The Recipe for Successful Menu Innovations
Chili’s Triple Dipper.
Popeyes chicken sandwich.
McDonald’s Grimace Shake.
There’s no shortage of viral menu innovations today. The customizable Triple Dipper appetizer offering accounted for 11% of Chili’s business as of late October 2024. This was largely in part to its influencer strategy, which saw top TikTok users promoting the meal deal to a younger audience. Today, there are more than 200 million views of mozzarella stick cheese pulls and delicious combinations.
In the summer of 2019, Popeyes launched a new chicken sandwich after spending 2 years on research and development. This led rival Chick-fil-A to declare its sandwich the original, kicking off a years-long chicken sandwich war that also saw McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and others upgrade their existing offerings or introduce new menu creations.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s Grimace Shake took social media by storm in the summer of 2023, with fans ordering the purple shake in honor of the namesake character’s birthday, then pretending to die after ingesting it. We’ve seen colorful drinks work well for Starbucks, and McDonald’s bright purple shake was yet another trending beverage. In the quarter after the Grimace Shake release, McDonald’s reported $6.5 billion in sales, which beat estimates by $200 million. In summer 2024, Grimace and his shake was available across menus in Canada.
While there are plenty of menu items that trend on TikTok, there are dozens more that don’t dazzle diners. So, what’s the secret to innovation success?
Creating Crave-worthy and Craze-worthy Items
Launching new innovations is a great way for restaurants to attract new customers and retain loyal fans. It gets more cars through the drive-thru and more customers in the doors. And, with many consumers adopting a ‘phone eats first’ mentality, these diners ultimately share pictures and videos of their food and drinks and their experiences with their fans and followers on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and more. And thus the cycle continues.
Consider these tips to take your next idea from the drawing board to the drive-thru menu:
1. Conduct early-stage ideas testing.
Ideas or innovation testing is a process that helps brands capture consumer insights on new foods and beverages. With restaurants eager to take a bite out of market share, testing rooted in behavioral science is a useful resource for product developers and marketers alike.
Feelings are a predictor of sales potential, as the happier an idea makes someone, the more likely they are to select it at the time of purchase. As we say at System1, ‘the more people feel, the more they buy.’ System1’s Test Your Innovation platform helps brands understand how real consumers feel about new menu innovations.
2. Couple your innovation pipeline with creative.
New menu launches have a greater chance of success when brands invest in an always-on advertising strategy. Brand-building creative focused on storytelling is extremely effective because it not only drives long-term market share growth, but also has a positive impact on short-term sales. This is evidenced in the Multiplier Effect, new research from WARC, System1, BERA.ai, Analytic Partners and Prophet.
The research also explores the importance of brands adopting a platform approach, rather than creating numerous campaigns that don’t connect to one another. McDonald’s ‘Famous Orders’ is a great example of this in practice. McDonald’s develops celebrity meal deals, then showcases these famous orders in its TV ads, within its mobile app and in its stores.
3. Think beyond food.
When brands have fun with popular menu items, they can drive further engagement and interest. During the holiday season, Chili’s introduced its Triple Dipper Dream collection complete with bedding, socks and an eye mask. The limited-edition collection quickly sold out. While consumers might not expect a restaurant chain to debut a home goods and clothing collection, Chili’s isn’t the first to do so. Vogue magazine even dubbed 2024 a “ravenous year for restaurant merch.”
4. Extend the product’s lifespan with new iterations.
If an item is a success, brands must aim to repeat the buzz and sales again and again. In many cases, one winning product can yield additional iterations, like how Burger King followed up its Chicken Fries with Fiery and Crispy Pretzel versions, as well as Chicken Parm and Chicken & Waffle Fries.
Innovation testing still comes into play here, as one item’s success doesn’t necessarily guarantee the next will perform as well. Ideally, brands will test multiple iterations at a time to understand which versions will be most appealing to consumers. Once new iterations are ready, many restaurant chains also test them out regionally before expanding to all locations. This is yet another way to get a pulse on the popularity of a ‘sequel’ product.
Identifying the Feeling Behind the Flavor
Not only do menu items need to look delicious, they also need to sound appetizing. To accomplish the latter, everything from the product name to the description of the ingredients and flavors needs to be carefully planned to maximize interest and excitement.
Flavor combinations can be particularly divisive. Some people may be delighted to try a never-before-seen mix of flavors. Or perhaps this new idea is elevating classic flavors to the next level. Meanwhile, others might be disgusted or entirely disinterested in these products. Food carries a lot of feeling for people, so tapping into these emotions is key to understanding what will and won’t work when marketing to the masses.
System1’s Test Your Innovation platform uses a variety of tools and metrics to analyze consumer sentiment:
- Emotional Pull: Using our FaceTrace® tool, we measure the emotional resonance of each item, capturing how effectively it connects with consumers on a personal and emotional level.
- Share Trading: We ask consumers whether they’d metaphorically “buy” or “sell” each innovation, offering clear insights into their enthusiasm for each and how well it aligns with their preferences.
- Decision Speed: By tracking how quickly consumers engage with an item, we uncover the immediacy of their reactions. Faster responses indicated genuine enthusiasm, while slower ones pointed to hesitation or uncertainty.
- Reasons for Emotion: We gather key consumer verbatims, revealing why they liked or disliked each innovation. We also collect advice for further improving the product.
Create with Confidence
With a database of over 54,000 innovations to benchmark against, Test Your Innovation empowers brands to Create with Confidence and launch new innovations that consumers will love. So, which idea will become a mainstay on your menu? Use Test Your Innovation to predict your winner from an early stage and finetune it throughout the innovation process. We can’t wait to help you launch your delicious innovations!