Superb Restaurants Play An Important Role In ValueCard’s Success!

Smilingly stating the obvious, Mike Ecks, Senior Account Executive of ValueCard’s media department, exclaimed, “We certainly can’t create diners.

“However, we can provide an advertising campaign that enables our restaurant-owner clients to create an awareness of their establishment--thereby attracting new customers from the universe of restaurant patrons.”

In short, restaurateurs in San Francisco face the same situation as do restaurant owners across America. That is, a finite number of diners within a given location.

But, according to Ecks, in San Francisco there’s even fiercer competition, given the thousands of full-service, sit-down, dining establishments available.

“In this city,” he pointed out, “you can get a fabulous gourmet meal at midnight--so we’re close to Manhattan (NYC) in that respect.”

An in-depth interview (issue #18) with restaurant owners across the United States, titled “Why and How Savvy Restaurateurs Trade,” showed that successful restaurant owners typically allocated 4% to 5% of their gross sales to on-going advertising and promotion.

Ecks says the same percentages hold for ValueCard clients. And with some of San Francisco’s finer restaurants doing $6 to $7 million a year in business, that translates into a considerable media appetite.

For the past two years Ecks, a communications graduate from Marquette University, has been ValueCard’s point man, interacting with and assisting 90 or so of the 125 member restaurants, who regularly spend the bulk of their trade dollars on advertising.

“The big users of trade are heavily into media. Some of our restaurants spend nearly 100% of their trade earnings on advertising. I’d say the average spends 60% to 70%. It’s a very cost effective expenditure,” Ecks asserted, “for them.”

The process to determine what’s needed begins with an in-depth conversation between Ecks and the restaurant owner. “And it’s their business we talk about, not mine,” Ecks emphasized.

“Although my contribution is perceptible, it’s also quantifiable,” he added. Analyzing a particular restaurant’s needs, and then putting together the right advertising campaign, is what makes ValueCard’s services so valuable.

“After all,” Ecks reasoned, “our restaurant clients are in the business to make money, and the only way to make money is through sales.”

Ecks says he works with his clients by always focusing on what their goals are for the coming year, instead of asking them what their media budget is.

“Right from the beginning, I’m interested in their business--such as where they want to be a year from now with the number of covers.1 My job is to help them improve their profits.

“Depending on their input,” he noted, “the location of the restaurant, plus the other variables involved, we analyze their situation.

“Our years of experience in this business enables us to construct an appropriate advertising campaign--targeting specific markets--aimed at expanding sales volume to bring in the desired number of additional customers to meet their goals,” he explained.

“Often the campaign includes a mix from our media inventory of print (magazines), cable car ads, taxi-top displays, billboards, outdoor wallscapes and radio. 

“Over the years,” he continued, “we’ve performed. So we’re quite confident in our ability to add value for them. That’s really the bottomline, when all is said and done.”

Ecks emphasized that restaurants are a very important part of ValueCard’s 263 different product categories.

“Virtually everyone enjoys fine dining. And our extensive media clients are often entertaining (their many clients), as well. Having superb restaurants keeps everything moving. This is really a circular business when you think about it.”

(ValueCard was sold to Intagio since the time this article was written.)