Changing perceptions: Dine in vs. Dine out

Grocery chains have always fascinated me, and I really enjoyed working for one of the biggest that we have in Italy.


When I was studying in Austin, I remember H&B was organizing cooking shows to teach customers how to cook depending on their needs: time, price and calories. Every hour you could watch a chef preparing a different course.
They probably realized that the lack of cooking abilities was threatening sales: education was the answer.



Marks & Spencer is running it’s “dine in for two” campaign (here one of the commercials). It’s addressing the price issue (dine in for two at just 10 pounds). In credit-crunch times it seems an obviuos move (even if it seems that londoners, despite of the crisis, are eating more and more out, I read an article about this countertrend just two days ago)…
Anyway, I like the way M&S communicate it. It’s definitely appealing, stilish… very far from the cheesiness of many domestic lunches or dinner…
Will customers be able to cook and “feel” the way the commercial show them?

Here is, I think, an opportunity for M&S to push things further and work on the “dine in experience” (preparing food, cooking, preparing the table, the atmosphere…) they are doing a good job in repositioning the perception of dining in: please go ahead. Education plays an important role.

The challenge: change your customers into to chefs.

(I skimmed through their website and it seems there’s nothing like that…)