I joined "The New Value Proposition: Beyond Discounting," a panel at MediaPost's QSR Brand Insiders Summit, representing Wing Zone alongside marketers from Chipotle and Farmer Boys.
The session tackled the question every restaurant marketer was wrestling with: how do you maintain brand equity while appealing to increasingly value-conscious consumers, without triggering a race to the bottom on price?
The panel was moderated by Erin Everhart, VP of Content at MediaPost, and I shared the stage with Daisy Alvarez, Senior Director of Marketing at Farmer Boys, and Michael Kotick, Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Chipotle.
Between us we covered how a range of brands define "value" for both the guest and the business as the economy shifts, and how pricing, packaging, brand positioning, and LTOs all become levers for navigating that terrain without eroding what the brand stands for.
We also got into the harder part: staying in touch with customer sentiment when needs are changing this fast, and reading what guests actually want rather than what a discount assumes they want.
The full conversation is above.