Menu Strategy: Marketing Cooperatives
Your suppliers generally want you to sell more and they are often willing to put up some money to help you do that. Some of those old Coca-Cola and Budweiser promotional signs are now worth a fortune. Depending on your restaurant volume and the demographics/psychographics of your core audience, you may be a good candidate for cooperative funds from vendors. The deals are usually commensurate to the size, scale and negotiating skills of the restaurant company and supplier. The cooperative program could come in the form of your wine distributor paying to print new menus, or a large vendor offering a rebate that may be used for marketing, or could even be a jointly sponsored promotion or special event. One of our clients received $60,000 per year in cooperative advertising funds from a credit card company ($40m run on that one card type). The only stipulation for receiving the cooperative advertising funding was that their logo be used on any of the ads or promotional materials. I mention this in the context of menu design because it could have an impact on future menu designs and is a consideration when looking at new LTO’s, long-term purchasing contracts with minimum volume requirements, and also finding that additional funding for marketing and menu improvements.
