Launching Orleans Smokehouse
Challenge
To drive awareness of – and people to – the newest restaurant concept from pub/restaurant giant Mitchells & Butlers: Orleans Smokehouse.
Given our many years of restaurant marketing experience with Mitchells & Butlers, we were appointed to handle delivery of PR, social media and event management, but above all the brief was to generate excitement – particularly in opening week.
With a competitor smokehouse in close proximity, it was key that all work was creative, trend-driven and designed to cut through the noise.
Solution
We devised an extensive social media, PR and event management programme to showcase the brand’s unique personality and make Orleans Smokehouse the place to be.
Our experience as a marketing agency for hospitality over many decades meant we knew exactly what was required to create cut-through:
- A proactive and reactive social content calendar to go live across Instagram and Facebook. Both channels were optimized to give potential customers a flavour of what to expect, utilising engaging content pre, during and post launch.
- Social media monitoring and management across these two channels.
- Management of two launch events: a family-friendly afternoon party, and an evening adult-only event. Both events hosted media, influencers and the local community, using a social media competition to drum up excitement in the weeks before.
- Influencer management, overseeing all influencer reviews and output.
- Proactive and reactive PR efforts to launch the restaurant in media locally and nationally.
Impact
Social
- 3,000 new followers on the brand's social channels
- Reached over 197k people on Instagram alone with an engagement rate of 445% - that’s 443% above the industry benchmark
PR
- 45 pieces of press and influencer coverage at launch:
- 32 million reach
- 100% positive sentiment
- Coverage in The Guardian, The Morning Advertiser, Birmingham World, Birmingham Live, Birmingham Living, Microsoft Start, Secret Birmingham, Visit Solihull, and Nottinghamshire Live, to name a few
- The average engagement rate for our influencer work stood at 5.5% - well above the industry standard of 2%
Launch
- 200 guests booked for the launch events
- The first week of launch was a sell-out at Orleans Smokehouse, which was fully booked all week!