Are You Ready for a Recession? With Roger Hurni, Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Off Madison Ave
Roger Hurni is the Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Off Madison Ave. He brings a unique perspective as a behavior strategist, creative visionary, and branding expert to the clients he serves. Roger knows that unprecedented results are achieved by optimizing the three variables of human behavior. This basis is the foundation he uses to develop behavior-changing results for organizations of all sizes. Currently, Roger is a member of the prestigious Walter Cronkite Endowment Board and serves on the global board for the Worldcom Public Relations Group, where he was its past Global Chair.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Roger Hurni explains how buyer behavior shifted during the pandemic and which of those changes stuck
How store and restaurant shifts for facilitating delivery affect marketing
What marketers can do to prepare for a potential recession
How marketers can change messaging to demonstrate product value
Who is most likely and least likely to feel the impact of a recession on their business?
Roger explains how companies can determine the steps to take to prepare for a potential recession
What you’ll learn in this episode:
We may be heading into a recession, so now is the time for businesses to prepare. What adjustments should you be making? How can you change your approach to marketing and effectively communicate value to your customers amid a recession?
Just as consumer behavior shifted during the pandemic, it’s expected that a recession will also impact behaviors. As a behavior strategist expert, Roger Hurni says it’s likely that consumers will tighten their belts in an effort to save money. As a result of the pandemic, people shifted to online ordering and having food delivered. He says that behavior is expected to continue, but people will be more willing to pick up food instead of paying extra for delivery. Businesses, especially food service establishments, will need to alter their marketing approach since it will be crucial to demonstrate that your product has a higher perceived value at a lower cost compared to your competitors.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni, Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Off Madison Ave is interviewed by Chad Franzen of Rise25 about ways businesses in the food service industry can prepare for a possible recession. Roger predicts the customers’ mentality will tend to be more cost-conscious and shares ways to emphasize opportunities to provide value, keeping consumer spending concerns in mind. He says it’s important to start preparing now, so don’t miss this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
The proven models and methods of Behavior Design is the strategic foundation for your brands’ success.
Episode Transcript
Roger Hurni 0:10
Hello everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal and I am fortunate enough on the show to get to speak with top leaders in food and beverage. And today, I have with me, Chad Franzen, of Rise25, who has done thousands of interviews with successful entrepreneurs, investors and CEOs. And we're going to flip the script today, he's actually going to be interviewing me about what's going to be happening from a consumer behavior standpoint with a pending recession. Chad, welcome to the show.
Chad Franzen 0:46
Hey, thanks so much, Roger. Great to be here and look forward to talking with you. Before we get started, I will let everybody know that this episode is brought to them by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, they use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Their behavioral approach taps into your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are of and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success. For more information, send Roger an email at Roger.Hurni@OffMadisonAve.com. That's Off Madison a-v-e dot com. And that's Roger dot H-u-r-ni at Off Madison Ave.com. Hey, Roger, thanks so much for having me today. How are you?
Roger Hurni 1:37
I am doing great. It's toward the end of the week. And it's been a long one. So I'm looking forward to the weekend.
Chad Franzen 1:45
Good. Yeah, that makes two of us. As you mentioned, we're going to talk a little bit how a bit about a possible pending recession, and how people can kind of get prepared for that from a marketing standpoint. As we get started here, let's kind of recap how buyer behavior and habits started to shift during the COVID pandemic, you know, a couple of years ago, and which of those behaviors kind of stuck?
Roger Hurni 2:06
Well, so whenever there's something pending, that's really large, consumers’ habits and behaviors will shift and there's a little bit of a difference there. Behaviors can be like a one-time event like, I think I'll try Yoplait over Chobani habits are, I'm going to now have yogurt all the time for the rest of my life, if you will, instead of a one-time purchase. Well, when the pandemic hit, we didn't know what we're up against. We had been in a pandemic for 100 years. And it shifted a lot of buying behaviors. For consumers, all of a sudden, they're locked in their house, they had to start making their own meals, figuring stuff out on their own. Many people had no idea how food delivery even worked, or what DoorDash was, or Uber Eats. And it shifted everyone's behavior to try something one time, I'm going to try having delivery done, I'm going to try a QR code for paying for something at a restaurant when I can actually go during that, that time period. And a lot of that stuck and became habits to where now people habitually will order online once a week or a couple times a month, there'll be restaurants that you can still sit at the table and pay with a QR code or music QR code to view the menu. Even if yo,u they do have a paper menu, and you see that shift still occurring. Now that we're through the other side of it, and you think that, oh, things are getting back to normal, it's really a new normal, because we have adopted those behavioral habits from the pandemic. And now they feel like well, wasn't it always like this? Like, you'd really don't think back to the before times. For businesses they had to pivot into how do we do better delivery? How do we have Ghost Ghost kitchens that can cook some of our food during off peak hours? How can we handle better drive throughs that's going to affect real estate changes that they might make or operational changes. Now there's a pandemic coming. What might happen now with consumers is those some of those behaviors they may lean back on and and tighten their belts because not a pandemic, but a recession. They maintain their belts, because they need to save money, and they might still order food online, but now they might be more willing to go pick it up as opposed to paying the additional fees, right. And so what kinds of things do restaurants need to do? Do food delivery or anyone in any industry need to do now to understand what those potential behaviors could be?
Chad Franzen 4:56
Sure. How did how would you say that? You know, it was important have stores and restaurants change their operations in terms of facilitating delivery and things like that? How did that affect marketing?
Roger Hurni 5:08
Well, from a marketing perspective, you're going to find a way to tap in and have more direct conversations with customers. Big general advertising messages don't work nearly as well, as a one to one personalization message where consumers are relying more and more on their smartphone apps on those native mobile apps, being able to not just have that be utilitarian, but facilitate a conversation back and forth as with a consumer on a one to one level is going to be more and more critical. The it's not just a generic push notification that might go to them. But it's examining that individuals behaviors and purchasing habits, and making sure that that push notification is highly relevant to that individual's purchasing habits, you don't want to send me that chicken sandwich deal when I've always ordered the vegan burger, right? Like, that doesn't make sense. And so anyone in marketing needs to find a way to get more personalized, in their approach. Smart apps are just probably one of the best channels to do that, where you can get this incredibly high level of personalization, even more so than anything on social media.
Chad Franzen 6:26
So you kind of mentioned some shift in buyer behavior during a potential recession, you know, people still utilizing a delivery service, but maybe only using it for pickup or using using a website at the restaurants website for pickup, what kinds of things you know, can marketers do, or these places do to kind of be more prepared for that?
Roger Hurni 6:46
Well start to look at some things that happen when people have less money. There's consistency over time, if you look back at the recessions that happened in 1991, what happened after the financial crisis, people will start to do certain things from a pattern perspective, they want to look at trying to save money. So it's not that they're not willing to spend, they're actually looking for higher value. And so frivolous spending goes away completely. So if you're a brand, regardless of the space, demonstrating the value it brings, is going to be more and more critical if you can't do a certain level of personalization, because it can't be seen as an extraneous purchase. And so it's not that people are not willing to spend, but they're always evaluating what creates the greatest value for them during times of distress. And that's one of the ways you can start to shift your marketing messages to make sure you're demonstrating value, you understand the situation that those consumers are in, and that you're taking steps accordingly, to drive up meaningful value in their lives.
Chad Franzen 7:58
What would be an example of doing that? You know, like, let's say for a standard, like you mentioned chicken sandwich restaurant, maybe how can they change the change their messaging to demonstrate value in maybe the most popular sandwich or something like that?
Roger Hurni 8:12
Well, I mean, the first thing, people always go to our inducements, hey, we're gonna do this at 12% off, or I'm sorry, 20% off, or 40% off or whatever. And that's great, you can certainly do a do spins, but it gets people used to thinking that's the real value of it, it's really not worth 5.99, it's only worth 3.99, or whatever the price is, although I think a sandwich these days is like 15 bucks, because of inflation. But one of the things you can do is describe not the fact that you need a chicken sandwich, but the opportunity to dine at this restaurant or order in to take out is an affordable luxury. And it's one of the reasons why in recessions, pizza and ice cream places do really well, or those products also do really well is because it feels like you're treating your family without going crazy. And so even with inflation, those things are relatively inexpensive to going out to even a decent restaurant, let alone a fancy one.
Chad Franzen 9:18
So who do you think would be most or what kind of in terms of a business standpoint or a restaurant standpoint even would be most impacted? And which would be maybe least impacted you So you mentioned pizza and ice cream?
Roger Hurni 9:31
Oh, so you mean as far as being recession proof Chad? Yeah. Yeah. So if you start to look at those affordable luxuries that people are willing to do during a recession, it's generally going to be anything that again, it creates a high perceived value. I can take my family out for pizza and ice cream that's really great. I can treat him to a movie. Oddly enough casinos is one of the things that does really well in a recession because people are like, Hey, maybe I can win some extra money where 99.9% The time they're going to lose money. But it's the mindset is more entertainment driven, it's than it is actually like, I'm going to go win $10,000 on a progressive slot machine. Those kinds of things tend to do really well. What ends up hurting are the things that are overindulgence. So, it's not going to be the five star, you know, Yelp reviewed restaurant or the one star Michelin restaurant, you're going to be going to, those become tougher. One of the ways like a business like that does well during the recession is to look at ghost kitchens or offshoot concepts where they can go in and do some kind of food delivery option with some of their meals and do a thinner menu with an offshoot brand. And that's a one with one of the ways that a really fancy restaurant can work. The other thing is in your in, say, grocery stores, where you can demonstrate, you know, any of your products being of higher value than the product next to it. There is this thing in the 1970s and 80s of generic brands, because this is probably a good parallel here. And Generic brands for the younger folks on this call who might not remember them. The were they literally call them Generic brands, they were white packages with black type on them. And it would be milk or napkins or soup. Right in the problem was is that the people who were shopping at that time, particularly house wives, they felt they were cheating their family, they didn't they didn't have this high value, they felt like I can only afford this. And that shifted in the 90s with private label. And when I worked on Safeway, with their signature select brand, or the method line that comes out of target, it looks as good if not better than national brands at a lower price. And now the value is much higher. And that's the lesson here for that pandemic, whatever your company is, if you can turn that table a little bit to demonstrate your product has a higher perceived value at a lower price, you're going to win.
Chad Franzen 12:23
Do you think that people should start taking steps now? What should they start doing now?
Roger Hurni 12:33
Yeah, they should, they should be making those plans now. Because we don't know what it's going to be. Everyone's saying, Oh, 2023 may be the end of 23 to the beginning of 24. Even if it happens, we're going to be in it for a solid 18 months to probably two years I don't unless it were super, super mild. And that could be. But if they don't prepare now, regardless of how intense or lack thereof, the recession actually is. There, they're gonna find themselves behind the eight ball because it's hard to play catch up in the moment. And we had to do that with a pandemic was that that really did catch us by surprise, like nobody saw it coming. And then all of a sudden, within a 60 day period, we were in it. And now it became a scramble. I don't think any business wants to go through that again. But this, what's coming down the road can be looked upon as an opportunity, Chad, that could be, hey, this might be coming. We don't know how severe is going to be, what can we do to mitigate this issue that also might be sustainable for us as additional product extensions or other business options that can be offshoot of our core business. You know, in that can happen. It happens all the time where the company slack, that wasn't their product, they had this other product they were developing, they needed an internal resource to do this communication thing. And all of a sudden, that blew up and became the product. You don't know unless you're innovative. So I would say my advice is use the pandemic, to help spur innovation inside your company, to the benefit of the customers and the company itself.
Chad Franzen 14:12
Okay, great advice. Hey, is there anything else that we should be thinking about that in terms of prepping for a recession from a marketing standpoint or from an operational standpoint?
Roger Hurni 14:22
Now look at honestly look at consumer behavior. It's really easy to go back in the past and look at previous research on what consumers did during those recessions, those behaviors are going to be strikingly similar. And when you understand the belt tightening the perceived value, when you understand those, those minor behavior shifts that start to happen, then you can start to prepare a little bit better.
Chad Franzen 14:52
Okay, sounds good. Hey, Roger, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me on today.
Roger Hurni 14:57
Oh, Chad. No, thank you. It was really great. It was actually nice. be answering questions as opposed to asking them so thank you.
Chad Franzen 15:02
I bet. Thank you. Alright, so long everybody.
Outro 15:06
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
