The caped designer

Restaurant chains tend to cycle through their superstars. If one of the brands uncorks a hot ad campaign, the whole pack is soon howling for a marketing Moses to lead them out of a sales slump. Six months later, a headquarters mob is chasing that hero out the door, and the wistful speak of a tall, dashing CFO on horseback to turn the battle.

And so it goes, through ops wizards, menu-development masters, even high-charisma CEOs.

These days, the plea to X-Men headquarters is for a definite type of restaurant mastermind. The dude or dudette most in demand has nothing to do with food, service, training or finance. Typically they won’t even be part of the company, and their weapons of choice included cloth swaths, artist renderings and schematics.

Welcome to the age of the caped designer.

We don’t even know who these restaurant heroes are. But we’ll soon see their work. With few exceptions, the major fast-food chains are set to undergo what once-heralded marketers call a design upgrade.

Here’s just a partial list of who’s taking the plunge: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, Jack in the Box, Burger King (though some questions have been raised on that one), Subway, Pizza Inn, Fazoli’s, Starbucks.

The stated goal of each is to add some sophistication to the brand and to encourage customers to feel more comfortable. Several go a step further and profess that they want patrons to linger for awhile, perhaps while sipping a high-margin beverage (ca-ching!) or watching a new entertainment network for which they’re compensated.

Observes say it’s part of an overall effort to capture customers from a higher demographic, as once-exalted CFOs might’ve put it.

Cynics are more pointed: The chains want to draw people who have a job and can afford to spend a little more. No surprisingly, those targets prefer nicer appointments than retina-singing fluorescents, industrial flooring, and garish-colored seats that might’ve been designed by the folks who gave us water boarding.

A warmer, comfier setting might not only be worth a few more cents per transaction, but might prompt them to linger longer and keep buying beverages or snacks.

So let us pay homage to that nameless hero behind a major trend remaking the quick-service sector, cape-wearing designer. He or she is literally changing the face—and possibly the fortunes—of the grab-and-go world.

Say wha?

This could be a breakout week for chiropractors. With heads snapping left and right to catch the extraordinary restaurant news, we’re probably one neck strain away from a whiplash epidemic.

Consider, for instance, how many crania swiveled like desk chairs to make catch the incredible story that arose from France. After working hard for years, a brasserie there was awarded a coveted star from the Michelin guide. It’d be the equivalent of a U.S. restaurant getting a “semi-orgasmic” rating in every Zagat category.

But ears were cocked because this wasn’t a little-restaurant-that-could story. A one-star rating assumes that a place maintains a certain level of service, even if traffic rises. Le Lisita staffed accordingly and realized it had to raise prices to temper the wallop to margins.

Instead, the restaurant decided to cede the star.

I vaguely remember a restaurateur saying that a star in a Michelin-like rating system can bring an additional $40,000 in business. This place publicly attested that it wanted to keep prices at a level that wouldn’t give loyal patrons a case of sticker shock.

But that’s only the start of the week’s Ripley’s news. You may well have seen the results of a new survey that found Subway to be the top choice by far of quick-service consumers who want to dine more healthfully. That, to be honest, is a yawner of a data point.

Far more interesting is what brand finished second: McDonald’s. Not Chipotle or its fresh-ingredient brethren in the burrito sector. Not Panera or the other New Generation sandwich concepts. A brand once synonymous in many minds with unhealthy eating has become a viable option to the careful-dining crowd.

Finally, consider how much latte must’ve been spitted by New York Times readers when they came to the end of a recent story about Robert Gates, the outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense. The longtime public figure (and onetime director of Brinker International) was asked what he’d do immediately after his retirement was official. “Go to Burger King,” he said.

Give that man a crown.

Reports of Jared's death--well, you know

Mark Twain once quipped that a lie will spread halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. With the internet, that’s obviously a gross under-estimation, especially with a hot area of interest like restaurants.

We’ve already heard about the young man who supposedly left a McDonald’s burger in his coat pocket in 1989 and forgot about it. When he discovered it years later, according to the urban legend, the sandwich looked and smelled the same. Intrigued, he bought a bunch of burgers and stored them in his basement, where they failed to decompose during the next 12 years and counting. The assertion: There are more preservative than ground meat in those patties.

I know this because the burger preserver caught his experiences on videotape, including the purchase of the original sandwich back in 1989. You can see it here, in a YouTube posting called The First Bionic Burger.

But that whopper is nothing compared to the myth that one prankster put forth this morning, much to the presumed chagrin of the Subway sandwich chain. According to that carefully cultivated rumor, Jared Fogle, the volunteer spokesman who lost a ton of weight on Subway’s fare, has munched his last footlong, dying last week precisely at 4:43 EST, just a few days short of his 33rd birthday.

The cause: Complications from a gastric bypass in 1998. In other words, he lost weight through a surgical fix, not a diet built on Subway turkey heros.

A website has already been set up to support the fib: http://jaredremembered.com. Visitors can leave their memories, not only in the form of reminiscences, but even poems.

Better check it out before the authorities shut it down. It’s a hoax of superb craftsmanship.

Goading green

There was a passing mention here, a quick aside there, an oh-by-the-way tangent to a speaker’s larger point. But the five or six references, coming on a single day of the restaurant show, suggest the industry may soon have to contend with a new dose of government agita, this time dealing with conservation.

At least two of the day’s presenters mentioned a growing interest among public officials in obliging restaurants to operate in a greener fashion. A representative of Energy Star, a federal resource for cutting energy consumption, advised restaurants to benchmark their demand on utilities in part to protect themselves from heightened government scrutiny. You want to be able to show what you’d done to conserve, just in case, she explained. But she didn’t specify why regulators or lawmakers might be gauging restaurants’ efforts to cut their power consumption, or what actions they may be contemplating.

A representative of IPC Subway, an independent purchasing cooperative for the chain, was far more explicit. Tina Fitzgerald, director of produce and social responsibility for IPC, cited interest by some nations, states and counties in outlawing certain types of containers or packaging materials, like plastic bags or plastifoam boxes. She noted that Canada is already levying a tax based on “how much packaging goes out the door,” a spur to cutting how many containers or wraps come in through the back.

Fitzgerald also recounted how Subway sent an energy-saving CFL bulb to every franchisee to encourage the replacement of less-efficient incandescent bulbs. She indicated that the franchisees have found religion, so to speak, and then commented that mandates might soon force the non-believers to make the changeover in any case.

I don’t think she meant the franchisor would levy that demand. The aside seemed to fit her point that governments are becoming more active in regulating green.

New trend in marketing: Flipping lawyers the bird

Another day, another restaurant commercial that plays off a cease-and-desist letter. This one has Domino’s CEO David Brandon refusing to comply with a directive from lawyers for Subway, whose sandwiches fared poorly in taste comparisons with the pizza chain’s new oven-baked subs. The new spot shows Brandon incinerating the demand that his chain stop airing commercials based on the taste tests. Fittingly, he uses one of the ovens in which the new Domino’s subs are baked.

“This is as much fun as a good, old-fashioned school cafeteria food fight,” Brandon declares in a statement, even though you can sense he’s never tossed a hotdog or flung a dish of Jello in his life. I’d bet his idea of high school hijinks was reading in bad light.

But you have to give him (or his PR person) credit for adding, “I think I did what any red-blooded American always wants to do with a letter from a lawyer: burn it to a crisp.”

Indeed, rebellion against lawyers is very “in” in restaurant marketing right now. Yesterday brought Captain D’s new anti-C-and-D spot, where a spokesman shreds a cease-and-desist communication from counselors for Darden Restaurants, parent of the Red Lobster sit-down seafood chain. Captain D’s has been featuring Lobster patrons in a spot that unfavorably compares the full-service chain’s value to what’s offered at the smaller fast-food operation. The ad, like the new commercial that shows the letter being destroyed, is shot in front of a Red Lobster.

Like Captain D’s, Domino’s is refusing to pull its comparative spots, which assert that consumers preferred its sandwiches 2-to-1 over Subway’s specialties in a taste comparison.

If this keeps up, lawyers are going to start levying a creative-services fee. And then sue if they don't get it.

Subway has not yet publicly responded to the new Domino's commercials, which started airing last night on "American Idol."

A seal of security for gift cards

Sales of gift cards are expected to be bah-humbugged this year by fears the issuing restaurants will go bankrupt, leaving card holders with worthless plastic. Today several major chains revealed they’re hoping to allay those worries by promoting what amounts to a Good Shopping Seal of Approval.

They’ve formed a self-policing trade group, the Retail Gift Card Association, that will extend membership solely to restaurant and retailing brands with “longevity in the marketplace” and a commitment to “customer friendly practices.”

In addition, participants are required to meet “a set of principles” that protect card buyers, according to the announcement.

The charter members include Applebee’s, Subway and Marriott. Their partners are the retailing giants Best Buy and Home Depot.

The association said it will be strict in enforcing its membership requirements, but expressed hopes that all retailers will meet those standards and qualify for inclusion.

Research from the National Retail Federation indicates that 3.1 percent of shoppers are cutting back their gift card purchases this year because of fears that the issuing store or restaurant will go out of business. The NRF is forecasting that sales of cards will drop 5% overall from last year’s levels, to about $24.9 billion.

How McD's lost Phelps to Subway

Michael Phelps volunteered throughout his domination of Olympics coverage that he was a diehard McDonald's fan. Now he's signed on as a pitchman for the arch-rival Subway chain. How did the Golden Arches miss a chance to enlist the Man of Gold in its marketing efforts? A perception of health apparently appeals to more than the weekend-warrior set. See Advertising Age's full explanation.