Noodles & Company is on a mission to create high-impact, highly emotional connections with its guests, both in its restaurants and in the community. As a leading purveyor of classic noodle and pasta dishes, Noodles & Company offers a customer experience that sets itself apart from others in the QSR industry. It’s also generating a significant amount of brand loyalty.
Loyalty360 recently spoke with Mark Mears, Noodles & Company Executive VP and CMO, about the brand’s authentic and community-minded approach to guest engagement. He also spoke about how its new brand positioning and food platform, “Made. Different,” emphasizes “REAL Food. REAL Cooking. REAL Flavors.”
What is Noodles & Company doing differently with this campaign, and how did it come about?
Mears: “Made. Different.” is an opportunity for us to live out our mission, which is to always nourish and inspire every team member, guest and community we serve. And nourish really has two meanings. As for nourishing the body, we've removed all artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners and preservatives from our core menu. That includes our noodles, soups, sauces and condiments.
So that’s the foundation. But equally as important, it is also about nourishing our guests’ most cherished relationships. Life happens over a bowl of noodles, so our goals are to bring the family back together. And it's about inspiring folks to make a difference and leave a positive lasting impact within the community. We believe that Noodles & Company has the ability to complete this mission.
It seems that health foods are doing very well now. Is the focus of this new rebranding platform a response to how people are viewing the QSR industry?
Mears: Yes. We always keep our finger on the pulse, and we want to remain relevant with what our career-minded and millennial parents and guests want. They are mindful of what they eat, and what their children eat. We have a great track record in that area. In 2012, we launched a great pork product that was never given hormones or antibiotics, and was vegetarian fed. We were one of the first in the industry to do that.
But over the past couple of years, it’s become important to care about the source of ingredients and to create transparency. That’s really what our campaign is all about. It’s about getting real with our guests. There is a lot of rhetoric and misinformation out there now. So we also engage guests with a new microsite that helps them learn about what's in our food and what's not in our food . . . and what will never be in our food. We want to build awareness and demystify what we do.
How do you measure the efficacy of these changes, and do you feel it is working to build loyalty?
Mears: We do a lot of research, and we are make strides in building awareness for what we are doing. If that continues to be important, then it will obviously show up in our sales. We will be working on a loyalty program at some point in the future, but we really believe that loyalty is earned everyday inside the restaurant. So we thoroughly communicate, educate and train over 10,000 team members (which we refer to as “Noodle Ambassadors”) to pull this brand positioning through. Because a brand is nothing more than a promise, and marketers can make that promise, but our operational partners have to deliver on it every day in the restaurants.
How are you using social media today differently than maybe a year ago, and do you see that approach changing?
Mears: We are doing a lot better at providing relevant content. We are making sure that everything is relevant and shareable. We also want to make sure that the content doesn’t just help us tell our story, but shows that we are listening to what our guests are talking about. Social media used to be instituted as a top-down one-way model. But now, it’s more of a two-way interactive dialogue.
We see the most important factor in creating true brand loyalty is being able to listen to customers. It sounds like that's the direction you're taking as well.
Mears: You are exactly right. Loyalty programs are about earning that visit and that next visit with how you treat guests, the quality of food, the hospitality you offer, and in anticipating and delivering on the needs of the guests in that moment. That is very important to us, and we really have a core of raving fans. Because our company is a passion brand, we are using “Made. Different.” to create a movement that generates a strong following.
When you talk about a movement, and creating emotional attachments, are you trying to do this with the confines of your own brand? Or are you trying to transcend that?
Mears: A little of both. We can do it for food through the emotional connections of bringing the family back together over a bowl of noodles. But one of the things we’re really proud of is our effort in the community. So we try to go beyond just food, and beyond just building relationships. We really want to make a difference. And that helps take the brand outside of our four walls, and into our communities to leave that lasting impression on the world we live in.
A lot of brands seem to be updating their mission statements based on what is culturally or socially relevant now. But it sounds like your mission statement has always been consistent and authentic.
Mears: You are 100% correct. Our mission has always been to nourish and inspire every team member, guest and community we serve. But, again, it goes beyond that. We also believe strongly in the idea of corporate social responsibility. Our governments and community organizations can only do so much. We believe that corporate America has the power to make our world a better place.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.