Joe’s Crab Shack used to be owned by Landry’s–they sold it a few years back. It, as well as Landry’s, is based in the Houston area. I’ve always wondered about Boston Market–I’ve seen ads for it for years in El Paso and in the RGV–never seen a restaurant. Although I have seen it in the grocery store freezer cases.
Joe’s Crabshack. I really want to eat at Joe’s but the nearest one is 2 hours away.
WHY would an advertiser stand for this? My clients keep track of every penny of media-- and TV is so much more expensive than radio or outdoor-- I can’t believe they wouldn’t be screaming for “make-goods”: refunds on poorly-placed ads.
Probably there’s some “quantity” discount type thing. As in, you may only have restaurants in reasonable distances of 70% of the area your advertising goes out to, but it costs less to buy the entire package rather than pick and choose ads in just the exact areas you need.
Sort of like buying the combo breakfast meal can save you money even if you don’t plan to eat the hash browns.
Just a thought: Maybe it is an appeal to people when they travel? You hear about Sonic, for example, all of the time on TV, and now you are driving down the interstate, and BAM, there’s a Sonic, I must try it!
Doesn’t Buffalo have an older demographic than other metro areas (even one’s with lower per capita income)? Maybe that has something to do with it.
Boston Markets were suddenly nearly everywhere in the US about 15 years ago. However, the company expanded too quickly and had to drastically cut back on the number of restaurants they had. They’ve never returned to the Pacific Northwest and I was somewhat surprised to see them still advertising on TV.
There’s actually one in Lancaster (out on 30 near the outlets), so it’s not that far from your local tv market (I remember from old threads that you live out that way somewhere waves vaguely westerly).
(Guy who works in advertising here)
Generally speaking, if you see an ad for a restaurant chain that doesn’t exist in your area, the ad is part of a “national buy”…that is, the ad runs in the entire country, either on a broadcast TV network (e.g., ABC, CBS, etc.), or a cable TV network (e.g., USA, ESPN, etc.)
The other alternative for buying TV ad time is called local or “spot” buying; this lets you buy time in particular local markets.
A couple of examples of how this works:
Let’s say that you want to advertise during “Law and Order” on NBC. You can buy space during the NBC broadcast, and your spot will be seen everywhere, during one of the commercial breaks which the network owns.
Or, let’s say that you only want your ad to run during “Law and Order”, but only in the New York and Boston markets. You would then be buying ad space from those local stations, and your ad would run during the “station breaks” (the commercial breaks which are controlled by the local stations, typically at the top and bottom of the hour).
You can make a national vs. a local buy on most cable channels, as well, though, if you’re buying locally, you’re probably buying the ad time from the local cable company – you’ve probably noticed ad breaks on cable channels in which an ad starts, then another ad (usually for a local business) breaks in a fraction of a second later.
If you’re only interested in advertising in a small number of markets, spot buying is going to be more cost effective for you – after all, why pay to advertise in 100% of the U.S., when you only do business in 20% of it?
But, on a cost-per-viewer basis, spot buying is usually more expensive (sometimes significantly more expensive) than a national buy. So, once you get to the point where you want to advertise in, say, 50% or 60% of the U.S. (I’m pulling numbers out of a hat here, I don’t know what the exact percentage is where this occurs), it actually becomes more cost-effective for you to spend on a national buy.
And, in many cases, you have more control over exactly when and where your ad will appear when you make a national buy. When you buy “spot”, the local station may just throw you in where they have room.
Sonic is a great example of this. Most of Sonic’s advertising budget is spent on national cable TV. As has been noted in a number of threads here over the years, Sonic does not have restaurants in a significant portion of the country (though they are slowly expanding). But, they’re in enough of the country that it makes buying on a national basis more cost-effective than buying ad space on a local, spot basis in each market.
In addition, it appears that Sonic uses the fact that their ads are seen in markets where they don’t operate to build awareness of their brand (and interest in trying it), so that, when they do finally expand into a market, they have ready-made awareness and interest.
Yup; Sonic’s national advertising is almost exclusively on cable channels (though they make a national cable buy, see my previous post). So, if you don’t have cable, you’d likely never see a Sonic ad.
Came to mention Sonic… but since its been done… i’ll throw in Jack in the Box. Pretty sure i’ve never seen one in real life.
Jack in the Box, Dave and Busters…
I’m sure there are others, but I can’t think of them now.
Huh. I almost never see any. If they aren’t available here, they are within an hour’s driving distance. I always just assumed what happened was the same as what I see on my satellite, let alone local cable: useless ads are replaced by local ones. (Granted, some of them are so bad that I wish we had the others, but still.)