Ad Campaign of the Week: Panera Campaign Appeals to Healthy Customers

Panera Bread wants you to know that it uses natural ingredients in its food. But it also wants you to know exactly what’s in all of its drink options. A new campaign from the restaurant features signs that offer information about what’s in each of its drinks, like added sugars and other ingredients, so that customers can make more informed choices. So how many consumers respond positively to this type of messaging? We asked 1,000 respondents about their thoughts on Panera Bread and then tested the campaign to see if it made any impact.

Quick Service Restaurants

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest online survey, 5% of respondents said that they go to quick service restaurants daily. 31% go to quick service restaurants a few times a week. 41% go a few times a month. 11% go a few times every three months. 7% said they go to quick service restaurants less frequently than once every three months. And 7% aren’t quick service restaurant consumers at all.Of those quick service restaurant consumers, 53% said that they’ve at least tried Panera Bread. And 26% said that they go to Panera Bread regularly. Subway has the most regular consumers among the quick service restaurants listed, with 53% said they patronize the restaurant regularly.

Panera Campaign

Overall, 15% of respondents said that they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Panera the next time they go to a quick service restaurant. And 21% said that it would be very probable. Of those who viewed a sign from Panera’s clean drink campaign, 19% said that they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Panera. And 23% said it would be very probable.In addition, 71% of those who viewed the ad said that they consider health to be at least somewhat important when thinking about which quick service restaurants to patronize. Of those respondents, 21% said they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Panera. And 24% said it would be very probable.

Brand Attributes

In general, consumers said that they associate words like healthy, fresh, delicious, expensive, quality, tasty and clean with the Panera Bread brand. And those who viewed the Panera campaign were even more likely to associate the brand with words like fresh and healthy.

Key Takeaways

The Panera clean drinks campaign does seem to have the potential to make a positive impact on quick service restaurant consumers. It had an especially significant impact on those who value health when making those decisions, but that’s unsurprising since Panera already targets health conscious consumers with its marketing. So essentially, Panera could use the same targeting strategy that it uses for other marketing materials to share this new messaging. And with the signs also included in its restaurants, the campaign could potentially lead to the company garnering more repeat business from existing customers as well. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: panera by samantha celera under CC BY-ND 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on April 2 via AYTM’s online survey panel.