As your customers’ preferences evolve, it’s important for your brand to keep up. This can involve expanding product and service offerings or even limiting options to focus on your niche market. Either way, you have to use data to determine what your customers want and how to best meet their wants and needs. By continuing to collect data on customer preferences, analyzing the data, and using AI, brands can improve their digital marketing efforts and improve sales.
Recently, Burger King did a great job of showing us why it’s necessary to constantly keep up with customers’ wants and needs by market testing their new meatless Impossible Whopper.
A Meatless Whopper?
On April 1, 2019, Burger King announced their decision to test out the Impossible Whopper, a meatless alternative to the traditional whopper. The collaboration between Burger King and Impossible Foods, strives to bring in new customers and keep existing customers coming back. While the meatless whopper is currently only released in 59 locations in the St. Louis area, Burger King says that if everything goes well, they’ll roll out the Impossible Whopper across the country.
The Impossible Whopper was designed to taste just like the traditional Whopper. The new burger has only slightly fewer calories, but it is also very low in cholesterol and includes zero trans fats. Impossible burger patties offer a unique twist on the traditional veggie burgers. They actually mimic the appearance and texture of beef, based on Impossible Foods’ new recipe that is used for the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.
Why Change the Brand?
Burger King is obviously known for its burgers, so why change what they stand for? According to an article on CNN, Burger King has been trying to find a way to add a vegetarian burger option to its menu for close to a year. And, they didn’t just make this decision on the fly – they’re basing this on current concerns about the following issues:
- Animal Cruelty
- Climate Change
- Personal Health Risks
Expanding Your Target Market
In essence, Burger King made the decision to break into a new market. People who have chosen to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet may have avoided Burger King in the past because they didn’t offer meatless alternatives. This could have impacted individuals with high cholesterol, was well as those highly concerned with animals and the climate.
There’s already so much hype surrounding the Impossible Burger, and Burger King is taking full advantage of this in the digital realm. The topic is trending on social media and news sites are picking up the story and putting their own spin on it (much like this blog post).
Skyrush Understands Digital Marketing Strategies
Now that people are talking about the Impossible Whopper, the chain needs to focus on their digital marketing strategy in order to keep the hype going. This involves a variety of tactics, such as paid search marketing, social media marketing, SEO, reputation management, and content marketing. For instance, our digital marketing experts at Skyrush Marketing foresee tons of quality content coming out soon about the Impossible Burger. By promoting their top content related to the new meatless burger, Burger King can drive internet users to personalized landing pages urging them to make a purchase. In addition, by promoting the content of popular blogs, they can generate more engagement and the user-generated content can build up a new reputation for Burger King that appeals to the expanded target market. At Skyrush Marketing, we know how to assess these types of major business decisions and use our expertise to promote changes and ensure success.