[외식업]'Dish Mobs'은 지역 레스토랑에게 혜택을 주는 것을 목표로 하고 있다

Are You Going to Eat That?

'Dish Mobs' Aim to Benefit Local Restaurants

Posted by: Nick Leiber on February 11, 2013

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-11/dish-mobs-aim-to-benefit-local-restaurants#r=hpt-ls

Over the past few years, hundreds of altruistic strangers across the country have been meeting for shopping sprees known as “cash mobs” at neighborhood shops to strengthen local economies. Spending at a neighbor’s business instead of a big-box store like Target (TGT) or Wal-Mart (WMT) is better for the community because more of patrons’ money stays local, their argument goes.

The face of the mobs in the U.S. is Andrew Samtoy, a Cleveland attorney. He doesn’t get paid to organize them; he does it because he wants to “give back to businesses that support their communities.” As I explained in a previous post, cash mobs aren’t businesses like Groupon (GRPN)—organizers don’t get a cut of sales, and they aren’t shopkeepers. Samtoy guesses that 2,000 cash mobs have taken place around the world since he led his first one in Cleveland in the fall of 2011.

Last year, when dining deals site Restaurant.com approached him about funneling his mobs to a handful of its 18,000 partner restaurants, he agreed, and together they organized events in five cities with hungry folks forming “dish mobs.” While other national businesses have tried to partner with Samtoy and fellow organizers, he says Restaurant.com was “the only one that made sense, as they respected us and our mission and did not try to dominate the whole process or go against the spirit of cash mobs.”

The 12-year-old business, which predates and competes with Groupon, LivingSocial, and such companies, plans more dish mobs across the country, with Salt Lake City, Dallas, Orlando, Raleigh, and Baltimore scheduled in the coming weeks. Dish mobbers can buy deals (for example, a $10 certificate that’s worth $25 in a restaurant) at participating restaurants through the site, or show up and get promotional goodies from a “street team” dispatched by Restaurant.com, which is based in suburban Chicago and has about 300 employees.

The group eating events are “not a marketing campaign for Restaurant.com,” says Christopher Krohn, the company’s president and chief marketing officer. His business will encourage dish mobs to mob nonpartner restaurants. Beyond injecting cash into cities and towns, the goal is for locals to “break the chain habit and try a place that’s right around the corner that you’ve never discovered before,” he says. The company’s big, national-chain partners such as IHOP and Papa John’s (PZZA) don’t have any issues with the local events. “It’s much more of a positive, ‘Here’s something good you can do in your community,’ than it is negative—we’re not looking to be negative at anyone,” Krohn says.

For Samtoy’s part, he’s planning to spend less time this year organizing cash mobs in the U.S. and more time getting the word out internationally. While he’s seen growth in the U.K., Germany, and Australia, “Spain is absolutely massive right now,” he says. He reasons that the popularity is due in part to Spain’s record unemployment and Spaniards’ desire to help each other, “because the politicians are clearly not doing it.”

요약

 "캐시몹"은 그루폰과 달리 할인을 제공하지도 않고, 주체자가 상점 주인도 아니라 이타적인 사람들이 모여 지역 상권을 살리기 위해 쇼핑하는 행위를 말한다. 월마트나 타겟과 같은 유통업체가 아닌 지역 상점에서 쇼핑을 하면 더 많은 단골들이 지역 상권을 살리기 때문이다. 미국 클리블랜드에 사는 변호사 Andrew Samtoy는 지역 사회를 지원하는 기업에 보답하고자 캐시몹을 활성화시켰다. 그는 2011년 가을에 클리블랜드에서 캐시몹을 처음 시작한 이후로 전세계에 2000개의 캐시몹이 나타났다고 추측한다.

 지난 해 식사 거래 사이트 Restaurant.com은 그에게 18,000개의 파트너 레스토랑에 캐시몹을 이동할 것을 요청했고, 그는 많은 사람들과 “디시몹(dish mobs)”을 했다. 그루폰의 경쟁사인 LivingSocial은 더 많은 디시몹을 계획하고 있다. 디시몹을 하는 이들은 Restaurant.com 사이트를 통해서 참여한 레스토랑에서 구매를 하거나 Restaurant.com에서 파견한 거리팀으로부터 홍보용 음식을 맛볼 수 있다. Restaurant.com은 디시몹이 마케팅 캠페인이 아니라 몹파트너가 아닌 레스토랑이 디시몹에 참여하도록 격려하기 위함이라고 한다.

 Samtoy는 앞으로 미국에서보다 다른 전세계 국가에서 캐시몹을 하는 데 더 시간을 보낼 예정이라고 한다.