Martis by Talking Dog Agency

CASE STUDY Talking Dog Advertising

Table of Contents

The Team

Background

Executive Summary

Insights

The Strategy

Creative Executions

Results

Conclusion

For The Future

Mary Harris Morgan

Brooke LeBlanc

Natalie Mata

Account Executive

Project Manager

Digital Specialist

Meredith Parman

Meghan Black

Kelly Azbell

Gilly Chiboucas

Public Relations Specialist

Art Director

Copywriter

Photographer

Background Welcome to Marti’s at Midday, Athens’ favorite gourmet eatery, where you’ll find savory entrees, salads, and Southern staples. Located in Normaltown, the restaurant’s cheery dining area, sunroom, and patio offer a place to relax and enjoy your company, as well as your food. Oh, and don’t be surprised if Chef Schimmel shows up in her designer apron and high heels, as SHE loves to greet every customer with a warm southern welcome and smile!

Executive Summary CHALLENGE A large majority of students at UGA were unaware of Marti’s at Midday. In addition, Marti’s was not top of mind for those students who were familiar with the restaurant when choosing a dining option. Marti’s was also not very present on social media so our main challenge was to boost her social media reach and frequency to bring her business into a more competitive level and increase awareness.

STRATEGY Increasing awareness to all student by boosting her social media reach and frequency to pull in more and more customers from the younger population. We did this through youthful, creative, and unique social posts and giveaways.

RESULTS We increased Marti’s following by 105.88% and engagement by 250% on social media, got Marti’s on UberEats and created a new menu and new website. UberEats has been doing increasingly well at Marti’s since we got her on the App and continues to bring in a large amount of revenue 9

Insights

RESEARCH APPROACH Our approach was to create a survey in order to gain insights on the Athens population in regards to their habits eating out, as well as their awareness of Marti’s offerings such as breakfast items, gluten-free, dairy free, and social platforms

SURVEY RESULTS

90% of respondents heard about Marti’s through word of mouth

62% of respondents eat out 1-4 times a week 81% of respondents said they go to Marti’s a few times a year or less

63% of respondents aren’t aware that Marti’s is open for breakfast

46% of respondents don’t know about Marti’s GF and vegan options

Through surveying 195 Athens residents, 187 of which being college students, we were able to identify specific opportunities to expand Marti’s awareness

STRENGTHS

• Great Reputation • Homemade/Historical background • Giving back and good karma • “Always be nice” • Food presentation is always beautiful

WEAKNESSES

• Little social media presence • Business hours are limited • College students don’t know much about it • Location • Little awareness about pre-made meals

OPPORTUNITIES

• Expanding social media • Branding • Promote catering service • Target more to college-aged students • Website updating

THREATS

• Other small local breakfast and lunch places (big city bread, chicken salad chick, mama’s boy, Last Resort Provisions) • Does not see them as competition 12

THE CHALLENGE Increase awareness of food offerings and recall of Marti’s with Athens residents, specifically college students, when picking a restaurant.

DIRECT/INDIRECT COMPETITORS What is unique about Marti and her business is that she doesn’t consider any local restaurants to be her competition. She knows 95% of the local restaurant owners in Athens (mainly because the majority of them worked for her at least once), and believes the restaurant business in Athens is all in support of each other. For example, Marti is close with the owner of Mama’s Boy, and when either of the businesses are swamped with catering jobs, they refer customers to each other. On search engines, Marti’s at Midday is listed along with restaurants like Big City Bread, Chicken Salad Chick, Mama’s Boy, and Last Resort Provisions.

CREATIVE BRIEF Key Fact Martiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s At Midday is an inviting gourmet breakfast and lunch restaurant that also offers take-out and catering.

Problem Martiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s At Midday struggles with brand awareness, visual consistency, and social media presence.

Objectives Through Instagram we hope to convey community, giving back, and quality food. **

Target Existing audience consists of mostly locals with a passion for full servings and southern eats. Goals: reach a younger audience, college students (a large portion of athens) and post grad students looking for study spots, affordable food and cozy lunch break escape.

Promise Guaranteed quality food. Large portions, great for leftovers. A consistently welcoming restaurant for dining in, take out, and catering.

Support Reviews online, ask a friend, walk in and ask Marti herself. The professionalism and talent of her staff, and what her staff have gone on to succeed at after working for her. Community and catering intertwined

Tone & Manner Colors: Pink: Blushing Peach, Yellow: Marigold yellow, Orange: Deep Citrus, Green: Emerald Seafoam, Blue: Berry Muffin Blue

Media Vehicles The campaign will live on social media developed through the social posts, website revamp, blog posts from prominent Athens influencers, radio time, and online/print magazines. 15

The Strategy Our strategy began where every good campaign strategy begins, research. We first started our research by speaking with Marti and her team, gaining insights on what she had observed and what she wanted to accomplish with our help. Then, Ansley and Caroline, our Fetch gals, sent out a survey to students at UGA. After our fetch gals got data back from the survey, we were able to begin the process of coming up with campaign ideas that would directly address the weaknesses they found in the results. The most surprising results came from the survey were that • 53.54% of respondents had never eaten at Marti’s • 63.4% didn’t know about breakfast • and only 2.8% knew about Marti’s from social media Taking these insights, we decided to focus our campaign on increasing awareness among college students. We wanted to do so by creating consistency among different social media channels. Some of the efforts that went into creating this consistency, which will expand upon in later sections, were: • connecting their Instagram to their Facebook • creating a new, simplified logo • creating a new, simplified website • working on their Instagram to create a cleaner, brighter feed with higher quality photos.

Campaign Goals The first goal of the campaign was to revamp the Marti’s At Midday website. The information on the old Marti’s website was cluttered and pages were difficult to navigate so we wanted to make it easier for the consumer to get where they needed to go. The next goal of our campaign was to expand the social media presence for Marti’s At Midday and create consistency among her different social media channels. Our survey found that several people did not know that Marti’s At Midday provided catering services so we made it our third campaign goal to promote catering.

Target Audience Robert

Jessica

Beth

Sophomore at UGA who has never really expanded his dining options outside of Bolton. He is tired of mass produced food and the zombie faces of sleep deprived students who trudge in from their 8ams. He wants a wholesome and delicious breakfast in a warm and inviting place that reminds him of home.

A senior at UGA who wants a fun, relaxed atmosphere to eat a healthy delicious meal, while also getting some studying or reading done. Her favorite coffee shops close to campus have proven to be more of a social scene than a study scene. She is very active on social media and loves discovering new places and food in Athens. Marti’s is a perfect spot for Jessica because it is tucked away in normaltown where she can escape the hustle and bustle of her day to day college life. She loves the welcoming, vintage feeling of Marti’s and chooses to dine here whenever she needs some good southern cooking and hospitality.

Soccer mom from Athens who is always on the go. She follows multiple local lifestyle blogs and instagram accounts. Between her early morning yoga classes, endless errands and PTA meetings, it is a miracle that Beth has time to breathe! Let alone curate a healthy homemade recipe. She cares about children’s health and having gluten free options, but has little time to make dinner most nights. Thankfully, she can rely on Marti’s delicious pre-made, frozen casseroles to help fuel her hungry, growing soccer kids. 19

CreativeExecutions NEW LOGO CONCEPT

The overarching concept for the new Marti’s at Midday brand identity is a modern twist on her homey southern feel. Hand written fonts contrasted against clean bold lines and colors will be used throughout. The color scheme had been changed from the current blue and green, to shades of orange, yellow, and pink that relate more to the homey, cheery vibe Marti wants to portray. There has been an incorporation of psychological color theory, adding colors on the warm side of the color wheel to make people think more about food, and the incorporation of greens to reflect to fresh ingredients she uses. This will create a complementary color scheme, filling a wider range of colors. We used more solid, graphic elements and contemporary design to appeal to the younger audience, while using handwritten fonts and distress on the images to keep with the old, southern theme of the restaurant. The logo imagery reflects an image of the sun, playing on the name of the restaurant, “Marti’s at Midday.” The use of full circles and spots of color repeats the shape of the logo throughout the identity creating consistency within the system.

ORIGINAL LOGO

NEW LOGO

PRIMARY TYPEFACE

Aa Bb Cc Dc Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz LATO REGULAR

IDENTITY TYPEFACE

Aa Bb Cc Dc Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk L l Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq R r Ss T t Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz VINCENTIA

Blushing Peach

Deep Citrus

Crunchy Carrot

Light Lemon

Avacado Green

Lush Lettuce

#F58A85

#F15A29

#FBB040

#FEE980

#9CC96B

#4A9980

EVENT MARKETING PLAN Taste of Athens is an event that happens every year in Tate Grand Hall of UGA. Different local restaurants bring food for students to enjoy. This was a golden opportunity to meet customers on their own turf! We brought some of our favorite recipes to the hardworking students of the University of Georgia and they LOVED every bite!

Guerrilla Marketing Two words everyone loves to hear: FREE SAMPLES ! As a way to reach the masses in a fun way, we created a guerrilla marketing campaign designed as a scavenger hunt for exactly that! Life sized statues of Martiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s staff holding platters of our favorite treats would be placed around Athens. Clues would be posted to our social media in order to hint at the secret moving locations of these statues. Aside from free samples, we could also have coupons and discount codes attached to the containers of food. This would allow us to interact with our followers in a unique way by encouraging them to keep up with our pages and live posts. We could also encourage customers to post with a specific hashtag to redeem a discount on their next meal. Customers posting with the statues and using promotional hashtags would gain us some earned media that tap into audiences we may not already reach. For those who are unaware of Martiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, these statues would definitely raise some eyebrows, however there is no better way to explain ourselves than by letting the food speak for itself. 30

MIDDAY SOMEWHERE MURALS As Marti looks to expand her target to a younger college audience, we decided to dive into the culture of their world. “It’s Midday Somewhere” is a campaign that stays true to Marti’s playful character while connecting with other brands that can further expose her to the target market. If anytime is a good time for a drink, then anytime is GREAT for a sandwich! We proposed that murals with this tagline be painted near local breweries to encourage brand association. These murals would be bright and cheerful, creating plenty of cute photo opportunities which could boost our earned media as well. Athens is a major hub for art so we look forward to joining the scene with our murals. We expect to see strides in our social media engagement and following due to the buzz a fun, new art instillation can create. With a move like this, we will really make our mark on this city!

UBER EATS Eating a savory scoop of chicken salad on Marti’s front porch is an ideal way to spend any afternoon, but why limit ourselves? We decided to meet customers on their own front porches as well! Marti is now on Ubereats and has seen huge success. The orders keep flooding in, allowing us to bring our home cooking to your home! 31

SOCIAL INFLUENCERS A big way to gain credibility among our desired target audiences is to make use of social media influencers. Once customers know that the people they trust have a new love for something, they are usually not far behind the trend! We reached out to some instagram users that have a large following and gave them a free meal to post on their stories. Together we made some mouths water!

INSTA STORIES FEATURE The use of instagram influencers inspired us to get EVERYONE involved in this game of tag ;) We told followers to tag us for a chance to be featured on the Martiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at Midday official instagram story! This was a fun way to shine the spotlight on anyone who enjoys our favorite dishes!

SANDWICH INSTALLATION Similar to our “It’s Midday Somewhere” Mural idea, we once again wanted to use an artform to catch some attention. BIG portions are a BIG deal, so we figured creating giant sculptural installations of sandwiches around the city of Athens would be the perfect way to relay the message. These installations would be huge and hard to miss, so they would advertise that we have “Huge portions for a great price”. They would be made out of pillows to point out that we are “home cooking COMFORT food”. This would be an extremely interactive way to interact with our audience. Passersby could sit and relax in the middle of their hectic day. People might sleep on the instillation but they surely won’t sleep on the idea of Mati’s big portions.

Results

INSTAGRAM Marti’s at Midday saw great success from September through March by tapping into the platform where our target market’s eyeballs are most often; Instagram. We optimized our use of the platform by utilizing new features like Instagram Stories, and engaging in relevant hashtags and local “foodie” influencer accounts. These best practices can be easily maintained after our campaign to continue the growth trajectory. Without using any paid advertising across social accounts, we garnered an audience of 106% overall impressions, based off of our page’s followers. Of this audience, 82% was with our primary targeted audience of 18-24 year old college students. Impressions (followers): 105.88% increase in followers Engagement (likes/comments): 933.33 increase in comments 250% increase in likes Audience: 82% female followers Ages 25-34 Athens residents 35

FACEBOOK The Facebook and Instagram accounts were merged to create a more cohesive for of communication.

102.31% increase in page likes 102.35% increase in page followers Engagement, or likes-per-post Increased 200% Our Facebook increases can be closely attributed to the success of major tentpole events in the second-half of our campaign, from working Taste of Athens to joining the UberEats delivery service as a vendor. From September to March, our engagement rose significantly as reach increased by 102%.

“Total Impact” We believe online destinations such as Yelp, Flagpole, and other localized review services are important drivers to our business, as they continue to push Athenians down the purchase funnel. Our Yelp page is very buttoned-up, with 52 reviews generating an overall 4.5/5 star rating. When it comes to the community, Marti’s knows it best. Flagpole, a local news source, rated Marti’s for 2 awards, Best Sandwich and Best Lunch, and won runner-up for Best Catering. This is one more award up from last year’s open-ended voting.

WEBSITE Marti’s at Midday did a complete overhaul of the website in order to achieve a clean, user-friendly design that gave customers better access to our services while matching our brand identity. The site relaunched in January, and was wellreceived by our target markets. Since the revamp, our site has received a 14.7% increase in visits and a 33% increase in page views. A user was 2X more likely to visit the site using a mobile device (51%), so we took this insight into action by making sure our site was compatible with smaller screens. One of our primary objectives was to clearly identify our two businesses; the storefront shop, and our catering service. Our unique visitors (or UMV’s) have statistical significance for our campaign because it’s increased by 25.9% month over month, while having a lasting impact of an 8.2% increase year-over-year. Out of the data we had captured, 60% of our page views originated from Google while 34% of views were a result of a direct search. We presume that some of those direct searches were caused by our website links on external webpages such as Yelp and Instagram.

SALES

102.23% increase in slaes since the start of the campeign. 37

UBER EATS

Marti’s generated over $2,100 in sales through the app and qualified as a “Speedy Kitchen.”

CONCLUSION Marti’s at Midday has made tremendous strides over the last 7 months. Through adopting a new brand identity, creating aesthetically pleasing social media platforms, and joining Uber Eats we have propelled Marti’s reputation and awareness throughout the Athens community. With our help we have given Marti the confidence and enough training to continue to post on social media. We believe that this has been the most effective task we conquered throughout our time working with her team. Overall, Talking Dog has provided the Marti’s at Midday team with invaluable experiences and skills that we can carry on throughout the rest of our careers. We learned how to strategize, work as a team, communicate effectively, and shape our client progressively.

F0r The Future 1.

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS Social Media Intern: Application on Handshake • Requirements: Post 3-4 a week, engage on Snapchat (geotag filter), build large folder of photography

Continue to use and update Squarespace

Advertise Uber Eats, incentive discounts

Consider a coffee shop partnership • Local Jittery Joe’s • Thousand Faces Coffee • Franklin Coffee House

Campus Involvement: • Food truck on campus • Sell freshly baked cookies at the MLC Jittery Joes, SLC, BLC or Tate Center

Expand on Catering Events and the flexibility of time, staff, and menu creation

Martis

Articles inside

The Strategy

Results

Insights

Executive Summary

Conclusion