'Celebrity' and The Restaurant Industry

Unless you have been living under a rock, it's hard to miss the fact that celebrities have been taking over the restaurant industry, especially in terms of the way fast food is being marketed. And it's anybody's guess which came first, the chicken or the egg. Sometimes, a restaurant will reach out to a celebrity or influencer to hype a product. Still, more often than not recently, the celebrity spends so much time showing themselves with a product on their social media that they end up making copious amounts of TikTok videos and selling the drink or meal to all of their followers.

Marketers at fast-food restaurants are savvy. Take Mcdonald's, for instance. After a Covid-19 induced slump which saw their sales dropping, they began a new celebrity campaign in September 2020. They are using popular influences to target young people in a quest to get more customers in the door and more action on their apps. The tactic is working. Not only have their sales increased, but they have seen 10 million downloads of its app added to the fray.

And the advertising is free. When McDonald's was selling its Travis Scott meal, for instance, fans of the rapper would create videos of themselves playing his song "Sicko Mode" while they ordered. Of course, the videos ended up on TikTok, offering more talk time to McDonald's.?

"It's very clear that McDonald's is using celebrities to drive the younger generation to its app as a great touchpoint for engagement" with Gen Z,?said Lauren Hockenson, a product marketing manager at Sensor Tower, which tracks app downloads and ad spending. It stands to reason that with these celebrity partnerships, fast food restaurants gain access to the millions of young people who hang on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

Dunkin' has fed right into this food chain as well. Charli D'Amelio, 17-year-old influencer extraordinaire, has over 130 million TikTok followers, who happened to notice that she was never without her Dunkin'. In September 2020, the company debuted a drink they named the Charli, cold brew coffee with whole milk and three caramel swirl pumps, resulting in a record number of Dunkin' app users.?

These celebrity partnerships are also helping brands gain access to where millions of digital natives spend tons of time: Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms.

"If you think about the target we're focusing on, which is youth and youth culture, that's where they're living," said Jennifer Healan, the vice president of U.S. marketing, brand content, and engagement for McDonald's.

Celebrities create their own meals at fast-food restaurants, drawing attention to themselves and the restaurant in the process. Burger King has followed the path McDonald's created. For example,?CNN reports?that "Rapper Nelly created the 'Cornell Haynes Jr. Meal,' that includes a Whopper with cheese, small fries, and small Sprite. The meal from Brazilian singer Larissa Machado, which fans recognize as Anitta, is the same as Nelly's meal but has an Impossible Whopper instead. Singer-songwriter Lil Huddy, a.k.a Chase Hudson, created a meal that includes its new spicy chicken sandwich, four-piece mozzarella sticks and a chocolate shake."?

"Young people become these unintentional marketers, said?Franes Fleming-Milici, the direction of marketing initiatives for the University of Connecticut's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health." "Companies don't have to pay for that organic content and all the TikToks that people make."

"Celebrity endorsements are particularly powerful with children," said?Josh Grolin, the executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit focused on how marketing affects children. "They begin to associate that celebrity with the brand, and they want that junk food even when it's not being directly advertised to them."

Don't think that fast-food restaurants are the only ones to play the game. New York City is teeming with restaurants that have a celebrity edge to them. Lucali in Brooklyn is known for hosting Jay Z and Beyonce. Rihanna enjoys Coppelia, a 24-hour Cuban restaurant, usually early in the morning, and Kanye is often ordering "the Jerk" at Miss Lilys, where she always says he is what he eats. And it stands to reason that common folks keep their eye on celebrities when it comes to choosing restaurants.?

Celebrity endorsement can help a business's bottom line exponentially, but it's all fun and games until the celebrity does something stupid and the connection is then doing more harm than good. Unfortunately, McDonald's recently yanked their association with the Travis Scott meal after 10 people died at his concert in the Astroworld.??

And there is a growing movement in response to the omnipresent and over-the-top celebrity endorsements. For instance, restaurant A & W is fighting back, using real people and real products to generate authentic content on social media.?

"A & W?thinks it's overplayed. That's why the American burger and root beer chain has debuted the new 'Anti-Celeb Meals' campaign, which pokes fun at competitors by juxtaposing their celebrity-studded creative against images of A & W employees reenacting the poses."?

They hope this will offer authenticity to their marketing and open the door for more people to work there, as staffing across the country is currently low. A & W thinks the user-generated content is much more valid than the contrived celebrity endorsements and will lure customers in a more realistic way.

Frankly, the jury is still out on whether or not celebrity endorsements are a positive or a negative. Maybe people could just decide for themselves whether they need an Impossible Whopper or a caramel macchiato without worrying about what the latest influencer is doing. And if restaurants rely too heavily on celebrities, and the celebrity goes bad, then what will happen to the specialty meal? Perhaps everyone should just cook at home more, and not worry about the celebrity pressure to eat in certain restaurants.?