How a CEO muddled his brand by putting a cheesesteak on the menu.
The Panda Express lady teased me with a skewer of Orange Chicken. “Taste?”
Like brand bait on a hook, I accepted the secret-sauced morsel and quickly realized why Panda Express sells over 100 million pounds of Orange Chicken each year:
19 grams of sugar on deep-fried chicken is the brand experience.
Michael and I continued past the Cinnabon, Sbarro, Orange Julius, Jamba Juice, and other icons of food court culture. We were at Atlanta’s Perimeter Mall to meet Mark Kaplan, the CEO of Great Wraps — America’s original wraps chain.
As a brand strategist, meeting a new client always sparked a measure of stress. Should I lay low and listen? Take charge as the brand guru? Or ooze relational warmth? Like a first date, making the right first impression was not my forte.
Across the court, I could see Mark waving excitedly. His manic enthusiasm formed a picture of the Br’er Rabbit of the fast-food patch.
“Hey, guys. Welcome to Great Wraps!” Mark gushed.
Mark was hiring us to face-lift the Great Wraps brand. For branding guys like Michael and me, a rebrand was our dream job.
“Mark, this is very cool,” I fibbed as I surveyed the Great Wraps brand experience.
“Try some of these,” Mark beamed as he handed me a tray of Kurly Fries. I sighed a relief that he didn’t ask me to sample the “Ultimate” — a slab of curly fries topped with cheese, bacon, and Ranch Dressing — a vascular bomb that delivered a payload of 790 calories and 59 grams of fat. Mark motioned us to the “Flavor Bar.”
“Can you believe it?” Mark exclaimed. “After sixty years of fast food, ketchup and salt are still the only major flavors for fries in this country!”
I considered the plight of ketchup as Mark barreled through his demonstration of the Flavor Bar.
“People want choices. Great Wraps has eight proprietary spice blends. Go ahead and mix and match.”
I sprinkled “Hellacious Jalapeño” on my Kurlies and prepared to hallucinate.
As a brand guru, my first impulse is to determine if the brand elements tell a cohesive story. I perused the offerings: Gyro Wrap, Santa Fe Wrap, Spicy Chipotle Wrap, Falafel Wrap, Hummus Veggie Wrap, Buffalo Wrap, California Wrap.
“Your menu works together,” I said approvingly. “People are moving away from bread. Your timing couldn’t be better.”
Mark jumped in: “And, for those who want to go completely bread-free, we have bowls. And smoothies!”
“Eat Great. Feel Great,” I gushed. “I like the tag line. Great Wraps are, umm, the healthy alternative.”
Mark beamed with pride.
As I studied the Great Wraps store layout, a promotional sign stopped my tracks. Michael also saw the sign but cautioned me with a look: “Bruce, Don’t go there.”
“Mark, tell me about the Philly Cheesesteak,” I asked with devious curiosity.
“Isn’t that great?” Mark boasted. “No one’s got a cheesesteak in the food court, so we added it to the menu.”
“But aren’t wraps, you know, Great Wraps… the world’s greatest wraps, isn’t that the Big Idea?” I asked gently.
“The way I see it,” Mark explained with perfect business logic, “if someone’s in the mood for a cheesesteak, we get that sale.”
“Sure, sure,” I agreed, “But Eat Great, Feel Great, doesn’t a cheesesteak negate the whole, healthy wrap thing — the brand concept?” I couldn’t help myself.
Michael glared at me. His blood pressure was rising.
“In the mall, it’s all about incremental revenue,” Mark explained. “Imagine a guy and a girl in the food court. She wants something light, say Chinese, but he doesn’t. That’s my opening… to pull them away from Panda. They come here; he orders a cheesesteak, and she gets a bowl. It’s a zero-sum game in the food court. You’re competing for a small universe of hungry customers.”
“What if Chick-Fil-A added a burger to their menu,” I countered? “The cows on the billboard. EAT MOR CHIKIN?”
Michael quickly interrupted. “We’ll put together some logo ideas to get the ball rolling.”
“Good deal,” Mark replied.
I quietly fumed that we couldn’t explore the cheesesteak because I so wanted to position Mark as the “King of Wraps.”
My first-date instincts were correct: Mark let his son design the new logo, and we didn’t get the job.
What’s more, two more cheesesteaks appeared on the menu: Chicken Philly and Chipotle Philly. Brand purity it ain’t, but in the zero-sum world of food courts, a sale is a sale.
My instincts were validated five years later when Vigor Branding, a restaurant brand specialist, was brought in for the Great Wraps clean-up. Vigor described the “before” on their project page:
Originally, Great Wraps was a restaurant concept focused on healthy-style wraps. In the 90s it was a trending item, but that time had passed. Health didn’t sell in foodcourts so the brand was left adding new product categories to better compete. The result was a confusing, misaligned brand experience and a sinking business.
Yep. I don’t want to say, “told you so,” or disparage Great Wraps. With over 50 stores and more coming, Mark knows his customer. But Great Wraps illustrates the core conflict all businesses face: “Brand versus Product.”