Fast food outlets in Manchester are deliberately creating controversial and unusual food combinations to spark online outrage and attract customers through their doors. The Manchester Evening News spoke to the marketers behind the viral posts to understand the strategy and whether it converts clicks into customers.
Viral creations from Rounders
One of the biggest offenders is Rounders, a popular halal fast-food chain with locations in Chorlton, Stockport and Urmston. In person, they are known for their fried chicken, smashed burgers and buckets of chicken. Online, two of their most popular posts feature a 'Mr Whippy Loaded Fries' and 'Manchester's First Crunch Cake Smash Burger'. The Mr Whippy Loaded Fries has amassed over two million views across TikTok and Instagram, with thousands of comments mainly criticising the creators.
"Honestly, just Ignore all the positive comments. This is horrendous," one commenter says. "Where are you located? So, I can walk past and go somewhere else," another person writes.
Marketing strategy and customer response
A member of the marketing team, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the M.E.N that while none of the items are officially on the menu, they have had customers come in off the back of the posts. "Technically, we don't sell any of them on our menu," said the spokesperson. "When we did the 'Mr Whippy Loaded Fries', which was one of the top posts, it got over a million views across both platforms, people then did come in and order it."
"People are more than welcome to order the food; those specific items are sold individually. Obviously it comes with a lot of controversy. A lot of people comment negative things, and we understand that, and we don't want to tarnish our name. We just wanted to try something, be a bit controversial because there's so many competitors around us."
Competitive market data
The competitive market is evident in recent figures showing Greater Manchester continues to be among the nation's takeaway hotspots. Data from Public Health England showed that every part of Greater Manchester has more takeaways than the national average. Manchester ranked fifth on the list with 183 fast food outlets per 100,000 people, while Tameside came eighth with 170.5 per 100,000 people. Bury slotted in at ten with 165.7 outlets per 100,000 people. Bolton (16th) and Rochdale (19th) featured in the top 20, with Trafford (24th), Stockport (26th) and Oldham (32nd) not too far behind, on a list of 152 districts across the country. Salford (48th) and Wigan (67th) also have above-average numbers of takeaways per 100,000 people.
Great British Doner and Burger Eats
"We're constantly trying to think of something new to get people through the door," said Jessica Tee, who leads the marketing department for Great British Doner. Earlier this year, the award-winning takeaway opened its second site in Manchester city centre. Known mainly for its vegan kebab, the establishment has also turned heads with its chocolate doner kebab. "We get more anger towards the vegan one to be honest," Jessica revealed. "I'm on the social media so I get DMs all the time from people saying things like 'vegans don't deserve doner.'"
"We had a day where we transformed our shop in Manchester and Liverpool to vegan for the day and we got so much hate for it. But then we got so much love from the vegan and vegetarian community. It's really hit and miss and it's the same with the chocolate doner. But in essence, the more people talking about it then its fine. It's still a discussion and that's the reason why we did it, we did it to have this discussion and question what even doner can be."
Earlier this year, Oldham-based smashed burger outlet, Burger Eats, went viral when they launched their chocolate covered chicken burger. The burger caused such a frenzy that the M.E.N's own Emily Parker had to try one for herself. The burger has since left the takeaways menu board since the hype has died down, but the man who came up with it says it did exactly what it was supposed to. The brains behind the chocolate burger is Shak, a 38-year-old food marketing guru who quit his job at a law-firm to promote local businesses.
"The whole idea is to be disruptive and do something that people love to hate," he told the M.E.N. "We decided to do a spin on the spicy trend burger. So, we thought, instead of doing a spicy burger, we'll do a chocolate one. If you see the comments, its probably 70% and 30% of people loving it. It wasn't even on the menu. People started driving in, the first customers we had were about six guys from Birmingham who'd seen it on the socials and wanted to order it. From there we had bloggers coming off their own back wanting to try it and the videos they done off it went viral and it snowballed into what it was. But I always say, the food is the first thing, the marketing is secondary. I can bring people through the door, it's up to them to make the people happy."
