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Scattered & Smothered: Waffle House PR Strategy

A Case Study in Online Public Relations & Crisis Management

Police arrested a 66 year old woman this week for refusing to pay her $7.45 tab at Waffle House. The story got picked up by Drudge Report, then the broader media and finally through blogs and social media networks.

This is not a bona fide PR crisis, but this situation reflects poorly on Waffle House, a national chain with ~1500 stores. Dumb criminals are entertaining, but reports aren’t clear about why she didn’t (couldn’t?) pay. Many bloggers are finding fault with the restaurant and railing against it. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Google Blog Search]

The store manager probably should have discreetly waived the bill, although I can’t imagine they thought the situation would be elevated to national attention. Regardless, this is an opportunity for the company to define it’s relational strategies for crisis management and online consumer interaction.

Background: Waffle House Serves a Broad Base

Full disclosure: I love Waffle House. It’s a brand steeped in Diner Americana invoking the hot black coffee retreat painted by Edward Hopper. The all-day-breakfast menu is working class fuel, from pre-dawn to the deep night-shift. It’s the kind of place comfortable memories are made, from roadtrip pitstop adventures to the nighthawk’s final call.

Waffle House Waffle House Waffle House
Waffle House Waffle House Waffle House

Waffle House is a cultural icon rich in user-generated content. Click images to see Flickr comments.

Waffle House offers simple food, folksy patrons and they have some of the hardiest working & friendliest servers in the industry. Sitting next to the grill line when the place is slammed, the hot sizzle, greasy smells and barking orders is poetic to a business process nerd like me.

Recent Waffle House PR Challenges & Responses

Waffle House has already faced a series of bad press from unruly customers.

  • October 2008 Robberies occur in Texas and Alabama. A fatal shooting Florida is met with calls for boycotts online.
  • August 2008 LiveLeak has security video of a brawl complete with racist comments about Waffle House customers. The company should nail whoever is releasing these security videos to the public, although methinks it may have been released by plaintiff litigants who obtained them through the course of Discovery. Unfortunately, the damage is done; the company’s best response is being prepared next time.
  • March 2008 Kid Rock at Waffle HouseKid Rock pleaded not guilty for fighting in a Waffle House. I love the company’s response: they invited the star back to a restaurant to greet his fans and raise money for a local homeless shelter. Spokesperson Kelly Thrasher explains the company wanted to “take a negative situation and turn it into a positive situation.”

Waffle House brand managers should proactively apply this positive philosophy to social media. This recent series of events can be the impetus for a cohesive online PR strategy that touts the brand’s long-standing reputation for good customer service.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”
Grandma

What Should Waffle House Do?

I recommend a deep dive on some of these general actions.

  • Develop an Online Persona
    One can expect resistance to social media from a brick-and-mortar diner chain, especially one that doesn’t advertise. Traditional PR might consult with Legal and publicly drop all charges. Or partner with local homeless services nonprofits.
     
    However, consumers have already extended the brand across social networks (more on that below). Blue collar audiences are online, 70% use social media and savvy brands are serving them.
     
    Whataburger is a Southern burger chain with a made-to-order heritage that targets men, 50+. It’s ad agency McGarrah-Jessee drives a polished effort online as well as in direct, outdoor and cool broadcast work reminiscent of my favorite down-home man-it-up Miller High Life spots.
     
    We tailored the BecomeAnEX campaign to help multiple shades of blue-collar audiences. We found a majority of our target already online and eagerly embracing mobile technologies.
  • Engage Existing Communities
    My brief research uncovered a bevy of positive stories, pictures, a Wikipedia article and scores of cult-classic sentiments like this unassuming Waffle House Wedding in Georgia that would have been a hoot to crash. Git ‘er done!
     
    The alt.food.waffle-house Usenet group has 6000 members, there are YouTube videos, 1000s of pics on Flickr, large fan groups on Facebook and Ning and constant tweets on Twitter to name a few.
     
    Once brand managers know where people congregate online, they can enter discussions via PR and interactive advertising. I believe an approachable persona mixed in humurous kitsch and classic PR would be very well received in micromedia formats (@woot comes to mind).
  • Develop Distinct Strategies for Each Platform
    Social media outlets are unique and some communities lend themselves to different business objectives (i.e awareness, response, promotion, revenue, feedback channels, etc). Plan accordingly.
  • Leverage UGC
    Integrate user-generated content into Waffle House web properties.
  • Attach the Brand to a Quirky Holiday
    Real Men CookWaffle House already does this to some extent. They are a sponsor of Real Men Cook, a family celebration event hosted on Father’s Day in Atlanta. Waffle House benefits with buzz marketing, product placement and celebrity endorsement.
     
    The company also celebrates National Waffle Week and hosts the World Waffle Eating Championship that garners press for it’s high-profile speed eaters.
     
    A cheap Quirky Holiday SEM Strategy could generate local press, elevate presence of mind & uptick sales for a couple days on an otherwise off-beat holiday. Eat What You Want Day [May 11] could be fun given their pick-n-choose menu. Other possibilities: Lips Appreciation Day [Mar 16] and No Housework Day [Apr 7].
  • Update the “Newsroom”
    I’d wager the Waffle House Newsroom got a lot of hits today with this story. And it hasn’t been updated in over two years. Good media relations is critical.
  • Web Analytics & PR Measurement
    Judging by the state of the site, and the apparent lack of a full-time PR manager, I’d wager executives don’t study inbound traffic sources. At one time, Waffle House partnered with Vocus for on-demand news monitoring and measurement. Hopefully company employs basic online monitoring.
  • Implement a Brandjacking Defense Posture
    These are just the kind of one-off stories that instigate a brandjacking that will probably run it’s course in a few days. Even if this case probably will not hurt the brand long-term, why risk it? It appears @wafflehouse has already been brandjacked on Twitter and on Google’s Blogspot.
     
    Using my Social Media Checklist, Waffle House brand managers should snag social media profiles, even if it doesn’t actually engage followers.
  • Speak to Security Concerns
    Customers need to feel safe. Be open about what security measures the company is taking and address flagrant misstatements when they occur. This requires active and passive online brand monitoring.
  • New Price Points
    I’m not privy to current Waffle House pricing strategies, although, I do remember All You Can Eat deals for $3.99 in college! Brands have to be careful about competing on price when a depressed economy eventually recovers. However, this story got traction because of the economy; people will make a connection on price & this lady being unable to afford $7.45. A temporary high-level plan can hedge against public blowback.

Enterprise Strategies in Social Media

While PR focused on external messaging, Waffle House can use social media for internal infrastructure communications.

  • Franchise Communications
    A few years ago, I got an internal sneak peak at Schlotzsky’s efforts to shore up internal communication among franchisees during a restructuring phase. I’d keep an eye out for anything that supported franchise relations specifically.
  • Collaborate On Internet Messaging & Brand Identity
    Schlotzsky’s also addressed inconsistencies in external messaging, branding and stores across the franchise system, both in traditional and online advertising. From what I can tell, Waffle House is facing similar challenges today. Even after establishing a strict code of branding guidelines, policing and enforcement requires dedicated resources.
  • Regional Online Marketing & Domainjacking Avoidance
    The lack of an online messaging strategy also puts the brand at risk for domainjacking. Franchises are already grabbing their own domain names, which is common when marketplace planning and legal don’t keep pace with technology.
     
    Waffle House should have a unified front in the WaffleHouse.com domain, improve the store locator & offer marketing pages for franchise owners so they can leverage the brand for local promotion. Following this, the company can develop strategies for regional online marketing & mitigate the risk of domainjacking.

Is this case study helpful? What would you suggest to Waffle House executives? Please share your thoughts below!

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Advertising

TWIP Bulletin 9/27/2008

The Weekly Interactive Producer Bulletin

September 21, 2008 to September 27, 2008

# 7Wario Land Shake It!
The Twittersphere lit up with this week linking to this clever YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

# 6Lizzer Simplifies Content Aggregation
Lizzer has a private beta for its online publishing tool. Community managers, bloggers, extranet and web publishers can search Lizzer for links, pics and videos by subject and get simple embedding code. Check the demo at Lizzer.com

# 5Moximity Delivers Location-based Ads
Moximity delivers location-based offers through social media on mobile devices.

I used to co-office with the founders of Wayport and this was the original idea behind their network of hospitality & travel center hotspots. I guess they were just 10 years ahead of their time.

# 4UGC Helps Opex Scaling
@deckermarketing Posted an excellent article on user-generated content in terms of its operation expense scaling – a value proposition that is sure to please CFOs in tough economic times.

# 3Hack the Debate
TV & social media continue to converge. Current TV & Twitter partnered to show real-time feedback during the debates. Jeremiah found it distracting.

# 2Rapid Response Interactive Media
Alan Edget (@ACEdge) is an F500 social media strategist behind those clever FreeCreditReport.com ads (I love these; their funny & work well on TV & radio). He blogs about his attempt to create an algorithm that measures ROI on interactive media placement. The goal is to be able to rapidly respond to the market & change placements, kind of like options trading.

# 1 First Day of Autumn 2008
I see a few SEO companies are leveraging Google’s logo changes for fresh untargeted traffic. This is a clever ploy to prove their SEO mettle and generate a little buzz. Free and easy, this tactic is bound to become a meme. I built upon their accomplishments to develop the Quirky Holiday SEM Strategy.

BONUSDid you know that Google saved all their holiday and event logos for posterity? I love the preservation of campaigns. It’s a good practice for entertainment, history & long-tail traffic.

Categories
Advertising Buzz

“Quirky Holiday” SEM Strategy for Brand Awareness

How Brands Can Generate Big Awareness During Odd Holidays

Last week, as the world celebrated another Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought of a slick SEM trick: Buy quirky holiday names for the sole purpose of brand awareness. Quirky holiday inventory has temporary demand spikes and low-competitive rates. This might be good opportunities to align your brand with fun, off-beat culture news and catch new visitors during idle leisure time browsing the net.

What Is a White Sale Strategy?
Retail stores sell specific merchandise at a deep discount for a short period of time.
 
White Sale Examples
Think K-Mart’s Blue Light Special and the Foley’s Red Apple Sale. John Deere pushes residential sales during their annual Deere Season campaign.
 
Woot.com (@woot) applies a reverse model online; there is always a deep discount sale, but the product changes. World Market explored a similar Adobe Air widget channel.

Retailers have long used White Sale strategies to dump excessive inventory and to gain a temporary competitive advantage. The Quirky Holiday SEM strategy is slightly different than a White Sale. Rather than promote a branded self-made sales event, Quirky Holiday SEM leverages universal interest and PR surrounding unusual events to generate brand awareness. The strategy lends itself to retail, but could be used for any type of brand promotion.

Awareness and low cost can justify the ROI of a Quirky Holiday SEM media plan. Traffic is not targeted, so click-throughs are a bonus, especially since keyword inventory would be relatively inexpensive.

Ideas for Quirky Holiday SEM Campaigns

Here are just a few of the strange, funny and odd holidays where corporate brands, campaigns and associations could apply this strategy.

  • Bifocals At The Monitor Liberation Day
    December 1 Lenscrafters, eye doctors & Lasik surgeons, ergonomic companies, nonprofits for the prevention of eyestrain, monitor fatigue, eyesight health education & disease prevention, elder care.
  • Bathtub Party Day
    December 5 Kohler, Whirlpool re-modelers (bathfitter.com already has a placement), plumbing companies, design centers, home builders, destination spas.
  • National Inane Answering Message Day
    January 30 Manufacturers like Panasonic, Sony, Nokia, Samsung & Motorola, online retailers, VoIP carries Skype and Vonage, cable carriers, cell phone service providers, mobile marketing.

  • First Day of Autumn 2008
    September 22 SEO companies are already leveraging Google’s holiday and event logos for fresh non targeted traffic. What a clever ploy to generate a little buzz and new unique visits against an odd keyword. So far, these are simple organic SEO results, but SEM could easily apply.
     

    Hat tip to @PatrikAltoff who managed to attract hundreds of “autumn 08” visitors to Blogstorm on Sep 22, 2008.

  • Any Quirky Holiday
    Hallmark could actually target traffic with Quirky Holiday SEM, assuming they had matching merchandise. A smaller print card company or e-card service could generate a significant portion of its revenue on this SEM traffic.

What Quirky Holiday SEM Strategies can you imagine? Share them below!

Categories
Advertising Social Media

The Benefits of Your Stagnant Forum

Online Communities Are Rich Opportunities for Brand Managers

Has your online community become stagnant? Are you struggling with “resource poverty?” Perhaps you don’t have the capital to upgrade your forum software. Or your mods are burned out wasting their time fighting spam, breaking up flame wars and banning trolls for a dwindling group of participants.

101 Ways to Destroy Your Tribe
Ed Welch’s PDF on Seth Godin’s blog shows CEOs, bloggers and site managers how to wreck their brand’s base support by not properly supporting communities.

Some forums should be closed. But before you decide to eliminate your online community, reconsider its benefits, even if it is struggling. Reinvestment may be justified.

  • Forum Participants Are Personally Invested
    People freely give their time to participate here. Knowledge is shared, there is a sense of community and authentic friendships are formed. Removing this data wipes out that collective investment.
     
    People will be pissed when their investment is cavalierly wiped out. If you are determined to close your forums, at least make them read-only.
  • Deleting Forums Weakens Communities.
    You may notice that parts of your community swarm to new platforms like Twitter, Plurk, Ning etc. You will always have early adapters that dabble in new platforms, but chances are, you have regular participants + lurkers in stagnant forums.
     
    We decided to take down the SQPN forums when they got overrun spam and one bad apple troll because the volunteer mods didn’t have enough time to deal with them. A few people migrated to other related communities, but the vast majority of members just went *poof*. In hindsight, we should have made those forums read-only until we had the chance to properly devote resources to them.
  • Deleting Forums Alters Culture.
    Building a new community is much more volatile than maintaining one. Salvaging a stagnant community with a safe inviting culture preserves the voice and culture. Creating a new community risks losing a notable asset. Read more about this group dynamic in the Online Community Lifecycle.
  • UGC Is Gold.
    Companies are knocking themselves out to encourage user generated content. Even a stagnant community has nurtured a rich garden of UGC goodness. The personal investment of individuals strengthens bonds among like-minded people and presents opportunities for promotion, search marketing and higher advertising revenue.
  • SEO Opportunities
    Your current forum content could easily translate to 100,000s of pages indexed by Google and other search engines. Every page, every keyword, every phrase, every misspelling, every link represents a long-tail opportunity to optimize free organic search results. SEO from your forums is a powerful way to attract more visitors.
  • Lurker Conversions
    Forrester Research has found that 80% of community members are lurkers. Most new members are naturally reserved. They want to discern the benefits of a community before they commit themselves. Once they become active participants, your brand gathers more free UGC.
     
    Some community managers force registration to fight spam and keep trolls at bay. However, this policy misses tremendous SEO benefits. If this is your policy, you can assume that a large swath of fresh participants are dissuaded from ever participating.
  • Donation Opportunities
    If your website accepts donations, there is almost certainly a direct correlation between unique site visitors and contributions. All of your forum pages serve both as point of new visitor attraction (SEO) and a point of donation awareness.
  • Advertising & Sponsorship Opportunities.
    Each forum page represents an impression for which advertisers are willing to pay. This is a lucrative revenue opportunity that can cover the cost of forums. People will tolerate tasteful ads in forums if they know it supports the community and your brand.
  • A Fresh Start
    Resetting your forum is a good time to strengthen your moderator team and help alleviate their workload. A new forum is also a good reason to reach out to lapsed members to invite them back.

Today’s forum software has smarter ways to fight spam, can handle massive traffic loads & integrate advertising. You can almost certainly find a flexible, stable solution that allows you to migrate data from your current forum and preserve all of the rich conversations and connections of your community.