One of the most effective ways to bridge the gap between brands and operators is with the right chef ambassador – someone who not only brings culinary credibility but also resonates effectively with your target audience and reflects your brand values. 

Making the right choice can be tricky – and getting it wrong can damage reputation and waste resources. Working with a partner that knows the pitfalls and has a network that will help secure the most appropriate ambassador will get the best results for your brand.  

Here are six key considerations: 

1. Get the brief right

What’s important to one brand is different from what’s important to another. Make sure the selection criteria has been agreed and all stakeholders are aligned – from marketing to development chefs. If you’re unsure what your selection criteria should be, work with an expert. 

2. Social relevance

When evaluating a potential ambassador, look beyond sheer follower numbers. A chef with 50,000 engaged hospitality professionals and food-service buyers on Instagram might offer much more value than one with 500,000 followers if the latter’s audience is primarily home-cook foodies. The key question: Does their social media reach map to your core audience? 

Engagement rate (comments, shares, saves) and platform relevance (LinkedIn for commercial operators, Instagram and TikTok for trend-setting chefs) matter just as much as follower count. Choose someone who consistently interacts with the hospitality sector rather than simply delivering high volumes of general foodie posts. 

3. Reputation and awards

A public profile rooted in peer recognition helps validate your positioning. For example, a chef who has won or been shortlisted for national awards carries weight. Their reputation is an asset; they should be trusted by your audience already, meaning the endorsement embeds easily rather than feeling like a forced promotion. 

Look for testimonials, press coverage or client case-studies that underline the chef’s consistency, professionalism and collaborative behaviour. Also consider whether the chef is aligned to industry organisations such as the Craft Guild of Chefs. A chef with a strong track record is less likely to produce mixed messaging or mis-align with your brand standards. 

4. Previous brand partnerships

Investigate their past brand partnerships – as well as any potential current clashes. Have they worked with credible foodservice suppliers? Did those collaborations deliver measurable value in the professional channel? For example, a chef who has previously aligned with on-trade operators or distributors will understand the subtleties of the B2B marketplace. 

Beware of “one-size-fits-all” chef endorsements: if their portfolio is heavy on FMCG consumer campaigns, they may lack the credibility to serve a foodservice supplier audience. Seek examples where they’ve developed recipe concepts, delivered training or engaged with operators, rather than simply appearing in consumer-facing adverts.

5. Product and audience alignment

Perhaps the most important consideration is alignment between the chef’s ethos, your brand values, the product offering and the end-user audience. Misalignment not only hampers authenticity but can alienate the very audience you want to attract. 

Choose a chef whose cooking style speaks directly to your market niche. If you’re offering premium meat product or sauces, a chef known for artisan-style meat cooking in gastro pubs makes sense. If your product suite is plant-based proteins for the flexitarian segment, then a chef thriving in that space brings more credibility.  

It’s also worth considering what you need from a chef ambassador – charisma and public speaking ability might be more relevant to your campaign (and target audience) than pre-recorded social media posts. 

6. Long-term fit and brand storytelling

Finally, view the ambassador role as a strategic partnership rather than a one-off advertisement. The key to long-term success is to share as much information as possible at the outset – from product information to sustainability credentials and production process. The best chef ambassadors become integrated into your brand story: they help co-create recipes, appear in operator training sessions, speak at trade events, and engage in behind-the-scenes content. Over time, their personal narrative should dovetail with your brand’s journey, giving operators and chefs a tangible reason to believe in your offering. 

Need help getting the right fit? Give our team of food and drinks experts a shout.

by Anita Murray, CEO, William Murray  

For food, drink and hospitality businesses, 2027 budgets are starting to take shape. Campaigns are being mapped out and calendars are tentatively filling up with launches, events, content and communications activity. 

Before deciding what marketing activity your business needs next year, there is a more important consideration: What does the business need to achieve – and what could get in the way? 

The more specific the objectives and obstacles, the easier it becomes to make useful, strategic decisions about marketing and communications that will help businesses grow with greater certainty. 

Six questions to take into your 2027 planning 

1. What are our most important growth objectives?

Be specific about what the business needs to achieve. Which customers, markets, products or relationships matter most? Where does growth need to come from, and what would meaningful progress look like by the end of 2027?  

Whether the ambition is to win new customers, enter a market, grow a category or create demand for innovation, the marketing plan needs a clear commercial destination. 

2. What are the biggest obstacles to achieving them?

Where is growth most likely to get stuck? It could be competitive pressure, customer perception, differentiation, credibility, market position, lack of influence or something operational that communications needs to help address.  

Identifying the obstacle changes the conversation from “What should we do?” to “What needs to change?” 

3. Has our market position changed?

Markets move quickly. Competitors evolve, customer expectations shift and propositions that once stood out can become familiar. Ask whether the position that worked previously will still be compelling in 2027. 

That means looking beyond your own brand. What are competitors now claiming? What do customers value? Where has the market become crowded? What new expectations have emerged? 

4. What do our customers actually value now? 

Planning often begins with what a business wants to say. A stronger starting point is understanding what customers need to hear, believe or experience before they will change behaviour. 

Our 2026 From Visibility to Influence research found a clear gap between the messages suppliers believe they are communicating and how those messages can be experienced by operators. Suppliers talked about innovation, sustainability, partnership and understanding their customers. Operators told us they wanted clearer value, practical solutions, proof and transparency. 

That gap has commercial consequences. 

In a pressured foodservice environment, operators are already dealing with labour shortages, cost pressures, sustainability demands and supply chain challenges. Communications that add complexity or make broad claims without evidence are unlikely to earn much attention. 

The implication for 2027 planning is important: understanding customer priorities should shape the communication strategy before channels and campaigns are selected. 

5. Where do we need greater trust, authority or influence? 

Awareness can tell you that people recognise a brand. It tells you much less about whether they trust it, value its expertise or will consider it when making a decision. 

Our research found that operators and industry influencers respond strongly to credible evidence, practical application and genuine industry contribution. 

Innovation, for example, has greater value when it demonstrates how it can make an operation easier, more efficient or more resilient. Sustainability claims become more credible when businesses can show evidence, acknowledge trade-offs and communicate progress honestly. 

For businesses planning for 2027, this raises useful points: Where do we need to influence decisions, and what would give us the authority to do so? That might involve customers, chefs, procurement teams, wholesalers, industry bodies, media or other stakeholders. 

6. Finally, what communications activity will make a difference?

Once the growth objective and obstacles are clear, the role of communications becomes much easier to define. 

Perhaps the business needs stronger thought leadership to establish authority in a category. Perhaps it needs evidence-led communications to build credibility around a new proposition. Perhaps customer voices and practical demonstrations would do more to build confidence than another broad awareness campaign. 

And sometimes the answer will be to do less. The important thing is that activity has a clear job to do. 

Better planning starts further upstream 

Visibility has value, but commercial growth depends on what happens after someone sees you. Do they understand your relevance? Do they believe your claims? Do they trust your expertise? Will they involve you in the conversation when a decision needs to be made? 

Those questions deserve a place in the planning process. 

Before you lock down your 2027 marketing plan, make sure you have identified what is most likely to get in the way of achieving your growth objectives. That gives you a strategic basis for deciding where communications, marketing and other forms of commercial activity can help you achieve growth with greater certainty. 

Our Market Authority & Growth Roadmap is designed to help businesses take that step back: clarify the growth objective, identify the positioning, credibility, visibility and influence barriers that may be limiting growth, and establish where authority-building activity should focus next. 

Planning for 2027? Talk to us about where growth could get stuck before you decide what activity comes next. 

By Rachel Taylor, managing director, William Murray

I had a great day at the QSR Redcat Media and Awards Conference on 22 June 2026, listening to operators, brands and suppliers unpack the future of growth. 

More data. More tech. More channels. More pressure on margins. 

But walking away, one thought stuck with me:   

Most QSR brands aren’t struggling to grow; they’re struggling to matter where it counts. 

Growth in this sector rarely unravels in strategy decks or boardroom discussions. More often, it is won or lost site by site, in local communities and on local high streets. 

Customers clustered in their differing localities don’t experience “the brand” in the abstract. They experience that single location, in a specific moment, in the context of their everyday lives. And that moment is far more fragile than many assume. 

If the experience feels too generic, inconsistent or disconnected, the decision is simple: customers will be indifferent.  And no one wants that. 

So how do you win? 

Look at how the high street is shifting and being redefined. It’s no longer just a place of convenience. It’s evolved to be something more social, more experiential and more community-driven – a space of connection, routine and identity: 

• where people go to break up their day 

• where older audiences seek a sense of connection over something simple such as a coffee and a slice of cake 

• where date nights, small celebrations and everyday rituals play out 

• where younger consumers spend time, choosing brands that say something about who they are because it’s social currency. 

This all points to the evolving role QSR brands need to play. The question has moved beyond: “How do we drive footfall?” It’s now: “How do we earn a place in people’s lives locally?” 

Are franchisees the most underutilised growth lever? 

Many QSR brands are stronger than ever centrally – with sharper positioning to more sophisticated channels.  But that strength doesn’t always translate consistently at a local level. 

This is where the franchisee comes in. 

They sit closer to what’s actually happening in local markets than any central team ever can. They see the nuances: how footfall shifts, how local competitors behave, what resonates culturally, customer profile types and what falls flat. 

That’s the missed opportunity when it comes to your comms programme.  

When franchisees are properly engaged and contribute to their localised comms plan, believe in it and are equipped to bring it to life, the difference is tangible. A QSR branch becomes embedded within its community, teams operate with more confidence and customers respond differently 

Why community comms is the growth boost needed 

This is where communications plays a far more important role in unlocking growth than it’s usually given credit for. 

Getting under the skin of each community to shape bespoke campaigns that capture attention and win mindshare makes a huge difference in a fiercely competitive market.   

Locally relevant comms strategies should not be viewed as a quick customised bolt-on task.  They are a growth strategy because no two locations behave the same or expect the same things. No single playbook can account for every local nuance. 

In today’s market, local relevance is the strategy. 

 

Want to hear more? 

If you’re looking at how your brand performs site by site and where the gaps are between strategy and reality, it’s worth a conversation. 

At William Murray PR & Marketing, we help QSR brands close that gap, building communications strategies that actually drive behaviour, consistency and growth on the ground.