RestCon in Dallas
Marketing Vitals just kicked off their third annual conference in Plano, TX. Eric Siegel, the author of “Predictive Analytics,” opened the agenda with an entertaining session that brought some really complex concepts of data science down to an understandable level.
The second session was a panel of experts to discuss where the industry is going. You’ll see in the photo below the incomparable 3CIOs partner, Phill Crawford on the right.
I got to talk to the audience about cashless payments in 2018 and beyond.
This transitioned into Rom’s unveiling of another company and product called “OneDine.” This is a super-highly personalized digital wallet that could really impact the restaurant space. It also has some cool functionally for full serve capabilities.
Cool! http://iosapps.site/app/1319608743/onedine.
It is not fully functional yet but should be nation wide by Q32018 or so.
After lunch, we heard about APIs and how tech vendors saw the future of connecting to others. With information being so valuable to restaurants, I was glad to see a focus on this vital area.
Then, a group of restaurant marketers discussed targeting through information mining and social media. Interesting discussion about whether online ordering is a customer acquisition or customer retention platform. Also, our partner Phil’s restaurant was called "the most Instagramable" restaurant in America from this panel. Good to see my bud from Hard Rock Days, Brian Siemienas, talking about his new experiences with Darden.
Shama Hyder, followed these folks to share some innovative social media and big data insights to the room of restaurantaurs. From our guest’s perspective, they ask the following question before mentioning us on social media “what will doing business with this brand say about me”
To close the day’s sessions, Front Burner Restaurant execs Randy DeWitt and Jack Gibbons talked about how they depend upon data to differentiate their multiple restaurant brands.
MV CEO Rom Krupp closed the day and invited the audience to visit Front Burner’s newest concept, The Legacy Food Hall. This is a cashless, 55,000 square foot food hall and brewery right down the street from the conference.
Day two started out with chef John Tesar who talked about how important data is to his restaurants.
After Tesar (not Tenczar) there was a great panel of restaurant trailblazers. These folks had some really interesting views of being able to start brands with tech as a focal point. As we’ve been saying, every decision a business makes today must consider tech.
The rest of the day was a deep dive into new and highest-value features of Marketing Vitals. I had to boogie at this point, to meet with one of our clients. Bummer.
This was my first time at this show and I was really impressed. Great content and production.
That’s it for this one. See you soon.