With American consumers stubbornly reluctant to spend any more of their family budgets on fast food these days, major QSR chains have been struggling with how to get them to loosen their pursestrings a bit. A lot of the brands' emphasis has been on broadening "value menus" that provide a lot of food for relatively little cash.

But chain executives also know that there's nothing to get the digestive juices of fast-food customers flowing like new products. They look at Taco Bell's success over the last year or so with Doritos Locos Tacos and understand that boffo store traffic and renewed sales momentum may be just a hit product or two away.

And another thing: If there's a "day part" and an associated menu that the brand has under-exploited, that could comprise a significant new opportunity as well. Again, look at what Yum's Taco Bell brand has done in trying out breakfast.Continue reading...

Just several days after being called out by the Food & Drug Administration over concerns about caffeine in its Alert Energy Caffeine Gum, Wrigley folded the product and announced that it was going to take the gum off the market at least temporarily. However a caffeine purveyor that's already well established, Monster Beverage, is continuing its aggressive defense of its energy drinks over the issue of caffeine poisoning of American youth.

The Obama administration has grown increasingly restive over the extension of caffeine content to more and more functional foods beyond its traditional places in coffee (naturally), soft drinks (added) and energy drinks (fundamental). The proliferation of new types and food products introduced recently includes Cracker Jack'd, a line of new snacks by Frito-Lay based on the traditional brand but including two out of nine SKUs that contain ground coffee and caffeine; a variety of Kraft's MiO drink powder that contains caffeine; and Jelly Belly's Extreme Sports Beans.Continue reading...

Taco Bell is trying to re-establish its "value" chops with America's fast feeders with a new "$1 Cravings Menu" that re-tethers the brand to the magical single-greenback pricepoint; it's being tested now in Kansas City and Sacramento, and a national rollout this summer is in the cards.

The brand also promises more limited-time offerings such as the 99-cent Beefy Crunch Burrito that it is bringing back on May 23.

Taco Bell marketers believe the chain is getting squeezed out of consumers' minds by all the added buzz in the QSR industry these days about new "value-menu" plays by McDonald's and other giants, as the entire business struggles to get the cash-strapped American consumer back in an eating-out mood.

"There's been a lot of press on a lot of brands choosing to bring out value menus," Brian Niccol, Taco Bell's chief markerting and innovation officer, said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. "We think about that completely differently: Shame on us if what we have to do is create a 'value menu,' because at Taco Bell, in the end, the whole menu is 'value.'"Continue reading...

Not long after Pizza Hut bid for the gamer vote last week with its pizza-ordering app via Microsoft Xbox, Domino's has made a different kind of attempt to grab some idle time from online denizens who are also pizza fans.

The chain is testing a system it calls Domino's Live at one of its new "pizza-theater" stores in Salt Lake City. The platform will give customers a live, uncut glimpse of the making of Domino's pizza from start to finish, 12 hours a day, everyday, using five cameras installed around the store—in locations such as one that is poised just outside the oven exit.

CEO J. Patrick Doyle told brandchannel that Domino's Live is "a logical extension" of the chain's efforts to boost "transparency" even further. "We're proud of what we do in our stores, and the ingredients in our pizzas," he said.Continue reading...

Morton’s Steakhouse is at the top of a list it likely doesn’t want to publicize: It’s been rated the favorite place in the US for adulterous couples to go for dinner by AshleyMadison.com, the dating website that fosters affairs. 

Visitors to Ruth’s Chris, P.F. Chang’s, Outback Steakhouse, Chili’s, Houston’s, Red Lobster, Del Frisco’s, Fleming’s and The Cheescake Factory might want to take an extra look around to see if any of their pals are hiding behind menus. The lucky chains rounded out the top 10 after more than 42,000 Ashley Madison members were polled.Continue reading...

The fight against childhood obesity is a global one, and McDonald's is being reminded of that fact by a surprising fine by a Brazilian consumer-protection agency over the chain's promotion of its Happy Meals.

It seems that Procon, an agency in Sao Paolo, didn't appreciate McDonald's 2010 promotion of Happy Meals that leveraged toys from the movie Avatar as well as a local television series, according to a lawyer for Procon who talked with Reuters. "This is not an isolated case," he told the news service. "There's no need to appeal as they do to children without the maturity or rationality to enter the market as consumers."

The lawyer, of course, forgot to mention "parents," who are supposed to provide the "maturity" and "rationality" to supervise their children. But such trivialities haven't made much of a difference in do-gooders' global attacks on McDonald's for offering food that parents want to buy for their children, including Happy Meals.Continue reading...

Chick-fil-A has a handle on great fast food, good service, enthusiasm about the brand and a winsome advertising campaign. But the chain has spent a good deal of the last couple of years defending the traditional-values advocacy of CEO Dan Cathy, scion of the founder of Chick-fil-A; parrying accusations by the gay-rights community and attempting to come to some accommodation with them.

Now, back to what the brand really wants to be known for: its food and service. As part of a new "transparency push," Advertising Age says Chick-fil-A will offer instant "behind-the-counter" tours to anyone who wants them. And it plans to overhaul its salads and line of chicken wraps to position them as even healthier menu options than before.

The tours are to be offered at Chick-fil-A's 1,700 locations, the magazine said, on an instant basis. That could pose some operational challenges. "It's a nice warm fuzzy, but the challenge is, how are they going to do this if they're in the middle of a hugely busy lunch or dinner hour?" Joel Cohen, a restaurant-marketing consultant, told the magazine.Continue reading...

In pizza, the deeper you go, the happier you are. That's why major regional chains have been joining the big ones in the growing pan-pizza segment, why Pizza Hut is doubling down on the most traditional pizza ingredient and why even Chili's is seeing green in pizza these days.

About 20 percent of US pizza sales are now pan-style, providing much of the industry's growth. Domino's, the No. 2 chain, for example, recently introduced its first fresh-dough pan pizza. Big regional players Little Caesar's and Hungry Howie's—which also like Domino's happens to be based in Michigan—have jumped into the pan as well. Little Caesar's new Deep! Deep! Dish Pizza is considered the biggest product introduction in its 54-year history.

For Domino's, marketing its pan pizza has prompted an interesting new wrinkle in its previous positioning. It came to prominence as the guarantor of 30-minute delivery, and speed-to-mouth always has been a big part of the chain's brand. With pan pizza taking longer to cook than Domino's traditional thin-crust pies, however, the demands of quality and taste have required a different approach.Continue reading...