What do people notice when they go to a restaurant? Is it the atmosphere? The service? The food quality? The answer is…all of the above. Now, ask yourself this: does anyone notice a restaurant’s brand when they come to the restaurant? If they don’t, they should.
While atmosphere, service and food quality go hand in hand with a restaurant’s brand, these qualities have nothing to do with the physical brand of the restaurant. This is where promotional items come into play. Promotional products help customers further recognize a brand easier, by making the name more well known to them. To do this, restaurants should brand some key products to ensure their name stays with their customer until the customer’s next visit.
The most essential promotional item restaurants should have are its uniforms. Sure, employees all wear the same color polo, t-shirt, or button down, but does it have the restaurant name on the shirt? Depending on the type of material of the uniform shirt, the restaurant logo should be screen printed or embroidered on the front left chest so it is easy for customers to see the logo.
Imprinting uniforms is important because it distinguishes employees from customers. When a customer needs something, they will always know who to go to because of the imprint on the uniform. The logo will also remind the customer of which restaurant they are eating (in the case of a new customer who just dropped by to see how the food was).
Another item that keeps a restaurant’s logo in the faces of its customers are imprinted drinking glasses. Everyone orders something to drink, even they are drinking water. Imprinted glasses are important to have around because once the server takes the order and the menus are gone, the glass will still be sitting on the table reminding customers that the atmosphere, the service and the food are all associated with the brand they see before them on their drinking glass.
To bring this up a notch, try adding a novelty cup to your collection of imprinted cups and give customers the option to buy the cup so they can take it home with them to use everyday.
To wrap it all up, literally, try imprinting carryout containers and bags. Imprinted carryout containers are important because the customers who are ordering takeout do not have the pleasure of sitting down in the restaurant and enjoying its ambiance. Not to mention, these customers are not seeing the restaurant logo on every uniform, drinking glass, napkin, pen etc. through the duration of their stay. The only place these customers get to imprint your brand into their minds is at home, so why not give them the opportunity to bring the brand home with them?
Same goes for customers who have had the pleasure of sitting down to eat in a restaurant. If these customers want to take home leftovers, why not continue to brand the restaurant’s name in their minds? A great compliment to the container would be some napkins and carryout drink cups that also have the restaurant logo.
All in all, there are a great variety of logoed items restaurants can use to make their brand memorable. So, the next time a customer thinks of that really great restaurant with a fun atmosphere, friendly service and amazing food, they will connect these three elements with the brand of the restaurant.
Creating Memorable Impressions For Your Brand 