Revenue: $50M+
Location: Boston, Mass
Client Background:
- Not Your Average Joe’s is a fifteen-unit Boston area casual dining chain (competitive to multi-billion dollar national chains like Chili’s, Applebee’s, and TGI Friday’s) with systemwide sales near $50 million and known for its “Creative Casual Cuisine.”
Business Situation:
- Sales of three “troubled” units had historically lagged the remaining system and decisions on whether to extend leases would be due.
- Restaurant sales in general and the casual dining segment in particular were slow in the summer of 2009.
- The units’ long standing negative historical trends meant it was important to be aggressive and avoid eventually looking back and wondering if more could have been done.
OneAccord Solution:
- Worked with the CEO, company marketer, senior management team, and the unit management teams, creating three three-phase location specific short term programs to profitably build sales while strengthening the brand itself.
- Focused on driving not only trial visits, but also repeat visits to get new customers into the “Not Your Average Joe’s” habit.
- Gave full consideration to existing consumer research, explored relevant secondary research and market by market demographics, and evaluated existing menu development plans.
- Visited each restaurant to interview the General Manager and comprehend attributes as well as location specific challenges and opportunities (traffic and commuter patterns, visibility, daypart sales patterns, staff strengths).
- * Involved and motivated each restaurant team
Engagement Highlights:
- Engagement lasted from May through August, 2009 with a one month ramp up and three months of execution.
- Focus was on building the brand and the customer experience.
- Full program was reviewed by the senior management team before rolling out to each store manager.
Program was divided into three phases:
- Phase I used external sampling, prints, direct mail promotions to new customers and email blasts to current customers. All value focused promotions created bundled menu items and avoided perceptions of direct discounts.
- Promotions focused on key business dayparts: lunch, after work refreshments, dinner, and take out while reinforcing restaurant locations.
- Location specific opportunities were leveraged: commuter trains, malls, auto and pedestrian traffic, visibility options, offices, and in store communications.
- Phase II created a “Customer Appreciation Week” in which all customers were treated like new customers and given New Customer packets to encourage return visits.
- Phase III was a limited reinforcement of Phase I was also supporting a special menu roll out featuring recipes using local farmers and vendors.
- Result metrics were monitored and reported on weekly, and restaurant General Managers were contacted frequently.
Results:
- Twelve weeks after the program started, the three restaurant sales improved by more than + 6% against a pre-program decline of – 5%, or approximately 11+% percentage point sales trend shift.
- After adjusting for all program related costs, net profits virtually doubled the incremental investment.
