The Strategy is on Another Level! Arief Muhammad's Payakumbuah Padang Restaurant Soars

Nowadays, it seems like no one doesn't know Arief Muhammad or who is usually called Armuh. Yups, Arief Muhammad is a content creator and a young entrepreneur. His success has been recognized by various organizations including Fortune Indonesia's 40 Under 40 and he was even nominated as Nasi Padang Ambassador in 2022 by the Deputy Governor of West Sumatra, Aldy Joinaldy. One of his newest businesses is the Padang Payakumbuah Restaurant which is currently going viral.

Padang Payakumbuah Restaurant has branding with its authenticity and traditional flavors. Arief Muhammad even visited 11 rice fields to look for the best rice and visited 5 Padang restaurants per day in West Sumatra to get the best taste for Payakumbuah. He uploaded this activity via his personal social media account, this is one of Arief Muhammad's strategies for building customer trust and brand image towards Payakumbuah.

Arief Muhammad's strategy in introducing his business to the public is very unique. One of the strategy is to fly the Payakumbuah banner with hot air balloon lanterns for the soft opening. Not many Padang restaurants think of doing this.

Source: detikfood.com

He also held a "Battle Makan Nasi Padang", hand team vs spoon team starring several famous artists and content creators, one of which was Zee JKT48. This content received a positive response from the public, reaching more than 440 thousand viewers on YouTube. It can be seen from the comments column that quite a few netizens want to taste the sensation of the typical Padang Payakumbuah Restaurant spices.

Source: Instagram @ariefmuhammad

It didn't stop there, Arief Muhammad also invited Prabowo Subianto to the inauguration of the Kemang branch of Payakumbuah to sign autographs and eat together. At another branch, namely Payakumbuah Gading Serpong, Arief Muhammad invited Maliq & D'Essential, aka the famous music band, to celebrate the branch's grand opening. Marketing strategies to attract customer attention and branding certainly need to be given a thumbs up. 

Source: Instagram @ariefmuhammad

Social media is busy discussing Payakumbuah seeing how big the campaign that Arief Muhammad is running has left netizens guessing whether Payakumbuah comes with exorbitant food prices? Don't worry, this is what Arief Muhammad does for segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP).

Arief Muhammad divided Payakumbuah into 3 categories, this aims to cover all groups. Of course there are differences in each category, but that doesn't change the standards of Payakumbuah itself.

1. Restoran Payakumbuah. By presenting a dining service experience, luxurios, exclusive and fairly high prices, this restaurant is targeted to the upper middle class. Some branches even provide valet parking, one of which is in Payakumbuah Gading Serpong.
2. Rumah Makan Payakumbuah. This category has an authentic feel according to West Sumatra Padang restaurants. This restaurant is targeted to middle class people with more affordable prices. One of them is Payakumbuah Ciater, BSD.
3. Warung Makan Payakumbuah. From the name, we can guess that this category is aimed to everyday people and the prices are very friendly. For example, Payakumbuah Karawaci.

With these 3 categories, Payakumbuah can reach the entire community. This has succeeded in making Payakumbuah expand to 24 branches to date and will continue to grow to 1000 branches as targeted by Arief Muhammad.

Source: Instagram @ariefmuhammad

Of course, this expansion was not carried out by Arief Muhammad himself, Payakumbuah opened a partnership in the form of a franchise which started with a price of IDR 4 billion. From this price, partners have received fixed investment costs of IDR 1.5 billion, renovations, equipment, permits, operational costs, space rental and other franchise needs including a Payakumbuah brand license for 5 years which of course can be extended by the partner.