adults over the age of 35, extensively explored restaurant preferences.

Millennial preferences can largely be found by looking across several key trends.

1. The price points at fast casual are moderately less than casual dining, which allows them to trade down on some occasions.  Note consumers can also trade up for an extra two or three dollars vs. many QSR alternatives.
2. Millennials have a big thirst for adventure in all facets of their lives.  They can “taste” a variety of different cultures in many fast casual concepts.
3. Millennials divide their schedules into more than three dayparts, and fast casual concepts more quickly adjusted their business models to address this consumer need state. 

Creating success in the future with Millennials may largely be seen by adopting internal marketing and operations to better meet their functional and emotional needs.

One model we created to evaluate initiatives involves a two by two matrix.  On one axis write the word PARTICIPATION.  On the other axis write the word SHAREWORTHY.

Participation is defined as enabling Millennials to co-create your menu, co-create the customer experience in restaurant, and co-create your marketing.  Shareworthy means that your business model is inherently interesting enough to prompt people to want to talk about it.  The most common two roads to shareworthy are either disrupting the traditional notion of the category or having a higher purpose that transcends the benefits seen in traditional marketing schemas.  Programs that end up in the upper right quadrant in the graph below will tend to have significantly better uptake with Millennials consumers.

A few days ago, in a matter of hours, Chipotle stock took a tumble to the tune of 6.5 percent. What could cause such a sudden loss in the otherwise stellar valuation and track record of the restaurant industry darling?

A viral video of Chipotle employees misbehaving in the kitchen?

A nationwide shortage of tortillas?

Neither.

Chipotle stock, in the delightful words of The New York Times, fell faster than a lead burrito because of the words of one man, cult financial guru and hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

Einhorn called the company overvalued – and in a macrocosm of self-fulfilling prophecies, investors proceeded to sell, sell, sell at a pace more than four times the stock’s average daily trading volume.

Now, I do not profess to be anything close to a Wall Street savant. I know enough of investing to know that mutual funds rarely outperform index funds in the long run. I also know the stock market, as proven by Mr. Einhorn, is basically a giant mood ring worn by the nation as a whole.

But it was one of Einhorn’s justifications for his bearish take on Chipotle stock that struck a nerve in me in particular. Taco Bell and its new ‘Cantina Bell’ upscale menu, he reasoned, would soon enough lure customers away from Chipotle and its higher-priced offerings.

It smacked of a certain arrogance to the reasoning behind why people eat where they eat. Sure, price plays a large and sometimes deciding factor. But so, too, does quality. And to Chipotle’s credit, quality has evolved to mean much more than taste.

Chipotle embraces and communicates quality as well as any national chain by fusing it with causes that reach well beyond consumers’ taste buds. The company sums its philosophy up with three words: Food with Integrity. It means “finding the very best ingredients raised with respect for the animals, the environment and the farmers.”

In 2011, the company enlisted a London filmmaker to create an emotional stop-motion video packaging up those principles to the tune of a custom Coldplay cover recorded by country music legend and Farm Aid President Willie Nelson. The video debuted on YouTube and after racking up millions of views was repurposed into a Chipotle ad that aired during the 2012 Grammys.

The emotions the video elicits in people are exactly the reason why, in my opinion, Einhorn oversimplified the perceived threat to Chipotle by Taco Bell’s ‘Cantina Bell’ menu. Taco Bell may now be focused on quality, but Chipotle is focused on quality with a cause.

It reminds me of an old Barkley PR (now Crossroads) belief relating to companies and causes: When you stand for something greater than your bottom line, people stand with you.

Chipotle has made what it stands for the forefront of its marketing communication – and consumers recognize it. It’s why I believe they and I will continue to choose Chipotle over Taco Bell when in the mood for quick and quality Mexican food.

Unless it’s after 10 p.m. and alcohol is in the equation. In that situation, all bets are off.

Photo credit: Dion Hinchcliffe

Food trucks have been a growing part of American culture over the past several years. Taco Bell was one of the first chains to go mobile, in the early ’90s. And with the rise in popularity of homegrown gourmet food trucks, a growing number of national brands, including Applebee’s, Sizzler, Red Robin and Jack in the Box have also tested mobile concepts.

Even companies that aren’t in the food business are looking to make a connection with this cultural trend. Food trucks have been used to market products from jeans (The Gap), to airline food (Air France), to television promotions (Today Show).

Is it all becoming too much of a good thing? Mobile Cuisine magazine, which tracks the mobile food industry, estimates that there are nearly 3 million food trucks in operation, with 10 new food trucks popping up across the country every week.

And critics have begun panning recent food truck trends for lack of innovation, food quality issues and the influence of brand marketing.

However, in a recent article, Hudson Riehle, SVP, research and knowledge at the National Restaurant Association (NRA), points out that consumers’ desire for convenience has been one of the food industry’s major drivers over the last couple of decades. “In that time period, the majority of restaurant industry sales growth has come from what the industry calls ‘off-premises occasions’—that is, takeout, delivery, drive through, curbside and now mobile,” he says. “There’s really no more convenient solution from a consumer perspective than having the restaurant literally come to you.”

With that in mind, several brands are looking to expand their mobile concepts. And, we expect to see more brands test mobile concepts as a way to deliver convenience, expand usage occasions, and make a cultural connection with their customers.

I’ve written before about Panera Cares Community Café, a concept Panera Bread implemented to help people feed themselves on what they can afford. This past Friday, June 22nd, Panera opened its fourth Panera Cares Community Café in Chicago.

For all the good intentions at the core of this program, new research recently reported in Scientific American indicates that “pay what you want” pricing models can leave consumers feeling cheap, and as a result steer them away from a purchase altogether.

On the surface, Panera—if aware of this new research—might question whether or not the potential negative effect to some will outweigh the positive effect to others. But is that really the question? The real question is whether or not Panera is a company that wants to give back. And Ronald Shaich, Panera’s founder, has answered that question by launching the concept and continuing to expand it.

There are always negative side effects that companies with well-intended programs must consider. But doing good for the community it serves is always a smart (and responsible) play for any service company.

At the annual National Restaurant Association show a couple of weeks ago, it was evident that high tech has become an increasingly bigger part of the dining industry expo, as reported by QSR Magazine.

For restaurants, new tech has helped the industry increase productivity and evolve customer service. One of the most crucial benefits is information collection.

“In one sense, it allows you to personalize customers,” says David Matthews, the NRA’s chief information officer. “As systems become more advanced, restaurants are able to reach out to them with offers and suggestions.”

Kansas City-based Front Flip offers a mobile app that has more of a marketing slant, helping restaurants drive repeat business while also rewarding frequent customers. After scanning a QR code with their phone, customers are sent a virtual scratch card with a chance to win a prize. It’s a win-win scenario. While the restaurant is collecting valuable data and the ability to interact with its guests, customers have the chance to be rewarded for their business.

With the rising popularity of smartphones, more and more restaurants are focusing their efforts on developing applications around this device. One of the most common implementations is mobile ordering and payment.

While Chipotle and Domino’s are two of the more notable pioneers in the category to venture into the mobile commerce arena, many have followed suit. T.G.I. Friday’s recently released an app named Friday’s which allows diners to open a tab, track their bill throughout the dining experience, and tap a button when they are ready to pay.

Tablet-based tabletop-ordering systems are also gaining traction. A group of MIT grads created the Presto tablet which not only allows guests to order and pay at any time but includes games to engage customers while their food is being prepared.

If you haven’t jumped on the high tech bandwagon quite yet, when considering the options be sure to ask yourself, “What value (convenience, access to information, entertainment, etc.) is it adding?” It’s not enough to just gain coolness points by incorporating cutting-edge technology.

Burger King, Sonic, Starbucks and Pizza Hut have all toyed with alcohol sales to varying degrees. But it’s unlikely that these QSRs or any others will extend alcohol to national distribution any time soon due to criticism of this practice by watchdog groups, and the abundance of beverage alternatives.

History shows that parent and consumer advocacy groups have influence with QSRs. A prime example of this is the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI).  Participants in the Better Business Bureau (BBB) promise to devote 100% of their child-directed advertising to “better-for-you” foods. Both McDonalds and Burger King are members.

Alcohol sales at QSRs have also been strongly discouraged by groups such as Alcohol Justice (formerly Marin Institute) and The American Council on Alcohol Problems.

Beverage offerings have been expanded greatly over the last few years with very little of that expansion attributed to alcoholic options. Smoothies, coffee, frozen drinks, lemonade blends, sports drinks, and soft drink personalization tools such as Coca-Cola’s Freestyle have made appearances at QSRs around the country.  With all the variety, restaurants are increasingly able to provide customers with satisfactory beverage options without the need for alcohol.

While it is unlikely that QSRs will embrace alcohol sales nationally, concepts such as the Whopper Bar provide a different model that might allow alcohol a foothold in the QSR industry.  Some key aspects of the Whopper Bar that make it more alcohol-friendly include:

1. No drive-thru: Even if alcohol is not available via the drive-thru, selling alcohol at a location with a drive-thru option brings the drinking and driving issue to the forefront.
2. It is designed to sell higher-end items and competes more with fast casual and casual dining restaurants, which traditionally offer alcohol.
3. Many locations are in nightlife friendly areas such as University CityWalk at Universal Orlando Resort, Miami Beach’s tourist-heavy South Beach, and the Rio casino in Las Vegas.

As QSRs continue to expand beverage offerings, alcohol is not likely to be the next big thing, at least at the traditional QSR.

Photo credit: Shinya Suzuki. Used under Creative Commons 2.o Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

Chipotle is at it again, making headlines by thinking outside of the box and not just about making profits. First, it was the viral video “Back to the Start” that showcases Chipotle’s commitment to “creating a sustainable, healthful and equitable food future” through the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.

Now, in honor of Earth Day, Chipotle is offering special, reusable lunch bags for purchase from March 26th through April 14th. What’s so special about these bags? They are made from recycled Chipotle billboards. Each bag is unique as they feature different parts of the billboards on each of the bag’s side panels. This initiative will keep more than 78,000 square feet of billboard vinyl out of landfills.

These bags may seem a little pricey at $18, but purchasers will be helping out the environment and the bags also include a barcode good for a free Chipotle menu item on Earth Day (April 22).

The proceeds of these bags will go to The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation, which helps fund, “…initiatives that support sustainable agriculture, family farming, culinary education, and innovation that promotes better food.”

It will be interesting to see whether Chipotle will be viewed as a pioneer or remain an outlier when it comes to fast casual and QSR involvement in sustainable agriculture and other green initiatives. What do you think?

Quick serves might want to take note of how one of their fast casual friend’s uncomplicated, no-gimmicks approach to feeding beef lovers is paying off. With Americans eating out less often and spending less money, Five Guys has miraculously managed to remain untouched by the Great Recession.

Over the last three years, the chain grew by about five stores per week, making it the fastest-growing chain with sales over $200 million in 2010 according to Technomic.

How did they thrive during the worst economic crisis since the Depression?

Founder Jerry Murrell and his five sons, who inspired the chain’s name, recently told QSR Magazine that “the only thing we did right was stick to our guns.”

You would probably believe that claim if you knew that Murrell refused to deliver an order of burgers to the Pentagon. They don’t deliver no matter who you are as the patriarch explained, “We don’t believe in it. We think it cheapens the product.”

Instead of expanding their menus as many of their burger competitors have done over the years, Five Guys has continued to stay loyal to what they know: meat and potatoes. They offer a frills-free menu, but one that continues to serve them well. They’ve been tempted with offers of cheaper suppliers and cheaper crops such as swapping out Idaho potatoes for faster-growing Florida and California crop but Murrell declined as “they [Idaho potato french fries] taste better” in his opinion.

While many chains have relied on hefty media schedules of “limited-time offer” messaging, Five Guys has opted to invest in their crews by paying for third-party audits that give monetary bonuses to those that get the highest marks.

“We believe the best salesperson we’ve got is the customer standing right in front of us,” says Murrell, who thinks marketing is great customer service leading to organic word of mouth.

In the recent study, “American Millennials: Deciphering the Enigma Generation” from Barkley, Service Management Group and The Boston Consulting Group, it was found that Millennials (ages 16-34) had much higher awareness of Five Guys and other emerging restaurants than older generations, which bodes well for Five Guys’ continued growth.

Although Five Guys suggests it doesn’t spend a penny on marketing and advertising, restaurant marketing analyst Joel Cohen would disagree. He refers to the burger joint’s approach as “secret marketing,” as their strategy consists of prime locations, huge portions, and in-store “Best of” posters.

Regardless of their approach, it’s no secret that whatever they are doing is working. With Five Guys’ expansion from six to 750 stores in the last decade, most would agree they are a force to be reckoned with.

Photo credit: AngryJulieMonday