Gavin Thomas
Executive Summary
Buffalo Wild Wings is a publically traded corporation that competes in the food
industry. They are headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and have roughly 900
restaurants in the United States and Canada. Their restaurant’s success is based off
of their ability to sell their personal dining experience. It is advertised and
encouraged that customers come to watch the sporting events with their friends,
and that is their niche within the industry. They boast a very strong company that
has seen consistent growth for the last decade in large part due to a strong
marketing department. They boast a strong mission statement that governs all
aspects of their company. CEO Sally Smith is widely respected and has a distinct
vision on where the company is headed. Between the CEO and marketing
department, Buffalo Wild Wings has created a brand for itself that to sports loving
men scream “Bar and Grill,” yet to families also says neighborhood restaurant. By
appealing to a mass audience while still maintaining their target audience, Buffalo
Wild Wings has been a huge success in the United States. Buffalo Wild Wings
competes with other dining establishments such as Hooters, Olive Garden, Lester’s,
and Applebee’s. Their opportunities for growth are world wide because they just
started venturing into Canada and have plans for the Middle East. Rising commodity
prices of chicken continues to be a threat for Buffalo Wild Wings as it cuts into their
profit margin and forces them to creatively price to consumers.
Industry Analysis
Buffalo Wild Wings competes in the full-service restaurant industry. The industry
has struggled to achieve the growth it witnessed before the economic collapse. A
recovering economy has brought customers back to full-service restaurants. Healthy
eating is a recent industry trend that has hurt Buffalo Wild Wings a little bit.
Customers are less likely to buy fatty chicken wings and drink beer than they were
ten years ago. Like many competitors, Buffalo Wild Wings has introduced healthier
options such as grilled chicken salads to combat this recent trend. The recent trend
in the fast food industry is hurting the full-service industry as well. With Taco Bell
and Subway offering full meals for $5, the full-service restaurants’ prices look
exorbitant, and that is before factoring in a tip. To combat this, Buffalo Wild Wings
offers the choice of fast-casual service, which reduces the service, but also the tip.
With the majority of their customers being young males, the recent trends of
reduced prices and healthy eating affect Buffalo Wild Wings far less than a
restaurant like Olive Garden because Olive Garden’s customers are older and more
cost consciences (Trinity).
Mission Statement
Buffalo Wild Wings mission statement starts off very simple: “Our mission is to
WOW people everyday!” The company then partitions the statement into four
distinct sections explaining how they treat their customers, workers, local
community, and stockholders. “We are guest-driven. We will WOW our guests every
day by achieving the highest level of satisfaction with an extraordinary focus on
friendly service, food, fun, and value. We are team-focused. We will WOW our team
members by providing the same respect, positive encouragement and fair treatment
within the organization that we expect Team Members to share externally with
every guest. We are community-connected. We will WOW the communities where
we do business by practicing good citizenship and helping to make these
communities better places to live, work and grow. We are dedicated to excellence.
We will WOW our stakeholders with outstanding, industry-leading financial results
and operational performance. We attribute our success to the hard work and
dedication of our team. While our famous wings spun in our signature sauces,
diverse beer selection, and unsurpassed audio-visual experience may bring
customers to Buffalo Wild Wings in the first place, it's our people who ultimately
give them a reason to keep coming back” (World Wide Wings). Buffalo Wild Wings
has an extremely strong mission statement. It clearly defines what their business is
and their keys to success. It gives a broader definition of their customers being the
community that surrounds them, but that is their ultimate goal: to build the
community restaurant that serves as a gathering point. The mission statement
clearly outlines what their customers’ value: service, food, and fun, which results in
value. Buffalo Wild Wings knows what their business should be, which also happens
to be the final component of a strong mission statement. Although simply stated,
“WOW[ing]” the customer with their product and service encompasses all that a
restaurant could aim to do.
Corporate Strategy
Buffalo Wild Wings corporate strategy is to grow their restaurant chain into a
“nationally and internally recognized brand” (Buffalo Wild Wings). This is no easy
task in the restaurant business where they not only have to compete with other
national chains such as Applebee’s and Houlihan’s, but also have to compete with all
of the local “Mom and Pops” pubs and grills. They do this by opening new stores in
new markets, gaining greater access to existing markets, and increase individual
store sales. The new markets that they are targeting are both foreign and domestic.
Their strategy to expand domestically through company owned restaurants and
franchised restaurants until they have 1,500 restaurants in North America (Buffalo
Wild Wings). Because of the decrease in quality locations, the leadership of Buffalo
Wild Wings has gotten creative in terms of expansion. With retailers such as Home
Depot, Lowe’s, and Sears no longer expanding as quickly, CEO Sally Smith is taking
advantage of their excess space. “Buffalo Wild Wings plans to open five new
restaurants this year on the parking lots of big-box stores” (Jargon and Hudson). In
2010, Buffalo Wild Wings opened their first restaurant in Oshawa Ontario, Canada. A
year later, they ventured into the Toronto market. In 2012, Buffalo Wild Wings
expanded outside of North America venturing into the Middle East in addition to
Puerto Rico (Buffalo Wild Wings). Their plans include 22 locations in Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi starting in late 2013 (Casserly). In
order to be successful in opening new restaurants and maintaining profitability in
current establishments, Buffalo Wild Wings is planning on maintaining their current
focus on quality food, service, and a unique experience. In essence, they plan on
continuing their mission statement of “Wow[ing]” the customer.
Since Sally Smith became CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings, the company has witnessed
consistent growth in market share. For instance, they are planning on remodeling
their restaurants with upgraded kitchens and improved audio-visual packages. In
addition to the infrastructure changes, Smith is also planning on new menu pricing
focusing on the wings. The goal for this pricing is to help minimize the impact of
raised chicken prices on their business. Instead of making these changes universal,
their management has decided to test the aforementioned strategies on single stores
in existing markets, and listen for feedback (Brandau).
Buffalo Wild Wings’ corporate strategy is very strong and coordinated. All of the
decisions go to an experienced CEO in Sally Smith, and while they recognize that
there is room left for growth in the continental United States, the potential in foreign
markets is huge. Smith and Buffalo Wild Wings make sure that they do not expand
too quickly and have researched and decided that the carrying capacity domestically
is 1,500 and set parameters to meet that goal over the course of the next halfdecade. The restaurant is constantly engaged in listening to customers, and their
“trial stores” are a sure fire way to ensure that the changes they make are efficient,
effective, and accomplish the desired goal.
Marketing Strategy
In the 2011 10-K, Buffalo Wild Wings discloses that the objective of their
marketing strategy is to “build awareness of [their] brand with sports fans” (Buffalo
Wild Wings). Buffalo Wild Wings uses Social Media as a tool to build their brand
name. They have roughly 10.25 million likes on Facebook and about 243,000
followers on Twitter. On those sites, the company can interact with their customers
to build more loyalty and as a result, raise the lifetime value of each customer. In
addition to building brand recognition with sports fans, they also realize the need to
connect with the community. They site a goal as “becoming a neighborhood
destination” (Buffalo Wild Wings). To achieve this, the restaurants market locally
through sponsoring events for the areas team or community. In order to raise
money for schools in St. Louis, Buffalo Wild Wings picked 16 local schools and is
sponsoring a fund raiser where each school gets one night a week to hold a
fundraiser at their local restaurant and whoever raises the most money gets to keep
all of the money they raised in those days (normally they only keep a percentage of
the profit) in addition to the $2,500 that Buffalo Wild Wings will award the winner
(Fox2 News). By sponsoring this local event, Buffalo Wild Wings is raising
awareness and good publicity within the community and targeting a large amount of
potential customers that their national ads do not: women and children. In the past
year, Buffalo Wild Wings has made some corporate decisions such as removing
“Grill and Bar” from their name to target this audience: "The changes give us more
flexibility in the use of the logo, and it appeals to our wide and growing audience,
including women, while maintaining a sporty masculinity" (Landingham). The
national Buffalo Wild Wings commercials are made with intent to mimic the lifestyle
of the average sports fan, their target market (Buffalo Wild Wings). They frequently
show men under forty adorned in their favorite teams jersey watching a game on a
big plasma television with his best friends next to him and beer and wings on the
table. While the advertisements are always entertaining, and hit their target
audience with extreme proficiency, they also are in strict accordance with the
mission statement of the company to focus on “friendly service, food, fun, and
value.” By watching the big game with his best friends, a beer, wings, and a college
atmosphere, the man in the commercial is receiving or has received each of these
benefits.
Market
Buffalo Wild Wings is able to sell their product to a variety of markets. Carolyn
Walkup, a writer for Nation’s Restaurant News, describes their broad market: “On
an average weekday the restaurants attract professionals at lunch, high school and
college students in midafternoon, young families at dinner, and sports fans and a
late-night crowd of young people getting off work from other restaurants for a
second shift that begins around 8 p.m” (Walkup). Walkup states all of the different
demographics that frequent Buffalo Wild Wings. Their target market as evidenced
by their commercials is the average [male] sports fan (Buffalo Wild Wings). As
stated above, by removing “Grill and Bar” from the Buffalo Wild Wings name, they
can also target families. One of the local promotions that they run with school
fundraisers is helping Buffalo Wild Wings target women, families, and kids as
opposed to the college aged-middle aged demographic that their television
commercials target.
Market Segmentation
Buffalo Wild has three distinct market segments. Their most loyal segment is the
professionals. The professionals are not the corporate presidents, but college
graduates without families of their own. More often than not, they are under the age
of forty, but still young enough to party and hang out with their former college
buddies. When they were in college, the professionals frequented the local Buffalo
Wild Wings and keep up the tradition after college. They might stop by the
restaurant on their lunch break, or meet up on a weekend for the game. The
majority of the television commercials show the professional segment that Buffalo
Wild Wings is targeting. Another market segment is the students. Their ages range
from high school freshmen to college seniors. They come from families that are
middle class or higher and like to watch games on weeknights during the school
year as a break from studying. Occasionally, they might come in on weekends, but
they will probably be at the game that is on the television. The students are the next
generation of Buffalo Wild Wings customers, and in a couple years, will graduate to
become a customer in the professional market segment. The last market segment is
the fastest growing segment: families. Normally bars are not very popular with
families, but Buffalo Wild Wings has made a concerted effort to reach out to families
through different promotions to change the perception of their restaurant. They
removed “Bar and Grill” from their restaurant name specifically to entice families to
frequent the restaurant. In addition, they offer promotions and fundraisers to
schools that persuade families to come into Buffalo Wild Wings to help out their
school. By doing this, the company got the attention of families and educated them
on their restaurant experience and that it is family friendly.
Old Logo (AppsRumors)
New Logo (Buffalo Wild Wings)
Positioning
Buffalo Wild Wings competes: ““Primarily with local and regional sports bars and
national casual dining and quick casual establishments, and to a lesser extent, [the]
quick service restaurants such as wingbased take-out concepts” (Buffalo Wild
Wings). The national restaurant chains that they compete with are Hooters,
Applebee’s, Houlihan’s, and other similar restaurants.
They manage to differentiate themselves from the competition through the quality
of their food, service, atmosphere, and value (Buffalo Wild Wings). The atmosphere
and brand that Buffalo Wild Wings has built differentiates them from any restaurant
in the country. There are not many restaurants that serve food and drinks while also
providing many television sets for sports and a continuous trivia game. Sally Smith
told Nation’s Restaurant News that she believes that by giving customers the choice
between a fast-casual service, where no tip is required, and full service, where the
customer is waited on, separates them from the competition. A franchisee estimated
that 90% of his lunch patrons opted for the fast-casual service while 50% opted for
it at dinner (Walkup).
Positioning Map
Buffalo Wild Wings positions themselves on the basis of sports entertainment
provided by the restaurant and food quality. While some competitors such as Olive
Garden focus primarily on food quality, and other competitors focus on the
entertainment side, like Hooters. Only Buffalo Wild Wings adequately provides both
for the customer.
Customer Behavior
Typical Buffalo Wild Wings customers are single male college graduates below the
age of forty. They come from colleges with lively social atmospheres and most likely
watched their football team play other Divisor One or Two teams with more than
50,000 fans. When they graduated college, they earned jobs and slightly above
average pay for their age. Because they have no children or spouses to support, their
money goes to their social life. One aspect of that social life is going to Buffalo Wild
Wings with a few friends and buying wings and drinks to enjoy the game on a large
flat screen television. Eventually, they aspire to own season tickets to the football
game and host parties at their house or Buffalo Wild Wings, but for the time being, a
simple day out with their friends is all they can afford. Their interests outside of the
next promotion are manly things. They enjoy watching and talking about sports
over a beer. In addition, they might take a day off work to go hunting when deer
season opens. While they plan for the future, they are not super conservative with
cash and are willing to spend money to have a good time. The important thing to the
typical Buffalo Wild Wings customer is maintaining their lifetime friendship with
the best college or high school buddies and making the most of their time while they
are single. To meet their friends at the Buffalo Wild Wings that is central to their
residencies, the average customer might drive upwards of forty-five minutes. They
justify this investment of time by hanging out in the restaurant for a couple of hours,
maybe gravitating towards one of their apartments for the night before heading
home the next morning.
“Bob,” The Average Buffalo Wild Wings Customer
Meet Bob. Bob is a college graduate climbing the corporate ladder making a little
over $60,000 a year. He is single, but is not lonely. After a long week of work, there
is nothing Bob enjoys more than hanging out with his college buddies and going to
Buffalo Wild Wings to watch his favorite team, the Saint Louis Rams, play on Sunday.
Bob would love to someday buy season tickets, but right now they are slightly too
expensive. In college, Bob would hang out with his friends and watch the Mizzou
Tigers play at Faurot Field. Unfortunately, Bob was wild back in the day and doesn’t
remember much of the games, but he is certain he had fun. He remembers the game
day atmosphere and excitement, and the only place that can replicate it besides the
actual stadium is Buffalo Wild Wings. Nonetheless, Bob looks forward to Sundays
with his friends and football.
Competitive Advantage
Buffalo Wild Wings believes their completive advantage is through “the basis of the
taste, quality and price of food offered, guest service, ambience, location, and overall
dining experience” (Buffalo Wild Wings). A few publications such as Cincinnati
Magazine, Bloomington Voice, and others named Buffalo Wild Wings “Best Wings”
so it is not just the restaurant that believes that the competitive advantage is
through their food, but also the local magazines. In addition to the praise for the
food, a dozen publications named Buffalo Wild Wings “Best Sports Bar” proving
their competitive advantage through their service and experience that they sell
(Trinity).
Their focus on sports and trivia also gives the company an advantage. While
enjoying award-winning wings, customers can watch large screen televisions with
their favorite sports on and are encouraged to cheer loudly, almost as if they are at a
game. They also provide customers the option of fast-casual service or full service.
Full service entails a waitress waiting on the customer while fast-casual service is
another form of take out where the food is prepared quickly, and no tip is necessary
for the waitress. Mike Jones, a franchisee in north central Indiana estimates that
“about 90 percent of [the] guests prefer fast-casual service at lunch, while 50
percent opt for it at dinner” (Walkup).
According to Kathleen Benning, “Buffalo Wild Wings is more interested in having
customers stay as long as they want than it is in rapid table turnover” (Cebrzynski).
At many other competitors, the restaurants will stop waiting on customers after a
certain amount of time, or kick them at. At Buffalo Wild Wings, customers could
potentially sit all day at a table and enjoy lunch and dinner.
Buffalo Wild Wings also coined “You Have to Be Here” as a marketing campaign with
the intention to differentiate the restaurant from competitors by advertising its’
welcoming environment (Cerbrzynski). In addition to welcoming and inviting
customers to stay for any length of time, the “You Have to Be Here” slogan also
pertains to witnessing crucial moments of the big game with friends.
Marketing 4 P’s
Price:
Buffalo Wild Wings is a mid-priced restaurant. It’s not cheap like fast food
establishments such as McDonald’s, but not overly expensive like a Cheesecake
Factory. The average meal including tip would run from $7-15 depending on if the
customer purchases an alcoholic beverage. The price of a meal from BWW does not
solely purchase food, but also buys the atmosphere. Their staple product, buffalo
chicken wings, are a dozen for $10 and they run promotions such as Boneless
Thursday and Wing Tuesday where they are discounted. To set their price, Buffalo
Wild Wings uses a mix of cost plus and market based pricing. For their chicken
wings, it clearly is cost plus pricing because to combat rising chicken prices, they
have stopped selling a specific amount of wings, instead choosing to sell a specific
weight (Eaton). This helps them maintain their profit margin. For their non-chicken
wing items, the restaurant uses market based pricing to sell their food at similar
costs to their competitors.
Product:
As stated above, Buffalo Wild Wings product is not just in the food they sell, but also
in the atmosphere and memories experienced and created at the restaurant. In
other words, they sell an augmented product. There are tons of large televisions
with every game and event imaginable on, and a constant trivia game circulating
throughout the individual restaurant, and all of the establishments worldwide. They
buy PPV events for their customers such as UFC fights. Their staple product is their
wings with different sauces. They offer traditional and boneless wings. Also on the
menu are other items such as quesadillas, burgers, and chicken sandwiches. To
complete the game-like atmosphere, they sell beer. They encourage slightly rowdy
behavior in terms of cheering for the hometown team with the other fans in the
restaurant. For the most part, Buffalo Wild Wings has waitresses serve the tables.
Although slightly sexist, it is a man’s environment as a restaurant, so it serves a
purpose.
Because Buffalo Wild Wings does not just sell a product, but also a service, it is
important to analyze the four characteristics of a service. The intangibles that
Buffalo Wild Wings sells are well documented. Customers are always pleased with
the atmosphere of the restaurant. During sporting events, there is always a buzz
around the televisions, and a burst of energy waiting to happen. It is a very exciting
place to be and to share camaraderie with fellow fans. The inseparability comes
from the atmosphere in the restaurant shared by the fans. It is not generated by one
individual or by all members of the waiting staff, but the buzz and excitement that
the restaurant advertises and delivers is truly remarkable, especially during
sporting events. Because a lot of the excitement is around sports games and events,
the same excitement from watching live cannot be replicated later and thus falls
under the perishable category of service characteristics. When the game or moment
is over, it can always be relived, but the pure joy from seeing something shocking
and awesome, such as David Freese’s triple and home run in game six of the 2011
World Series, can never be done with the same effectiveness. The variability is the
service provided by the waiting staff. They are always very considerate to take
orders and take care of drinks without getting in the way of a game or a big play.
They fit in the background of the restaurant and do not detract from the experience
like the waiting staffs at competing restaurants.
Place:
Buffalo Wild Wings operates in a Business to Consumer selling relationship. They
are in almost every big city in America. They tend to position their restaurants
around metropolitan areas. With roughly 900 restaurants, there is always one by
major college campuses, a couple of miles from high schools. In less populated areas,
they choose a central location where customers can come from miles away “into
town” to watch the big game. They also tend to put restaurants right off the highway
for customers who are on the road. All of these locations aid in Buffalo Wild Wings
getting their end product to the customer. Because their end product is not just the
food, but also the atmosphere, it is important that they are busy during the “sports
schedule.” That can be defined as weeknights from six to eight and weekends during
the lunch and dinner hours. All of their locations help build the camaraderie that the
restaurant is hoping to sell. Kids from college campuses and high schools bring some
youth and energy. In the cases of small cities, they serve as a gathering spot for the
town to watch their team.
Promotion:
Advertising:
BWW also runs an extensive advertising campaign through television ads. Their
slogan: “Wings, Beer, Sports,” targets young and middle-aged sports enthusiasts as
their audience. In the age of entertainment, Buffalo Wild Wings has captivated their
target audience of sports fans through the Madison and Vine method of creating
informative, creative, and enjoyable commercials. One of their most successful
campaigns featured around the tagline: “You have to be here!” In the campaign, the
commercials would show various sporting events at a climactic moment in a close
game where customers of Buffalo Wild Wings would be sitting in a restaurant
enjoying wings and beer and request that the game be sent into overtime. An
employee would push a button that signals somebody or something in the stadium
that they are watching to pull a trick to make the losing team come back to tie the
game. In one case, it was the sprinkler system at a football stadium spraying
opponents chasing the running back with water as he runs into the end zone. While
entirely unrealistic, this campaign sparked conversation about the company and
helped brand them as THE gathering spot to watch sports events and enjoy food.
Their advertisements make frequent appearances during CBS’s basketball
broadcasts in the winter, Westwood One’s coverage of NFL games, and most of the
other sports broadcasts throughout the year. The sports-fan audience that those
outlets provide “really aligns with Buffalo Wild Wings,” according to the company’s
Senior Vice President of marketing and brand development, Kathy Benning
(Cebrzynski). BWW attracts customers through the process of product delivery.
They have giant televisions with sold food. This would attract a decent amount of
men (Target Audience) in general, and throw in a stadium-like atmosphere with
your best friends, fairly attractive service, and a big game, BWW can sell themselves
as the perfect restaurant to view a game, and their promotions reflect this vision.
The promotional mix is one of the strengths of the company.
Sales Promotions:
As stated above, BWW runs a special on Tuesday, Wing Tuesday, and Thursday,
Boneless Thursday, to discount a staple item to attract customers. The reason they
choose these days is that for the fall, the football games are on Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday. By running these events on Tuesday and Thursday, they attract
customers on the days that the sporting events would normally not.
Personal Selling:
Buffalo Wild Wings does not sell or advertise directly to businesses because their
product is an augmented product. They would reduce the value of their product if it
was not sold in their restaurant and the customer perception might be different in a
non-controlled environment.
Direct Marketing:
They rely heavily on advertising through social media and are one of the first
restaurants to fully take advantage of it. They have 10.25 million likes on Facebook
and about 243,000 followers on Twitter. That means that at the very least, Buffalo
Wild Wings will reach at least 10 million potential customers with any tweet they
put through Twitter. A lot of companies spend millions of dollars trying to reach that
volume of customers, yet Buffalo Wild Wings does it for free.
Public Relations:
Buffalo Wild Wings also sponsors local fundraisers in various communities. The
fundraisers are geared towards schools and help maintain their public image within
the community, but also encourages families and women to frequent the restaurant
when at first glance, they might pass because of the “Bar” label. The school
fundraisers have helped lift Buffalo Wild Wings in the minds of families and women.
Marketing Channels
As a restaurant, Buffalo Wild Wings fulfills the role of the retailer. They do not grow
chickens to make their chicken wings, but buy the chicken from a producer. Buffalo
Wild Wings the corporation plays the role of wholesaler because they buy all of the
products in bulk and then distribute to their franchised or corporate stores who are
the retailers and sell the individual product.
S.W.O.T. ANALYSIS
Strengths:
Buffalo Wild Wings has witnessed consistent growth for the better part of the last
decade due to the growth model under CEO Sally Smith. With strong leadership as
strength, Buffalo Wild Wings is going to continue to prosper (Oregon). The unique
experience that comes along with the food that customers buy at the restaurant is
another strength. The local newspapers that have rated it as “Best Bar” legitimize
the atmosphere they are famous for. In addition to the atmosphere, the restaurant
has earned multiple awards from publications for the quality of their wings, their
staple product. The brand that Buffalo Wild Wings has created for itself is another
strength. They have a very good reputation for food quality, service, and
expectations are generally met. In addition to being a widely successful bar, Buffalo
Wild Wings has successfully branched out from being “just another sports bar.”
They have become popular with families and women through a concerted marketing
effort that spanned a couple of years. This is just one success story of their multiple
marketing campaigns, and the marketing department is one of the biggest strengths
of the company and one of the reasons for the consistent growth of years past, and
potential for growth in the future (Trinity).
Weaknesses:
They have a high concentration of restaurants in the Midwest, particularly in Ohio
so if any kind of economic recession hit the area, an economically poor customer
base would hurt them. Twenty percent of non-alcoholic sales are chicken wings, and
many of their other products contain chicken as well. Any disruption in the market
for chicken, or if the price of chicken rises, would lower or erase the company’s
profit margin (Oregon). Buffalo Wild Wings has also franchised 65 percent of their
restaurants, which ultimately could harm one of their strengths, their brand. Should
the franchises offer service and food that is not up to the standard of the corporate
stores, the brand would take a hit (Trinity).
Opportunities:
Buffalo Wild Wings has not expanded fully into the Western United States and has
started to breach foreign markets in the Middle East, Puerto Rico, and Canada. The
new markets that Buffalo Wild Wings plans on expanding into create an exciting
opportunity for revenue growth. In the continental United States, Buffalo Wild
Wings is a well-known brand and has been successful, but eventually domestic sales
will plateau. The foreign markets will help Buffalo Wild Wings maintain their
current growth rate and sustain their success for even longer (Oregon). There is also
a positive outlook on the restaurant industry “According to the National Restaurant
Association (NRA), 88% of adults enjoy going to a restaurant and 74% do it because
of the experience” (Trinity).
Threats:
Any economic recession in the United States would harm Buffalo Wild Wings and all
restaurants in a major way. In addition to recession, chicken prices could push the
profit margin of selling their staple product, chicken wings, lower if they choose to
not raise prices, or risk losing customers over raised prices (Oregon).
The restaurant industry is a highly competitive one, not just for customers, but also
for real estate and workers. This competition is not restricted to just restaurants,
but also banks, pharmacies, and different companies from other industries. A major
threat is the lack of good locations left for expansion in addition to finding qualified
workers who will continue to promote their brand (Walkup).
Because chicken wings and alcohol, the two money makers for Buffalo Wild Wings,
are not particularly healthy, they also face the risk of losing customers who try to
eat healthier, or at least it lowers the customer’s life time value to the company
because they would not frequent the restaurant as much (Trinity).
Recommendations:
In the S.W.O.T analysis, the marketing department of Buffalo Wild Wings proved
themselves to be a great asset to the company. If the restaurant continues to adapt
its marketing strategy to the overall needs, they will prosper. When they first
became public and had an advertising campaign, the goal was to capture the
attention and as a result, sales, from the sports fans. This meant advertising as Bar
and Grill; a neighborhood gathering place to watch the big game. As the restaurant
evolved and successfully captured that target market, CEO Sally Smith wisely chose
to target families and women in addition to the working middle class for the lunch
hour. This too was implemented with sustained success and eventually coincided
with the removal of “Bar and Grill” from the company name. Because they have been
so successful in the continental United States, it is time to expand into new markets
and try marketing their product to potential customers around the globe. They
chose Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Middle East. Canada is a natural progression
because it is just an extension of the United States, and the same can be said for
Puerto Rico. The Middle East is an interesting decision that could be a boom or a
bust depending on how friendly that region remains or changes to the United States
and what it stands for. Yum! Brands has successfully captured that market for
American fast food, and Buffalo Wild Wings could as well. Overall, Buffalo Wild
Wings is doing everything well in terms of marketing, and nobody can argue with
their recent track record.
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