Re-establishing credibility for a beloved local QSR in Columbus
DATE
07.2023
The challenge:
Hot Chicken Takeover was a strong local brand with a loyal and passionate customer base.
However, once Untamed Brands acquired it, the local sentiment was that the brand had ‘sold out’ and sales were tanking.
The challenge was to win back our core customers.
The Idea:
We settled on three key areas of focus.
Continuously innovating our menu
Staying locally relevant
Giving back to our community
The Execution:
Menu innovation was about focusing on quality as well as expanding out the menu to have broader appeal by including more salads and greens. But of course, that doesn’t stop in the kitchen, we also had to figure out the best photography treatment for our new menu to give it maximum appeal. We settled on a simple approach balancing color palette and food, and playing with focus, proximity and abundance to give a feeling of quality and plenty.
We also brought our customers into some of our menu decisions, and made an effort to connect with their passion points.
We provoked customers by adding a new level to our heat range and challenged them to come and face it. Those that could handle it were added to our in-restaurant ‘Wall of Flame’.
When we relaunched our fries, we opened the decision to a vote on social media, with over 7k responses.
Spoilers: the waffle fry won on account of its ability to hold more sauce than its adversaries.
These initiatives bled into our second pillar of staying locally relevant. We had established a relationship with Cavs Point Guard Darius Garland, who also became an investor in the brand. We leveraged his influence to stay locally relevant and promote some of our initiatives. The reel below is Darius and his family taking on the Unholy Challenge.
We then connected with former Buckeyes Wide Receiver and local legend Braxton Miller to keep our momentum going. We created a bespoke LTO menu item, ‘Braxton’s Loaded Mac & Cheese’, that sold out consistently in its first week.
We also made a company wide commitment to have one new LTO each month to give customers a good reason to come back and try us out.
Our last pillar was giving back to the community. HCT already had a connection with Fair Chance, a local charity that worked to ensure formerly incarcerated individuals could re-enter the workforce. We simply doubled down on this connection. We hired an internal Fair Chance Employment Ambassador, who made this policy a priority in our hiring practices.
Results:
All the above are just highlights from a campaign that included numerous other initiatives and promotions. It took time, but we did see HCT regain its local market share and begin to grow its 4-wall EBITDA by 0.1% over the course of the following financial year.