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BWW MARKETING REVIEW...

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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). nshuwbsggwh hsbgj nnbwghjs hhyui kajsuinn bshwb bs n hwhnnn bnnshjj Hey my name is jaw 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” f rom 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 Thursd...