In today’s F&B landscape a perfect location, team, and menu isn’t always enough to ensure you’ll be a success. You need to offer up an experience your customers can’t wait to share.
Personalized drinks have been proven to boost foot traffic and social media shares for coffee shops, restaurants, and bars alike. But there’s one theme that’s near-guaranteed to supercharge these Instagrammable moments.
Pet photos.
Even more powerful than pictures of their very own children or an of-the-moment pop culture reference, cocktails or cappuccinos printed with your customers’ adorable pets is a sure fire way for your venue to boost both sales and social media buzz.
Why Pets Make the Perfect Drink Print Content
For most of your customers (and for every single one of them that brings their puppy to your patio), pets are part of the family. Featuring these furry little weirdos on your drinks and desserts will instantly pull at your customer’s heartstrings.
They will take 1000 photos that are destined for Instagram.
They’ll talk up your venue and the experience to all of their friends.
They will absolutely come back to see you again.
It’s a simple, efficient way to boost your brand, drive foot traffic, and serve up a perfectly customized experience that will get you goodwill and user-generated content.
6 Ways to Use Pet Photos to Boost Your F&B Brand
1. Turn Your Venue Into Influencer Catnip
Every influencer online is their own content manager and brand manager, and no matter how big their following or their brand deals, they still need to produce new content every single day. Ripples makes it easy for your venue to get on their radar and their followers’ For You Pages.
And nothing will draw attention to your restaurant faster than pets with a following. @rockynycmorkie and @izzy_and_lila are two furry friends with a combined 75k Instagram followers that follow their adventures around NYC.
At Dante’s, they shared the renowned Honey Bee Cocktail, and a month later Rocky ate up a pumpkin-flavored Pupper Cup ice cream at Chateau le Woof. Each moment was eye-catching, Instagram-worthy, and got these fantastic NYC venues in front of 1000s of engaged fans and potential customers.
2. Feature Your Cutest Customers in Your Announcements
At The Alchemist UK, the star of the show was an elegant black cat, as it should be.
To announce that they’re now serving printed pints of Guinness, The Alchemist produced a video demonstrating the power of Ripples drink prints.
A customer catches the bartender’s eye. He serves up a perfectly poured Guinness topped with “Text Me”.
The customer looks impressed, although potentially confused about how he’ll manage texting without thumbs. We’ll let you know if they release a part two.
The post to date has been viewed more than 31k times and has more likes than their last ten posts combined. Black cats are a powerful magic. So are drink prints.
3. Showcase Your Space and Your Vibe
At Black Line Social, the Ripple Maker has become more than just a tool for custom latte art. Not only does this cafe and artspace regularly host events where illustrations created in real-time become coffee art, the Ripple Maker has become a way to extend their brand and capture the spirit of their clientele.
They printed a “cool-ass dog” right on a drink, instantly tying together their iconic space, incredible drinks, and pet-friendly atmosphere.
The post didn’t just highlight the drink itself, it highlighted the experience of being at Black Line Social. That’s the kind of content guests are eager to snap, share, and spread across social media.
4. Turn Their Love into a Contest
Moff’s cat cafe in Japan is inviting their customers to vote for their favorite cats through their latte prints, for the fourth year in a row. When every purchase counts as a vote, customers will put their money where their mouth is and make a special trip to vote for their favorites.
5. An Excuse to Party (With Local Partners)
Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Chicago is inviting every pet and their person to a Barktoberfest celebration! With a special dog treat menu, a German-themed costume contest, and partnerships with local pet-focused brands it’s a perfect opportunity to invite pet-obsessed friends from the neighborhood to spend a Sunday afternoon at the bar focused on “pups, pints, and good vibes.”
6. Make Every Customer a Micro-influencer
Even customers who barely ever post, and who never make a point to highlight the businesses they’re visiting, will be drawn in by the power of pet-focused content. Make this irrefutable fact about the human condition work for you even more by adding your logo to every drink (available as part of the Advanced Design Plan), so that your brand is featured right next to their pet.
Your Can’t Lose Strategy: Pet Prints on the Menu
Pets have always had the power to bring people together. Now they can help bring more customers through your doors. With a drink printer like the Ripple Maker, turning pet photos into custom latte art or cocktail toppers adds seconds to your operational flow, but the impact will last far longer.
So whether you’re running a coffee shop, a restaurant, or a bar, it’s time to tap into the F&B trend that’s supercharging sales and social media shares.
