5 Tips for Quick Service Fast Food Branding to Attract Patrons
What comes to mind when somebody asks you about your favorite fast-food restaurant? Now, maybe your first thought is of their signature dish or unique taste, but what next? What do you think about their logo, brand colors, or packaging? If the answer is yes, then you are not alone. Many people associate certain colors, images or icons, and even font styles with their favorite fast food brands.
Consider the example for Arby’s here for a moment. The dark red color is almost as popular as their slow-roast beef sandwich.
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Source: Wikimedia
This is the power of their branding. Let’s talk about how you can leverage visual elements and design in fast food branding to attract patrons.
What Design Elements to Consider for Fast Food Branding?
The most important design elements that you should consider, include the logo, brand colors, fonts and typography, and imagery such as an illustration or a mascot. These are all incredibly important to brand-building and can shape the perception of the audience about your fast food business. If you think about it, the design elements are mostly visual and based on what people can immediately see or visualize.
This is where you can leverage the appeal of vibrant colors, custom typography, and unique characters to make an impression on the consumers. Here are some of the key design elements to consider for fast food branding:
- Bold colors: A popular color combination in this industry is red and yellow, and commonly used to stimulate appetite and convey a sense of energy and excitement.
- Engaging Logos: Eye-catching and recognizable logos become iconic representations of fast food chains, instantly conveying their brand identity.
- Distinct typography: Free-flowing, handwritten, or clear-cut font styles can make a strong impression on the audience in the fast food industry.
- Unique character or icon: A simple shape, badge, or symbols like a bell or burger can highlight the expertise of a business and tell people exactly what they can expect from the beginning.
While each visual element has a role to play in branding, the logo is right at the center of most campaigns. So, before anything else, you need to focus on creating fast-food restaurant logos that showcase your specialty and get people excited to try out different items.
Just think about how big fast food companies like Starbucks and Domino’s have built widely recognized brands by drawing attention to their brand symbols that feature prominently on all digital and print mediums.
Source: Wikipedia
With emotionally appealing logos in fast food branding, both companies have drawn the attention of consumers across the globe. The design has played an important role in keeping these corporations relevant through generations. You can go around asking any millennial or Gen Z, chances are that their go-to coffee place is Starbucks!
Why is Branding Important in the Fast Food Industry?
The fast food industry thrives on fierce competition and a saturated market, making branding essential for success. With competition getting tougher, a strong brand identity sets you apart from competitors and creates a lasting impression on customers. Effective branding not only helps you attract patrons but also fosters customer loyalty and trust.
By strategically positioning your brand, you can tap into the emotional connection that customers have with their favorite fast-food establishments.
It is important to choose the right visual elements so you can evoke certain emotions in the audience and create a memorable brand image. Take the example of the bell in Taco Bell’s iconic logo or the smiling girl in Wendy’s brand symbol. These visual elements have become synonymous with the respective brands and contribute to their brand recognition and recall.
With an effective branding strategy, fast food businesses can establish a strong presence in the market, attract patrons, and create a distinctive identity that keeps customers coming back for more.
5 Tips for Fast Food Branding to Attract Patrons
Here are some great tips for quick service fast food branding that you can follow to attract patrons and create recognition among the audience.
Tell an Interesting Story
With fast food branding, one of the most important aspects is building a connection with patrons or potential customers. This helps with word-of-mouth marketing and makes it easier for businesses to foster loyalty. So, how exactly do you do this? Well, the first thing is to brainstorm ideas to add a personal or human touch with visual elements. And that’s where storytelling comes in.
Think of a fast food chain like Wendy’s that has included personal details such as the word ‘MOM’ that is hidden in the smiling girl’s collar. The brand highlights values like unity, joy, and the importance of family. This is a good example of how a fast food business promotes its branding objectives with visual identity design and engages people with its story.
The fast food brand showcases the value of home-cooked food and the happiness of sharing meals with your loved ones. With the smiling girl in their logo, the blue and red brand colors, and the customized handwritten font for the company name, this restaurant chain tells an interesting story about its origins and history.
Source: Wikipedia
Similar to this, you can find another example of visual storytelling with ‘The Black Dog Tavern’. The small, family-owned restaurant, based in Massachusetts has a widely recognized symbol that features a black dog. Interestingly, it has quite a history behind it. Robert Douglas, the founder, found a black lab on his ship that was called ‘The Black Dog’. He named the restaurant after his long-time friend and the logo is inspired by her as well.
Source: Wikipedia
Pro Tip: You can tell your brand’s story with illustrative imagery, fast food icon, or branding materials. For a fast food restaurant that promotes sustainability, you could choose soothing colors, icons like a leaf or tree in the logo, and a slogan to emphasize the mission as well.
Embrace the Local Culture
Now, this might sound overwhelming or confusing at first, but it can pay off in a great way. It’s how fast food businesses can create global recognition and tap into local markets in different cities, states, and even countries. Would you believe that chains like KFC and McDonald’s offer local specialties in their menus in Asian regions?
Yes, they do! They even make changes to their interiors, menu designs, and slogans to cater to the preferences of local consumers. KFC for instance, entered the Chinese market in 1987 and managed quickly to gain popularity in the country.
Its marketing strategies in the region have been fairly successful as the restaurant chain has diversified the menu to include Chinese food items and promoted its brand by collaborating with influential personalities.
In recent years, local consumers have moved towards sustainable consumption and healthy food choices and to meet their expectations, KFC opened an entirely new eatery called KPro. This restaurant exclusively serves healthy options like salmon, sandwiches, and roasted chicken. The company has kept its famous mascot, Colonel Sanders, to maintain consistency but switched its brand colors to green for KPro.
Source: Twitter
The shift shows how the brand embraced the cultural shift in China and revamped the brand identity for the healthy food restaurant.
Pro Tip: To make a lasting impression on local audiences, you can celebrate their occasions by changing your logo colors or symbols to mark an occasion like the Chinese New Year or Canada Day.
Create a Personalized Brand Experience
One trend that has become increasingly popular in the fast food industry is personalization for customers. Brands are leveraging technology such as AI and machine learning, and data-driven strategies to provide customers with tailored recommendations and responsive support.
Five Guys is a good example of a fast-food chain that excels in creating a personalized experience for its audience. The chain offers ‘build-your-own’ options to customers, empowering them to create their sandwiches according to their preferences. And you can see it in their branding as well. This customization is the brand’s USP (unique selling point).
Their brand assets like the website, app, menu, and marketing collateral emphasize the message of customization. You can even see the promise of a unique experience highlighted in their logo design. The brand has opted for a clean, Sans Serif font for their wordmark which catches the eye instantly against a vibrant red color.
Source: Fiveguys.com
Source: Google Play
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The brand has a friendly tone of voice and uses powerful imagery on its website and social media platforms to engage customers and incorporate their feedback in the menu and service as well.
Here are a few ways that fast food brands can get inspiration from this brand and create personalized experiences for their audience:
- User-friendly apps: Create an interactive and easy-to-use mobile app that allows customers to customize their orders and receive personalized recommendations based on their preferences.
- Loyalty Programs: Introduce loyalty programs that reward customers for their repeat visits and offer personalized deals and discounts based on their order history.
- Analyze Customer Preferences: Gather customer data and track preferences to provide personalized recommendations and promotional offers.
- Interactive Customization: Offer interactive menus, create-your-own options, and ingredient choices to give customers control over their orders and personalize their meals.
Pro Tip: Start with an interactive website that allows users to personalize their orders and offer such options with the app as well. Introduce loyalty programs for rewards so people can keep coming back.
Highlight Sustainable Practices
In today’s world, hardly anything would attract patrons faster than a business supporting a good cause or practicing responsibility towards the environment. When it comes to fast food chains, you can see that more and more people are choosing options that reduce their carbon footprint and follow sustainable practices.
You can show how you are making conscious choices in your brand strategy and making a positive impression on customers. This is one highly useful tip for fast food branding to attract patrons and reach out to a younger demographic of consumers effectively as well.
When it comes to sustainability, you can highlight such practices in your mission statement, with graphic elements like subtle and nature-inspired colors or eco-friendly logos. For instance, if you are using compostable materials for packaging, you can showcase the shift by revamping your menu and stationery designs.
Use relevant images to promote your message on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Take the example of Chipotle Mexican Grill here. The brand is known for its commitment to using high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients and makes significant efforts to reduce waste as well.
Source: chipotle.com
By opting for compostable packaging, the brand is one of many promoting eco-friendly practices. This initiative is an integral part of its brand identity and resonates with its target audience. By aligning its packaging with its brand values, Chipotle demonstrates its commitment to being an environmentally conscious fast food option.
Source: Dribbble.com
Pro Tip: Connect with your patrons with a strong brand message and highlight how you are making a difference in the world.
Increase Community Engagement
Another important tip to remember in fast food branding is community engagement. This not only shapes consumer perceptions but can also help you create a memorable experience for your audience. Before we talk about looking for ways to interact with people and increase engagement, it’s a good idea to research where your target audience is located.
In the fast food industry, your best bet to connect with potential customers is social media. If you think about it, there are millions of people just casually browsing through Instagram looking for food options! So, target such digital platforms and attract patrons with word-of-mouth recommendations as well. Host a contest or giveaway to generate interest and create awareness among a larger following.
You can also offer discounts on certain food items in a promotional campaign or exclusive deals that get people talking about your fast food chain. Burger King went viral with their ‘Whopper Detour’ campaign in 2018. The fast food brand introduced a special offer to customers that could be availed when they went near any McDonald’s restaurant.
Sounds interesting, no? It is! Burger King offered the chance to people who had the app to get a whopper for one cent. Anyone who downloaded it got a notification when were within 600 feet of McDonald’s location. The campaign led to an increase of 1.5 million users for Burger King’s app. And it was everywhere!
Source: Twitter
This is one way to boost community engagement and increase reach in a short time. The fast food brand promoted its offer on social media platforms including Youtube, where the video was viewed 58 million times.
Pro Tip: Find your audience and encourage them to participate with user-generated content or provide incentives that convince them to walk into your fast food restaurant.
Wrapping Up
These are some great tips for quick service fast food branding to attract patrons that will also help you build a recognizable brand. Before you start working on your strategy, it’s a good idea to have clear brand guidelines that you would want to follow. Get a professionally designed logo and set up a website where people can find your menu, see what you have to offer, and order online as well. Make sure that your icon is versatile and can maintain consistency on the app and social media platforms.
