Recently I received a press release full of the publicity buzzwords that we are all used to hearing when being sold on a new restaurant. It took some time, wading through the jargon, to realise that there could actually be a half decent concept hidden beneath all those puffed up, meaningless adjectives.
Shortly after this, an announcement hailing the launch of a new venue arrived in my inbox — informing me of precisely nothing. Well, I knew that its mixologists were going to be pushing boundaries and its chefs would deliver an epicurean experience, but I don’t really consider this to be useful information.
When I followed up on the offer of an interview with the operators of this mysterious venture, imagine my (delighted) shock when I arrived to find a fantastic team bursting with hospitality experience, strikingly different décor (in a good way) and dishes that definitely did not needed any smoke and mirrors. I was ready to order everything on the menu — which got me thinking, why do so many new outlets go to the trouble of the hard sell without actually telling us anything tangible? They could just impress us with their actual offering rather than vague promises of ‘flavours we have never tasted before’.
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Consumers do not gain anything from hearing that a concept is ‘groundbreaking’. Informing us that we can expect ‘a transcendent experience’ does not actually give anyone an insight into what the restaurant or bar is going to be like. Promising a ‘revolutionary’ dining experience is not going to make me want to book a table; I highly doubt that whatever the concept, as exciting as it may be, is going to irrevocably shake-up the status quo of F&B as we know it.
I understand why newcomers do it; it’s a competitive marketplace and, naturally, they want to stand out. But instead of telling us your restaurant is ‘unique’, talk to us about how you're using only hormone-free poultry; or how you are working with suppliers to procure fair-trade ingredients; or what influences your chefs are bringing to the table (no pun intended).
We’re always hearing that the new generation of consumers care about what’s real — provenance for example — so it’s surely better to lose the unintelligible ‘fluff’ when trying to attract them. You dry-age all your beef in-house? Great; tell me about that. Your chefs are from the home-country of your cuisine? Amazing; tell us how your dishes deliver authenticity.
Outlets should be wary of getting so caught up in dazzling people that the news of their arrival becomes white noise. Why not stand out by just giving consumers the interesting details we want, leaving the spin to those concepts that need it?
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