Clearing the smoke from product intros

Enough with the handicapping of the presidential election. What we really need is an analysis of what this week’s menu changes mean for the country.

Let’s start with the scheduling. Once upon a time, restaurant chains would schedule their menu overhauls to correspond with the seasons—salads and beverages added in the summer, heavier fare like soups and stews featured in the fall and winter. Now chain parents are announcing menu changes either right before or immediately after releasing poor financial results.

Earlier this week, for instance, DineEquity announced that its IHOP brand had added Coffee Cake Pancakes. Simultaneously, the franchisor disclosed that its losses had deepened to $16.4 million. It was as if the company expected investors to say, “Whoa. Who cares if the company lost money. IHOP has Coffee Cake Pancakes!!”

Similarly, Popeyes parent AFC Enterprises disclosed last Friday that its domestic same-store sales for the third quarter had slipped 2.8 percent. On Monday, Popeyes announced that it was adding a new bowl meal and a chicken sandwich—the foundations of what the chain trumpeted as a whole new menu platform.

Is the new trend to use menu additions as a distraction from bad financial numbers? Two instances would’ve been merely a coincidence that suggested no. Then came today’s one-two announcements from Denny’s. In the morning, the company crowed that it was updating its late-night Rockstar menu with items supposedly developed by stars like Katy Perry, Taking Back Sunday and Hoobastank. Hot-selling rock bands, working together in their kitchens to come up with items like the Melty Grilled Chicken and Sausage Quesadilla. Sure, I buy that.

Nevertheless, roughly eight hours later Denny’s released its third-quarter financial numbers, including a 6.1-percent drop in same-store sales for franchised restaurants and a 2.7-percent decrease for company-run units. If three instances suggest a trend, we’re there.

Yet my smokescreen theory is severely undercut by Denny’s profits. Net income more than doubled, to $10.6 million. Why blunt good news like that with yee-haws about the new Hooburrito, supposedly a brainchild of the band Hoobastank?

Denny’s may be an exemption to that trend, but it certainly fits another pattern in how chains are announcing new products these days. Not so long ago, they tended to introduce a whole new menu and stress the additions. Afterward, they might’ve showcased a limited-time offer now and again. The introductions were either grouped together into one event of note, or peppered over an extended period in a bid to stay top-of-mind.

Contrast that with the approach that was taken yesterday by Jack in the Box. The (now) multiregional burger chain announced at 9 a.m. East Coast time that it was resurrecting its Teriyaki Bowls line; at 12, that it was bringing back its Mini Churros; and at 3:30, that it was introducing two new “homestyle” chicken sandwiches (translation: sandwiches made with fried chicken) in its central and southeastern regions. What would have normally been one news item became three web postings. Which, presumably, was exactly the point. By staggering the release of three separate press announcements, it garnered at worst a story and two updates, and at best three separate articles, without a penny in ad fees. Pretty smart.

And what of the products that were added this week? Clearly they prove that “new” is a relative term. Popeyes declared its new meal in a bowl to be new, but it’s been featuring similar items for years. And its new Big Easy chicken sandwich sounds exactly like an item it’s carried for some time.

And, with all due respect to Melty quesadilla creators Taking Back Sunday, or Hooburrito midwives Hoobastank, those items aren’t exactly groundbreakers.

Need we point out that two of Jack in the Box’s three menu additions were resurrected products, and that the third sounds conspicuously like McDonald’s chicken biscuit sandwiches?

So, what does all of this mean for the country? Clearly the emphasis is on recycling retreads, which raises some alarming questions about levels of creativity. But then again, the industry is showing surprising innovation in the most mundane of areas, how product introductions are handled. Business may be down, but it’s hardly lacking in craftiness.

'Paging Mr. Ripley'

If a picture is worth a thousand words, headlines should come with volume numbers. Here are a few grabbers that tell a vivid story without a word of explanation, though a dab of context is nonetheless provided for those who wonder how the underlying articles came about. All are real headlines that appeared within the last few weeks:

‘Restaurants go after reviewer's testicles’: It seems that the reviewer for the Metro newspaper in Auckland, Australia, left several high-profile restaurants off his list of the area’s 50 best dining options. One of the overlooked establishments responded with a full-page ad in a rival paper, slamming the critic’s work and providing a recipe for reviewers’ testicles. The ad encouraged at-home Emerils to take a "very sharp knife, [and] slice through the sort of skinnie muscley stuff that you find surrounding each of the Metro Food Critic Testicles (there should be two testicles, they can be hard to find)".

‘China's first penis restaurant,’ also reported under the banner, ‘Members only, but diners don't find it hard to swallow’: Guo-li-zhuang restaurant in Peking, China, specializes in the private parts of yaks, donkeys, water buffaloes, horses and other studmuffins of nature. The best quote in the story that appeared under the latter headline: "Of course, there are other restaurants that serve the bian [penis] of individual animals. But this is the first that brings them all together." You can only imagine the Zagat entries.

'Bruce Oldfield shows off his McDonald's designer duds': Oldfield, in case you’re the gauche sort who buys off the rack, is a clothing designer whose world-famous clients included Princess Diane and who still dresses the likes of Catherine Zeta-Jones. He was asked to revamp the uniforms for McDonald’s staffers in the United Kingdom, a crucible for some of the chain’s more progressive personnel policies. Some might say it’s like Oasis or Amy Winehouse playing bar mitzvahs and weddings. But the new outfits, shown last week in Britain, have merited serious commentary from the fashion sheep who ooh and ahh over the latest runway get-ups. The neck scarves for women have been panned, but the brown-on-black shirts for guys have been given well-received. Ditto for the new baseball caps. “Next up, McBurqa's,” quipped one online commentator here in the States.

‘Church’s Chicken Names Fletcher Martin Agency of Record for Eastern U.S. Media and Print’: This was the headline of a press release that was sent to us and that you can probably find online. As a stand-alone, it’s perfectly fine. But the copy below it is an eyebrow-raiser: “Church’s Chicken, a division of AFC Enterprises, Inc…” Church’s was sold by AFC in 2004. Today, AFC’s only restaurant holding is Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits, a competitor to Church’s. Since the new agency is dealing with media, it might want to clear up that error ASAP. Otherwise, it could end up being pointed out in a blog.