QSRs true north should be data: Yau Chuan
Loob Holdings' marketing leader shares their experience in leveraging data.
Looking at competitor benchmarks and industry markets is not always the right path for QSRs but learning how to originate data on your own is a must if business leaders want to completely understand their business, Loob Holdings Chief Marketing and Digital Officer Yau Chuan Ng said in his speaking session during the QSR Media Asia Deliverect Conference & Awards 2023.
Formerly part of Google, Yau Chuan headlined a solo speaking session titled Data and Digital to drive R&D Excellence and Customer Experience to share what Loob Holdings experienced analysing data to improve their business.
“You need to be able to originate a lot of this data on your own to really understand your business or otherwise you will have your marketing teams completely running on gut and intuition. In the 21st century, where there generative AI can actually create, this is not how your marketing team should be working,” Yau Chuan said.
Yau Chuan pointed out that data may be everywhere, but not all in the fast-food industry have it within reach to work with. That’s where technology comes in.
“That’s why technology is important. To originate this data. You have to create a platform so customers can willingly tell you about their preferences and their purchase behaviours,” he said.
Yau Chuan said they do this by leveraging their app. For example, they use their app for their Tealive brands to get direct feedback about products, monitor customer purchase behaviour and preferences, and understand customer demographics and profiles.
This is how they choose their menu across all of Tealive’s locations across Southeast Asia.
Another thing that Loob Holdings is using is they leaned into leveraging influencer marketing. However, instead of hiring famous influencers with a million followers, Loob Holdings leveraged Tealives' 4,000 employees and encouraged them to share social media content through a marketing strategy called Tearistar Challenge. This generated authentic and genuine content. Contents include dancing, showing the behind-the-scenes, and even having one Tealive employee take instructions online on how to make a new drink.
“Just like that my R&D team became ten thousand strong. And I’m not paying them anything. So when you think of secret menu executions. Think about this. To me that’s amazing,” Yau Chuan said.