Bob Charles & Zone Merchandising

One of the most successful and innovative McDonald's franchisees, Bob Charles, discusses the importance of using neighborhood marketing in the food service and restaurant industry. As a McDonald's franchisee, Bob participated in some of the great innovations from McDonald's such as the Happy Meal and the McPride internal customer program. ________________________________________

The #1 award to franchisees was the Ronald McDonald Award. It was one of the ways Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, sent his message by honoring "star franchisees." One of the first winners was Bob Charles, a Colorado franchisee whose units were always 3 to 5% ahead of the market because of his total commitment to community marketing.

He remembers Ray, "His message was always 'give back to the community.' That was all apart of the business...it wasn't a one-way thing."

"In the early days, that was advertising, you participated in the baseball, the fund-raising, the different school activities."

Ray and McDonald's used Bob as a traveling speaker demonstrating to the whole system what you can do when you focus your attention and resources at the local level.

The Creation of the Happy Meal: Today McDonald's is, in some ways, the biggest toy company in the world - it started in Bob's basement. It's amazing all that began with innovations that came from the bottom up.

"I was working with Dale Pond from our agency, Berstein-Rein, which was based in Kansas City and we found a catalog...and we found a bunch of inexpensive boxes...and we found some paper premiums...and we packaged the hamburger and fries in the box...and you could draw on the boxes...or you could punch 'em out...it was earlier than what you see now."

"We ran that and people started to pick it up. There was another guy in St. Louis, Dick Brams, great guy, and he started doing similar thing down there. And that's how it all started."

For more information on how to effectively implement neighborhood marketing for your restaurant, go to http://www.TomFeltenstein.com or download Tom's 10 Step Sales Building Campaign at http://www.toms10steps.com.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Tom
• Feltenstein
• Neighborhood
• Marketing
• Bob
• Charles
• Zone
• Merchandising
• Restaurant
• Consultant

[DaringGirlProduction]

Tom, do you know how I'd get a hold of Bob? I'd like to contact him