Industry: Restaurant Chain
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 and 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.