Branding Lessons from Kitchen Nightmares’ Gordon Ramsay

I have to admit, if I had to pick a career outside the visual arts, being a chef would be one of my top choices. I love to eat, I love to cook, I love the way my plate looks when it arrives at a good restaurant. Eating out, or making an “extra-nice” meal at home is very satisfying. For this reason, I cannot help but watch the television show Kitchen Nightmares. Both my entrepreneurial spirit and secret desire to be a chef are piqued as celebrity (and very successful) chef Gordon Ramsay turns a floundering restaurant into a successful business.

Gordon’s foul mouth and the fact that everything is sped up and edited for television (much of the actual “work” is glossed over) aside, I’ve noticed a trend in Gordon’s approach. There are some common issues to most of these restaurants, and I see a parallel with our branding for small business process. The look of the restaurant is always addressed, often with a makeover of it’s visual identity and interior design, but what’s more important is how he positions it.

I’ll refer briefly to a recent episode to illustrate this. A New Jersey restaurant in an affluent town, surrounded by over 60 other restaurants was floundering. The owner was a successful chef in his previous career, cooking in top restaurants in Manhattan. Transitioning to running his own business was not such a success and his passion was gone. His standards dropped, and his restaurant was on the verge of collapse. The original menu included fish, risotto and other fancy dishes, but the owner’s specialty was pasta. Additionally, they were only open for dinner.

Chef Ramsay’s visit brought a new look to the restaurant, but more importantly a new focus. The result was a restaurant that offered a smaller menu, focused around the concept of “fresh pasta made daily”. Now open for lunch as well as dinner, diners understood this restaurant as the only one to offer this. The owner’s passion was restored (“pasta is like a blank canvas – you can do anything with it”), the menu and therefore the restaurant became more manageable, and the public had a clearly defined story to differentiate the restaurant.

I used to think that chef Ramsay did all the work, and just got the owners to do as he says. A lot of pieces are missing from the show due to time constraints, but I’m beginning to think a lot of extra research and preparation are done behind the scenes. A major part of each relaunch is an overhaul of the type of food (always fresh, always consistent), as well as a reduction in the size of the menu. When chef Ramsay challenges the owners and/or head chefs to get passionate about their food and set high standards, he also flushes out what they do best and what makes them different.

When chef Ramsay redefines and reduces the menu, the main attraction of every restaurant, he is essentially repositioning the business. The key to successful branding for a small business is a narrow focus and a unique story. By being different, you avoid the clutter of the marketplace – an issue for all small businesses, but especially for restaurants. By filling or creating a niche that is uncrowded or new, and then offering a unique experience (story), getting noticed and being remembered is easier. Not only that, it makes decision-making and advertising a breeze compared to when you were trying to be everything to everybody, and ended up being nobody.

The moral of the story? Be remarkable. Be different. Avoid the clutter and tell a good story. Focusing your business’ positioning is a major step in the branding process and the results can be utterly groundbreaking.

Tags: branding, Branding Small Business, kitchen nightmares, position, repositioning, successful business, visual identity