Gator Dining's value promos are right on the money - Gator Dining Service promotions at the University of Florida

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A little attitude adjustment by Gator Dining Service has gone a long way at the University of Florida here.

When the foodservice managers at the 35,000-student school learned through surveys and focus groups that their customers thought their offerings cost too much, they set about to change their minds.

"We were perceived as being expensive," said Chris Lambertson, Gator Dining's marketing director. "It comes back to the student perception that their meals should be subsidized or free."

The counterattack took the form of two marketing programs borrowed from big-name fast feeders Taco Bell and McDonald's.

First, Gator Dining introduced its Penny Specials -- five items sold for under a dollar -- including a 79-cent breakfast burrito, an 89-cent chicken burrito or hamburger, a 99-cent side salad and a 99-cent cheese-burger.

"These were something that people could just come in and grab with pennies and leave," Lambertson said.

Taking a cue from McDonald's, Gator Dining unveiled value meals, offering combinations like a reuben sandwich, 24-ounce drink and french fries for $4.17 and a Cajun chicken sandwich, 24-ounce drink and potato salad for $4.50. Members of the Gator Club -- that is, students with declining-balance accounts -- paid even less. The lower prices were an incentive to join the club, Lambertson noted.

Both programs were first offered last fall at seven of the 19 outlets at the Service America account. They were advertised in the campus newspaper, posters, table tents and point-of-sale pieces, he said.

During the university's fall and winter semesters, Gator Dining sold more than 10,500 hamburgers and more than 15,000 side salads, said Jared Satz, Gator Dining's director of residence dining. Average checks were boosted by impulse sales of items like sodas, potato chips and cookies kept near the registers, he added.

"Not only was it successful revenuewise, but it's our opinion that it truly helped with our value perception because it was such a great deal," he said. "We didn't have the profitable food costs that some products have. We had 48- to 50-percent food costs with these items, but we designed this for price-value reasons vs. profit reasons. Ultimately, price-value translates into profitability."

A survey conducted at the end of the year found that the Penny Specials and value meals had served their purpose, Lamberston said. Before the promotions 69 percent of the respondents called Gator Dining expensive. That figure dropped to 63 percent after the promotions, with 3 percent calling the food inexpensive.

The programs are undergoing some minor revisions this summer and will be rolled out again next fall, Lambertson said.

Other campus-dining services also are copying fast-feeder promotions as they compete with them for dollars from a growing number of commuting students and those who live off campus, said Brian E. Klippel, the dining services director at the University of California at San Diego and president of the National Association of College and University Food Services.

This summer big is in -- like McDonald's Jurassic Park promotion, he noted.

"People are still looking for value, and they continue to maximize their food dollars but in the restaurant business you're finding they are going more back to the basics --no more smaller portions," he said.

Other popular campus marketing strategies include coupon discounts, debit-card systems, branding and speciality shops, Klippel said.

"You don't see large facilities in the center of campus anymore, but little ones throughout," he noted. "Now all you need is a counter 6 feet wide for new niches and new sales."

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