It is fair to say it has been challenging over recent years for the hospitality industry.
From riding the wave of Covid to surviving the impact of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, the industry has been dealt blow after blow in recent years. According to UKHospitality about 1,169 restaurants closed in the year to March 2024.
Finding creative and cost-efficient ways to drive footfall has never been more important which is why restaurants are leaning on their marketing partnerships strategies to help drive loyalty and growth without maxing out marketing budgets.
Marketing partnerships can help restaurants achieve their goals in a number of ways, whether looking to increase sales, acquire loyal customers, target a certain demographic or an untapped market, drive brand awareness or introduce new products to the market, working with the perfect partners is a cost-effective way to help achieve key objectives. By working in partnership restaurants, like other sectors, can achieve more for less.
This article dives into four types of marketing partnerships that should be key to a restaurant’s partnership marketing mix:
- Loyalty Partner Rewards
- Customer Acquisition Partnerships
- Revenue Generating Partnerships
- Partner Promotional Prizes
#1. Loyalty Partner Rewards
According to YouGov, 10% of Brits say loyalty rewards and discounts influence their decision to go back to a restaurant, whilst 18% of Brits say they’re enrolled in restaurant loyalty programmes.
Common types of loyalty rewards within the hospitality sector include points-based systems, tiered programs, visit-based and traditional stamp cards, while also using digital apps, birthday deals, and exclusive promotions. These models benefit restaurants by fostering customer loyalty, generating higher revenue and improving customer engagement.
As well as these traditional Loyalty Rewards models, there is lots of opportunity to use marketing partnerships to diversify reward strategies, utilising partners to offer more value to customers and stand out from the crowd with your proposition by offering third party rewards as well as offers on owned product. In our 2024 white paper “What the British Want from Loyalty Programmes 4.0” we learned that 63% of Brits like it when a brand offers partner rewards, and the primary benefits of partner rewards for customers are (in descending order of appeal) treats, variety, value, excitement, relevance, personalisation and topicality.
An example of a well-executed Loyalty Reward partnership was when quick service giant KFC became the latest eatery to announce a partnership with a video game company, collaborating with action role-playing game Diablo IV to offer in-game rewards when diners bought chicken sandwiches via the restaurant’s digital channels.
“Now, fans of Diablo IV can feed their hunger for both our best chicken sandwich ever and exclusive in-game rewards.” – Nick Chavez U.S. Chief Marketing Officer.
This type of partnership drives significant engagement with the perfect target audience and helps drive loyalty through compelling relevant rewards. A reciprocal campaign is a cost-effective marketing partnership, as you are working on a value exchange model that doesn’t require any marketing budget, a win-win!
#2. Customer Acquisition Partnerships
Another key role for marketing partnerships within the restaurant industry is customer acquisition. Partnerships are a highly cost-effective way to promote to new customer bases. The partnership is often modelled on a value exchange, without any cost associated.
Some examples of the way restaurants are acquiring new customers through marketing partnerships include delivery platforms such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo and corporate partnerships with local businesses and hotels, collaborating to help drive footfall and increase revenue from untapped audiences.
A great example of a brand using marketing partnerships for customer acquisition within the restaurant industry is PizzaExpress Partnership Benefits. PizzaExpress have partnered with the likes of Compare the Market, Odeon, Tesco Clubcard, UniDays to offer their partner’s customer bases compelling offers at PizzaExpress. This enables PizzaExpress to directly promote to millions of customers through their partner’s channels, helping drive footfall and new customer acquisition. Their partners position the PizzaExpress offers as a reward to their loyal customers – both brand partners are achieving their objectives without having to attribute big budgets to the activity making it cost-effective customer acquisition.
#3. Revenue Generating Partnerships
Marketing partnerships are an effective way to open incremental revenue streams for restaurants. Some examples of revenue generating partnerships within the restaurant industry include Product Licensing, Alcohol & Beverage Partnerships and Merchandising.
One of the most effective revenue generating partnership models is co-marketing campaigns, whereby a restaurant promotes a partner’s product via touchpoints either instore or online and takes a share of revenue driven from the campaigns or a fixed cost for placements, alternatively the partner reciprocates and promotes the restaurant’s product to their customer base through varying channels.
A well-executed example is the collaboration between restaurant chain Chipotle and fan-favourite game Street Fighter 6. According to a Chipotle press release, “Chipotle will be the first restaurant brand to give Street Fighter 6 players the opportunity to earn Fighter Coins through digital purchases made on the Chipotle app and Chipotle.com.”
This creative marketing partnership generated significant incremental revenue during the campaign whilst helping Chipotle tap into the gaming community audience, an audience it may not normally have a lot of exposure to otherwise.
#4. Promotional Partner Prizes
Marketing partnerships can create excitement and add value to engage customers through promotional prize campaigns. One of the main ways restaurants are driving engagement and loyalty through promotional prizing campaigns is Gamification.
In its simplest form, Gamification involves turning a visit to a restaurant into a game in some capacity. Participants earn rewards or the chance to win prizes for completing different activities. Typical models include collecting points to be entered into a prize draw or buying a meal or drink to instantly win.
A classic example of a successful restaurant Gamification campaign was by the Canadian food chain Tim Hortons. Its popular Roll Up To Win contest recently running from February 24 to March 23, 2025, allowed customers to participate by digitally rolling via the Tims app or physically rolling up the rim of their cups to reveal if they had won a prize, which included partner prizes such as cars, holidays, electronics, and more. Participants earned digital rolls by purchasing eligible beverages, breakfast items, and other products, with bonus rolls available for using a reusable cup or buying Tims at Home products.
The initial campaign significantly boosted quarterly revenue (by 4.8%) and even lifted the stock by about 4%.
According to You Gov, 81% of regular restaurant goers in the UK (more than 1 visit per month) say they’re likely to subscribe to a loyalty programme over the next 12 months. A well-executed partnership strategy as part of a programme is a cost-effective way for restaurants to stand out in a crowded market, whilst giving more value back to the customer, rewarding loyalty, acquiring new customers and helping drive incremental footfall and revenue.
If you’d like to find out more about how to design and activate marketing partnerships in the restaurant sector the please get in touch and see how we can help you achieve the results you want.
