As an Agency Account Manager, I had the opportunity to working closely with Adman, Madman, Mike Moser of Goldberg Moser O’Neill, and author of United We Brand, Harvard Business Press. We worked together agency side and client side. Together we wrote a brand trail map, a brand plan for Black Angus restaurants. Mike talked about this importance of brands keeping promises, and of staying cognizant of the value equation.
Quality/price = value
These days, with flat restaurant counts, consumers more educated, demanding, time crunched, and trends changing quickly, we find American consumers willing to look well beyond a sit-down, full-service restaurant for dining value. People find quality faster these days, and Zagat helped make that happen by democratizing restaurants food. Following are excerpted parts about the value the value equation.
Following Fast Company article is about the wonderful bootstrap history of the Zagat guide. Then the Google purchase, the termination of what we knew of Zagat, terminating the staff, ending the ending founder’s participation, last print guide in 2017, and the recent sale to a startup called The Infatuation.
Fast Company
The Way We Eat Now, Zagat: A Survival Guide by Ben Paynter
By democratizing food, Zagat altered the culinary landscape forever. Here’s how it felt from the inside.
Allan Ripp, former Zagat PR director: At one point we compared foot traffic and foot ratings between some of the high-end and lower-end places. The restaurant run by the [chef who inspired] the Seinfeld Soup Nazi, its food ratings were higher than Le Cirque…{Zagat wasn’t merely] riding the wave of culinary change in the country but helping to advance it.
Kevin Sutro CEO, Zachary’s Chicago Pizza: In 2003 we were the top 10…in the Bay Area and that ruffled some feathers.
Danny Meyer, restaurateur; CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group: I was a junkie with all the [Zagat] statistics. I created what I call the value equation…for the top 50 restaurants-their food décor, service scores and dividing that by that number by the cost of buying a mean there: quality per dollar. [The guide] was an annual report. I started to pay bonuses based on those [analyzed] scores…I’ll never forget when Shake Shack made top 50. Who would have ever though a burger place would do that?
illustration from Fast company Article - by Wren McDonald