eBusiness Weekly
Leslie Mupeti
Hotplate Grillhouse is one of the fastest growing food outlets in Zimbabwe.
The restaurant chain has created about 400 jobs in over 16 outlets in the country. The company specialises in African cuisine with unique menu items such as maguru (tripe), mazondo, madora (mopani worms) and sadza.
Founded in 2019 by tourism player Benson Muneri, the firm has branches in cities such as Harare, Kadoma, Kwekwe, Bulawayo, Ngezi, Victoria Falls and Mutare.
Consumers are loving the restaurant with many of them petitioning Hotplate online to come open a location in their city.
How has the chain resonated with consumers quickly in a market dominated by big players such as Innscor and Chicken slice? More importantly, how has Hotplate used branding to win the hearts of Zimbabweans?
1. Effective interior design
The typical Hotplate restaurant interior design is like a silent sales man. When a person spends a day in the restaurant they immediately post it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter showing their followers where they spent their day.
Hotplate looks very instagramable and if posted on a customer’s timeline will entice their entire follower list. Restaurant interior design impacts customer psychology and prompts them to order more or less and even impacts the duration of their stay at a location.
Seating options, light, music and architecture all constitute a restaurant’s interior design. The interior design is the first thing a customer notices when they visit your location.
This first impression will dictate how they perceive your brand and what level of service to expect in the restaurant. Hotplate makes use of a lot of browns in their designs, a color which represents soil, nature and the African continent.
This goes very well with their very Afrocentric menu.
“Everything is themed African because we remain true to our tradition,” says CEO Benson Muneri.
2. Effective customer bait
Giving out free samples to the target market is a way to quickly gain a lot of customers because you effectively get your product or service into the hands of the people who are most likely to want what you are selling. People will try something new if it doesn’t cost them any money.
Prospects may tell others about what they got for free and they may sometimes share the product or show it to other people who will also buy the item and spread it.
Getting free stuff makes people feel valued and happy with you. Hotplate is doing just that with their free meals they occasionally awarding potential and current customers.
Whenever the restaurant gives out free meals, they immediately trend online and with this strategy Hotplate is creating brand awareness, building trust, creating relationships with their customers, increasing online buzz and word of mouth and ultimately increasing sales.
As we speak they are currently running an April promotion where everyone born in April can just show up at one of their locations with their National I.D and get a free meal. Any April babies out there?
3. Effective Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a way brands can promote their products through endorsements or recommendations from influencers and content creators on the internet.
Engaged audiences follow these influencers and advertising to them across different social media platforms enables a brand to extend their scope and build brand awareness.
Hotplate has been using notable influencers such as Shadaya and formally Hopewell Chin’ono to market their restaurant and brand. This was a clever play on their part because for instance, Shadaya AKA “The Alpha” is popular among red-pillars who are all about male dominance and masculinity.
Who else can be the perfect fit to promote a highly masculine dish such as sadza except for “The Alpha” himself.
Through relevant influencers your content is placed in front of social users who are already interested in your niche. You don’t have to spend additional funds on testing and finding your audience since the influencer has already fostered this audience on social media.
By aligning your brand with a trend setting influence, you are also showing that your company is a pioneering leader. Influencers set trends, putting your products and services in the spotlight, gathering attention and pushing sales up.
4. Effective social media marketing
Social networks are now a substantial part of every marketing strategy. The benefits of using social media are so great that it is hard to imagine any brand that does not have a social media strategy.
Hotplate is very active on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, with the brand assuming a father-figure personality called “Papa”.
They engage very well with their customers and reply to comments which shows that they care about their customers’ views about their brand. Engagement boosts SEO and Search Engine rankings which potentially increases follower count.
Social media marketing results in increased brand awareness because each share/retweet will be introduced to a new network of individuals which can lead to them becoming potential customers. Other benefits include more brand awareness, brand authority, improved brand loyalty, reduced costs of marketing budgets (social media marketing costs less than traditional billboards and TV/radio ads).
5. Effective Differentiation strategy
According to Harappa, a differentiation strategy is the approach businesses use to attract and keep customers by giving them a unique product or service.
It can also be defined as an approach businesses develop by providing customers with something unique, different and distinct from their competitors in the market place. Or in simple terms what separates you from the competition?
The main objective of a differentiation strategy is to increase competitive advantage. Most fast food restaurants in the country just follow the American McDonalds template: Red and Yellow branding with Chicken and Chips as the main menu item.
Hotplate deviates from this template as they offer traditional African foods as their main menu items and having the colour brown as their main colour instead of the typical red.
“I believe we are offering meals that most of our competitors are not offering such as mopani worms, tripe, cow heels and roasted meat,” says the CEO of the company, “It’s a flame grilled offering of unique African meals. It is a new concept available for both take-away and for sit-ins and the clients love the experience,” he adds.
Hotplate has been able to find that sweet spot between offering a traditional African experience to their customers and embracing modern design and branding. This sweet spot is what differentiates Hotplate from other restaurants which offer African cuisines. These restaurants are either too traditional or too modern.
As the CEO of the Hotplate Grillhouse restaurant chain, Benson Muneri rightfully comments, “We have been blessed in that we have a huge following in Zimbabwe. People seem to be loyal to us and are appreciating what we are offering.”
◆ Leslie Mupeti is a graphic designer and brand strategy expert. He can be contacted on +263 785 324 230 and [email protected] for feedback.
