We enjoy a special guest this week as Sara joins Kacha in the hot seat to share strategies for Instagram Live, menu item branding, and more.
Click play for their answers to questions including:
- How can restaurants make use of Instagram Live? (at :30)
- What has made HopCat a success with millennials? (at 2:13)
- How many millennials use coupons? (at 5:55)
- How many millennials are likely to post food and drink pics on Instagram? (at 6:25)
Rather read than watch? Check out the transcript below!
// Transcript
Kacha: Hi everybody and welcome to Branding Bites. My name is Kacha. I’m the strategy director here at Skidmore Studio. This is Shawn. No, this is not Shawn. What is going on here?
Sara: Hi, everyone, I’m Sara, marketing director here at Skidmore, and I am sitting in for Shawn today.
Kacha: Yeah, Shawn’s out of town with a client, so we’ve got Sara. Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
Sara: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.
Kacha: Did you come prepared? We brought questions?
Sara: Always.
Kacha: What do you got?
Sara: First question: Instagram Live. It was launched in the U.S. this week. Tell me what I need to know, and how can restaurants get involved?
Kacha: Let’s talk use case: someone has their phone in front of them, they’re on Instagram and this message pops up and says, “Oh hey, this restaurant has a Live video. You should watch it,” or I get a push notification from following the restaurant and it says, “Hey, take a look.” That means this is happening right now and only right now. For restaurants, you need to get people at that moment where they’re thinking about going right before mealtimes, right before lunch, right before dinner, and consider this can be a flash coupon, “Hey, a special on this burger,” or this could be a one-time, limited-time offer, extremely limited offer, “Our chef just got in this particular meat, and we’re doing this only one thing only tonight.” I think it’s a great use of this.
Sara: Yeah. Something really important to play into with each of those use cases is actually that on Instagram Live, different than Facebook Live, the video disappears. It’s not going to live around for a while. It’s great for those limited-time offers. Also, I just wanted to give a couple tips. Number one, you’re already on Instagram. Take a look at what people have been liking and commenting and sharing in the past, lean into that, maybe build your videos around those stories as well, and focus more on brand-building and generating awareness.
Kacha: Yeah, yeah, I love that. That’s great. Really what you’re doing well, just continue to do that. I got a question for you. Have you been to HopCat?
Sara: Yes.
Kacha: HopCat, for those of you who don’t know is an exceedingly popular craft beer bar and restaurant. They’re opening their sixth Michigan location in just a few months. When they came here to Detroit, the line was around the block to get in on their opening day. People were standing in line at 5:30 in the morning, doors opened at noon. The question is why have they been so successful, especially with millenials?
Sara: Yes, HopCat is huge with millenials. Why are people standing in line? Part of it: the first 500 people in line won Crack Fries for a year. Which we’ll get to in a second. Just a couple things I wanted to say about HopCat and why they’re doing so well with millenials is that most of their locations are located in university areas. Extremely walkable to other places millenials want to be. The other thing, it’s not just one experience in a HopCat. There are multiple levels that are each unique. Maybe there’s a concert on one level, with a restaurant and bar on the other.
Kacha: Millenials can visit different levels and have different experiences within the same location, as well as walk to other locations nearby. That’s really great.
Sara: The experience on each level is great, particularly in the restaurant and bar area, where they are serving over 100 different beers on tap. 30 of which are from Michigan.
Kacha: We love our beers, especially our craft beers.
Sara: Yes we do, and we also love our french fries here.
Kacha: Oh, the french fries. You mentioned the Crack Fries, so I have a confession to make. I haven’t been to HopCat.
Sara: Shame.
Kacha: Crack Fries is the one reason absolutely they’re on my to-do list. Because they’re called Crack Fries. Especially for millenials, when you name a specialty item something like that, it’s like, “I have to go.” They also do beer dinners, where they pair individual craft beers with a special dinner, really cashing in on that FOMO, fear of missing out. I don’t want to show up tomorrow, all my buddies are talking about this great beer dinner they had and I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Sara: Exactly, and it’s beer you can’t get anywhere else. If you can’t drive up to the U.P., head over to HopCat and you might be able to check out a great Michigan brewery.
Kacha: This is a great millennial establishment, so we’re loving it. Now is the time in the program when we do Bittie Bites and-
Sara: Or!
Kacha: Or?
Sara: Maybe we do something else, because maybe your show’s getting hijacked.
Kacha: What are we doing?
Sara: We’re doing something called Quizzie Bites.
Kacha: Oh my god. What’s happening here?
Sara: Since Shawn couldn’t be here today, it didn’t feel right to do Bittie Bites without him, so I introduce to you Quizzie Bites.
Kacha: Quizzie Bites. I guess you’re going to ask these questions, I’m guessing, and I’m going to be rated whether or not I get them right.
Sara: Yes, exactly.
Kacha: Let’s see what you got.
Sara: First one, is about HopCat. Everybody seems to love them.
Kacha: This is going to be easy, right?
Sara: Yeah. In my research, I asked every person in the studio.
Kacha: In the studio?
Sara: Every Skidmorvian. “Have you been to HopCat?” Now, I would like you to guess the percentage of Skidmorvians that have been to HopCat.
Kacha: We’ve got a big millennial group here, but we’re not all millennials. I’m going to say 60%, 60% of our people have been to HopCat.
Sara: Close.
Kacha: Close?
Sara: 80%.
Kacha: Oh, I’m off. I’m off a good deal. I’m in the minority now that I haven’t been to HopCat.
Sara: Well, you’re older.
Kacha: I’m almost not a millennial.
Sara: Small bonus question, how many Skidmorvians mentioned that they wanted to go to HopCat or that the reason they went to HopCat was because of Crack Fries?
Kacha: Oh 100% obviously.
Sara: 50%.
Kacha: I’m so wrong. I’m failing. Give me another one. Give me another one.
Sara: Another question. You’ve got 10 millenials.
Kacha: 10. Any 10.
Sara: How many use coupons?
Kacha: Oh, oh, this is good. Coupons and millennials. It isn’t typically what you think. Are we talking young millennials or older millennials?
Sara: We are talking all millenials across the board.
Kacha: Oh, the whole thing, okay. Millennials do use coupons a lot more than you think. I’m going to say 80% of millennials, eight of those use coupons.
Sara: You’d be correct. It’s 85%.
Kacha: 85%, okay, good, good.
Sara: Nailed it.
Kacha: I love it.
Sara: Now we talked about Instagram Live earlier.
Kacha: I’m on a roll. Bring it on.
Sara: Instagram in general, millennials are a pretty big audience there.
Kacha: Yeah, that’s their thing.
Sara: What percentage of British and American millennials are likely to post pictures of food or drink?
Kacha: All of them. No, seriously, likely to post pictures of food or drink. 78% are posting pictures of food and drink.
Sara: This one’s actually close. 72%.
Kacha: Oh, almost there! That matches. Cool, yeah.
Sara: How many boomers do you think?
Kacha: Boomers?
Sara: Yeah.
Kacha: Are posting pictures of food and drink? Can I phone a friend?
Sara: No.
Kacha: No, seriously, mom, are you posting pictures of your food and drink? No, she’s not doing that. 15% of boomers.
Sara: 22%!
Kacha: What?!
Sara: 22%. That’s a 50% percent.
Kacha: Two out of 10 boomers, grandmothers, are posting pictures of their food. “Here’s the apple pie I baked, honey. Come on over for dinner.” This has been really fun. Thank you guys for joining us. Thank you too, Sara, our special guest for the week.
Sara: Thank you for having me.
Kacha: It’s been great.
Sara: It was a joy.
Kacha: If you have questions, please hit us up @SkidmoreStudio on Twitter. We’d be happy to answer them next week. Until then, we’ll see you next week.
Sara: Bye!