Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Whataburger Communication Audit
Prepared, eaten, and researched by
Paige Adams and Joshua Hall
April 8, 2016
Table of Contents
● Introduction and Methodology……………………………………………………...Page 3
● History……………………………………………….……………………………...Page 4
● Key Messages……………………………………………….……………………....Page 5
● Website…………………………………………….………………..….…………...Page 7
● Print and Broadcast coverage……………………………………………..…...…...Page 9
● Community Events…………………………………………….…………...………Page 11
● Other PR Tactics………………………………………………………….….….…Page 12
● Social Media……………………………………………………….….……………Page 13
● Publics…………………………………….…………..…….…………………...…Page 15
● Conclusion……………………………………………….…………..……………..Page 16
Introduction
Whataburger is a widely popular fast food burger chain. Whataburger, founded in 1950, boasts
service to community, a long tradition of friendliness, and a dedication to providing quality food
and friendly service. Though the chain started in Texas, it has grown into a national chain across
America. Since Whataburger has expanded their business, the way they communicate with their
publics has expanded. This audit will address and access the tactics used by the company to
communicate with their constituents.
Methodology
In order to gain all of the information necessary to properly access the quality of Whataburgers
PR tactics and use of Social Media. Their corporations main website was the main source of
information for the history section of this article, as well as providing links to their Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram accounts. They published their press and media kits on their website as
well their press releases under the “press room” tab. Online, Google news alerts were also used
to access recent news articles and stories. The internet was also used to find their various forms
of social media that were not highlighted on their websites but easily found when searched, such
as their LinkedIn, Snapchat, Vine.
History
Whataburger started in 1950 when Texan Harmon Dobson had an industry changing idea and set
out to make a burger bigger than any that had come before, a burger with a 5inch bun that was
too big for one hand. A burger that would be so wonderful, that every customer who took a bit
would say, “Wow! What a burger!”. And so in a tiny hamburger shack on Ayers Street in Corpus
Christi, Texas, the Whataburger was born. In 1955, owner Harmon married Grace Williamson,
and together they raised 3 children while building a fast food empire. Buy the end of the decade,
Whataburger’s had reached 21 restaurants and had just opened the first Whataburger outside of
Texas in Pensacola Florida. In 1967, there was a tragic plane crash that killed Harmon Dobson.
With the support of her friends and family, “Lady Grace” as she was affectionately known, took
over the business. Under Grace’s authority, Whataburger expanded into a national corporation,
with over 440 locations. In 1989, the company had a change in leadership, Harman, and Grace’s
youngest son, Tom Dobson took over as president and CEO. Under Tom, the company expanded
and added more and more varieties of menu items. Now Whataburger is still family owned and
operated, with over 700+ restaurants. The company still clings to the family values and true
customer service that made them so successful.
Key Messages
“Community, originality and social service” is the unofficial creed of the Whataburger fast food
chain. They constantly show gratitude towards the community that surrounds an individual
chain, and the community shows gratitude back to them. In 2015 alone they donated $1.1 million
to almost 400 charitable organizations. They donated across 10 states from Florida to Arizona.
Their charity seems to focus on Disaster and hunger relief, cancer research, Military support, and
support for children’s charities dealing in education, abuse prevention, and disabilities.
Whataburger has been heavily involved with local food banks including Manna Food Pantries,
Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley, the North Texas Food Bank, Plains Food Bank, St. Mary’s
Food Bank, South West Texas Food Bank, Houston Food Bank, and the San Antonio Food Bank.
Whataburger is also heavily involved in military support and veterans affairs. Whataburger
donates meals to the Veterans Administration Hospital and it provides meals to servicemen and
women at Texas Cavaliers Military Fiesta and Parade. Around Veterans day, Whataburger honors
the military by participating in the San Antonio Greater Chamber’s Celebrate America’s Military
event. Whataburger chains will also often hold fundraisers for their local schools or youth
programs. Whataburger states that they will always be serving the original recipe with the same
fresh ingredients. Their social media feeds are very interactive and friendly. They will often
engage their audience and establish a good human connection. Their responses aren’t forced or
robotic. They’re genuine and authentic. Whataburger’s selfproclaimed core values are to “serve
the highest quality products, treat others with respect, invest in the community and be fiscally
responsible.” Whataburger’s official slogan is “just like you like it”. Whataburger not only shows
this by being flexible in the consumer’s customization of their food orders but also in the
community. They consistently give back to their community in ways both big and small. They
are constantly friendly in store and online, they pride themselves on customer loyalty, and they
keep the traditions so that their brand becomes multigenerational.
Website
Whataburger’s sleek website has a design that is not only userfriendly but also welcoming and
easy to understand. The words food, careers, community, company, shop, and survey are clearly
seen at the top. There is a large promotional gallery constantly circulating as the main portion of
the page. Scattered across the website are links the “Whatastore”, email newsletter signups, a
store locator, and their social networking accounts. The photos on the website are primarily of
the food in delicious looking poses or the store with some pictures of merchandising scattered
throughout. The website is incredibly easy to use. It’s laid out very well and is based on user
experience. The food tab on their website shows their menu. It is divided into burgers, chicken
sandwiches, all time favorites, breakfast, kids menu, sides and salads, desserts and snacks, drinks
and shakes, and their under 550 calories options. Under each of these categories, there is a
partition that includes many different comments on social media from the fans. Each one of the
food items on the menu comes with many nutritional facts. The Careers tab shows many smiling
employees and has taglines such as “do work that makes you proud”. The career part of the
website may possibly one of the weakest parts of their website. It seems disconnected and
corporate. It makes sense that it seems this way since it’s all about career opportunities in the
field, the restaurant, and in the corporate part of Whataburger. The rest of their website and
overall brand is all about authentic and genuine human interaction, but the careers tab is an
awkward break from that theme. The community tab hosts their highlights and ways they help
the community. They write different press releases to promote their community interactions and
relations. They have some promotional videos on the site about some of their food, the holidays,
and their community interaction. The company tab is all about the history of the restaurant and
what Whataburger stands for as a brand. It goes through a detailed overview of the history of
Whataburger. It shows old pictures and really hits home the tradition behind Whataburger. The
shop tab shows all of the merchandise available for purchasing which includes groceries,
apparel, gift cards, and different gift items. The survey tab is essentially a constant promotion
where you can enter a certain code from a receipt and get different coupons and promotions. It is
always open to accept surveys from different people from the 10 states that Whataburger resides
in. Whataburger’s website, while not being the main source of their PR success, is a great
addition to their PR strategy, and it certainly doesn’t hurt their brand.
Print and Broadcast Coverage
Stories about Whataburger are found all over the internet. The range of these news articles goes
anywhere from Whataburger helping a local charity to show how deep the fan’s love is to
Whataburger. While the Whataburger’s audience may not be worldwide, it is definitely
supportive. Fan’s have had their prom pictures taken at Whataburger, they’ve hosted wedding
proposals, they have been used to announce babies and marriages, and there are multiple pictures
of tattoos sporting the Whataburger logo. There was a news story recently about a couple who
had pictures taken of their infant wrapped up in Whataburger burger wrapping and was posed
with other items to look like a burger. Whataburger has a cult following with their fanbase. There
is hardly anything negative said about Whataburger in general much less in the news and online.
The things said about Whataburger are usually praising it for its devotion to its fanbase, its
constant promotional events, and its classic menu. Recent promotional events include the
“#WhataProm” and a social media picture contest. The first is a social media contest where you
post your best “promposal” picture involving the store on Instagram or Twitter and Whataburger
will grant you a “limo rental, orange corsages, professional photography and a candlelit
Whataburger dinner for their date and 10 friends.” There is hardly ever anything bad said about
Whataburger specifically. Obviously, there are many critics of fast food, but Whataburger’s
reputation precedes it. A native Texan on North Carolina’s college basketball team made an
effort to bring his whole team to Whataburger when they were down in Houston, Texas for the
NCAA college basketball tournament. Whataburger isn’t often talked about in a broadcast
setting. Whataburger often stays out of a negative media setting, but, when it is portrayed
alongside negative comments, it is often portrayed in a way that doesn’t hurt the brand.
Wherever there is a Whataburger restaurant there is also a sense of loyalty in the community to
the store. Anything said involving Whataburger is often also praising Whataburger for being not
only a good fast food restaurant but also a good staple in the community.
Community Events
Whataburger is constantly doing events in the community. The events they put on are often times
with local public schools or local charities. The incredible thing about their community outreach
is how authentic it seems. Even though they will usually have their logo around all of their
events, it doesn’t seem to focus on how great Whataburger is. Their events focus on helping the
community as much as they can. Whataburger shows that when you give to a community, then
the community gives back. Whataburger is constantly growing. They stretch across 10 states in
the lower part of the United States. Every single one of those Whataburger chains is helping the
community in some way whether in giant charitable events or by simply sponsoring a local little
league baseball team. Whataburger helps their community in a positive way all the time, and, in
turn, the community supports them and keeps them in business.
Other PR Tactics
Whataburger is almost nonexistent in the written medium. They don’t send out brochures very
often, they have billboards up but they aren’t the main form of publicity, and the newsletters they
send out are all over email. Their target audience of the younger generations allows them to have
a heavy online presence. The color scheme of Whataburger’s buildings is what catches the eye of
people offline the most. Their easily recognizable color scheme is a mixture of orange and white
stripes with a small amount of light blue thrown in. Their building shape is one of the most
recognizable things about the brand. Their restaurants sport the classic “Aframe” architecture
that was first introduced with restaurant unit #24 in Odessa, Texas in 1961. Whataburger doesn’t
rebrand often, but, when they do, they make sure to keep everything recognizable. They believe
in the old southern proverb “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The appeal of Whataburger comes
from their traditional look and recognizable brand that has been being successfully built since the
first Whataburger opened in Corpus Christi, Texas on August 8, 1950.
Social Media
Social Media Overview
Social Media play a huge role in how Whataburger communicates with their constituents and
customers. They use their profiles on various social networks to create twoway communication
between the organization and its publics. Whataburgers excellent use of twoway communication
makes them seem like less of a “corporate giant” and more like a person who cares about what
the customer thinks and treats them as more than a number. All of their social media websites use
photos of their food and products as free advertising, knowing that most of the time when people
see their food, they will want to come in and get some for themselves. Whataburger also does a
great job of discerning which public uses the different social media mediums and catering their
content on each of those platforms to that particular public. They run various social media
campaigns like snapchat contests, a “promposal” contest, and various others. Their key messages
of good food and quality are evident in the way they interact with customers through their social
media. Their slogan, however, is rarely if ever mentioned.
Whataburger has a very strong social media presence on twitter. Boasting 581,000 followers,
they seem to cater their tweets users in the age range of 1825. They use many popculture
references and trends to keep relevant, using words like “fam”, “bae” in their tweets. They
incorporate slang words and texting acronyms that are commonly used by young adults in their
digital social sphere. Whataburger replies to any tweet they are mentioned in, tagged or not,
negative or positive. If a customer is dissatisfied with their service, Whataburger replies in a
calm timely manner, validating the customer's concern. They then give them an alternate way to
express their frustrations by providing a customer service phone number. This takes the issue off
of social media, and out of the public eye so it can be resolved more completely and efficiently.
Whataburger uses their Facebook profile to reach their broadest audience. With most active
facebook users being adults, some with families, this is the demographic that Whataburger caters
most on this particular social media medium. They post pictures with more adults and families
tied to their products, like a dad carrying his child's Easter basket and running towards his
Whataburger meal, or a group of adult women at the park sharing dinner. Both of these images
portray a more mature audience. Like many of their social media profiles, Whataburger’s
facebook is regularly updated. They respond to negative comments on their posts, but unlike
their twitter, they do not appear to respond when they are mentioned positively on this social
network. Their Facebook profile also features a rating tool, where customers rate the restaurant
on a 15 star scale, with their current rating being 4.2 out of 5. There quite a bit of reviews posted
that complain about the quality of service or of food, none of which seem to have been addressed
by Whataburger, but rather just left on the site.
Whataburger has an active Instagram profile, posting on average about 5 times per week and
over 145 thousand followers. However, unlike their Twitter profile, they way their Instagram
account is run doesn’t facilitate twoway communication at all. Whataburger does not reply or
remove comments good, bad, or indifferent on their posts.
Youtube
Whataburger has no official channels on Youtube.
Whataburger posts have over 10 thousand connections LinkedIn. They use the social media
medium to advertise job openings and available positions. This site also includes basic
information about the company and a brief history.
Vine
Whataburger has had an account on Vine since June of 2013, although they didn’t regularly post
on it, only having a few original posts in the first 2 months, and rarely revining posts on a very
sporadic basis after that. Though this profile is still up and accessible, it hasn’t been updated by
Whataburger since August 30, 2013, and they haven’t revined anything since January 27 of
2015.
Snapchat
In the beginning of March, Whataburger launched its new Snapchat handle “WhataburgerLife”.
They encourage users to upload snaps of their menu items like the “A1 Thick and Hearty
Burger”, the “Avocado and Bacon Burger”, and their famous “Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit.”
They use Snapchat to encourage user engagement between the organization and their
constituents.
Publics
Whataburger does a great job of appealing to a very wide variety of publics through their social
media. They appeal to all ages through their facebook profile and posts, but Facebook reaches
the most of their mature adult audience. Their other Social media profiles reach their teenage
constituents as well as their college and young adult audiences. They do a great job at
communicating directly to the public they want to address, speaking to them in the manner that
they communicate in. For college students, they go to the social network that they use most,
Twitter as well as Snapchat. For families and adults, they use Facebook.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Whataburger was found to have better PR tactics than most similar fast food
chains. They excel especially in the social media the social media skills, engaging in much more
twoway communication than other companies. Their community relations is better than most for
profit companies even outside of the fast food industry, and their charity involvement is also
incredible for a company of their caliber. They have some some things that they need to work on,
like any company, but all and all they have a great PR and social media team.
Tweet from Whataburger using pop song references.
Customer service tweet.
A tweet highlighting positive twoway communication.
Instagram post.
