10 of the Best Restaurant Ad Campaigns

You’ve probably realized that having a website and all the usual social media platforms for your restaurant isn’t quite cutting it anymore. Customers are now quite choosy when it comes to deciding where to dine; these days it’s the restaurants with the clever and quirky advertising campaigns that are filling their dining rooms each night. The right ad campaign can double your restaurant’s sales, so it’s important to come up with something eye-catching and enticing.

Best Restaurant Ads: Buzz Worthy and Attention Grabbing

To help inspire you to come up with a killer campaign, we’ve found 10 of the best restaurant ad campaigns out there…

1. Ninja New York know their niche and use it to the max. All the staff wear ninja costumes and some of the Japanese dishes even come with their own entertainment. Thanks to this quirky dining experience, the restaurant has a cunning free ad campaign; word-of-mouth has helped the restaurant become well known throughout the Big Apple as being the place to go when you’re after entertainment and fine food.
2. Buffalo Wild Wings came up with an ingenious TV ad campaign this March. They knew all sport fans would be glued to their TVs during tournament time. Their advertisements were shown on multiple channels and highlighted how eating wings together with a bunch of friends can add to the atmosphere of watching the game.
3. McDonald’s also used game season to their advantage. Their “Pay With Lovin’” TV ad premiered during the Super Bowl. The campaign promised free meals for those who performed acts of ‘lovin’’; these could be anything from a hug to a fist bump.
4. When Dave Thomas opened his first Wendy’s restaurant in Columbus, Ohio in 1969 chili was nowhere to be seen on the menu. After the restaurant chain expanded years later, their hearty chilli was added to the menu and soon became one of the most popular choices thanks to this funny TV ad.
5. One of the most bizarre campaigns of the early 21st century was Burger King’s Subservient Chicken campaign. Originally created to promote the new TenderCrisp chicken sandwich, the ads were soon used to promote the brand as a whole after proving to be very popular with the public.
6. Starbuck’s documentary style “Meet Me At Starbucks” was created to show a typical day in the life of Starbucks and to also show the different types of customers who walk through its doors. By focusing on showing the brand’s human side, rather than the products, the ads had a great personal touch, one which most people could emphasize with.
7. Texas Roadhouse ran a 6 month campaign to promote its mobile marketing. Twenty of their restaurant locations piloted the campaign which offered customers free appetizers to those who opted-in to the new TextUs Loyalty Club. The well-planned campaign achieved a 45% net growth rate during the first 6 months, which is why its on of the best restaurant ads for mobile!
8. Pizza Hut took their pizzas back to the Old Word for their Flavor of Now advertisements. The ads were aimed at a young, hip audience, who would see the hilarious reactions of the old, traditional Italians, and be persuaded that it was time for Pizza Hut to change things up a bit.
9. KFC targeted its ever growing Hispanic audience with their ingenious “Together” campaign. In the ad, what appears to be a Hispanic nuclear family is enjoying a KFC bucket together. As the camera pans out, we see that the family is much larger and multigenerational family.
10. Taco Bell’s most recent advertisement campaign created a wave of breakfast excitement across the country. Announcing that it would now be serving breakfast across 5,500 of its restaurants, the advert saw different men, all named Ronald McDonald, enjoying the restaurant’s new morning menu.

 One of the best way to make a fresh and effective commercial is to keep it interactive.  Engage your current and potential customers to keep them interested and always aware of your brand.

 What the above examples show is that your ad marketing campaign can go a long way with a little creativity and thinking outside the box.  If you utilize this in your brand’s marketing, you’ll start to notice your sales rising almost immediately!

Did you find some good ideas in this article? Would you mind sharing it with a friend or two? We’d really appreciate it!