Ideas: After three years of marketing dormancy, an upscale Florida restaurant group decided to revive its brand after losing market share in each of its location’s markets. The company selected the Florida offices of public relations firm AXIA Public Relations. AXIA recommended its 120-day pilot program to bring attention to the restaurant’s brand and increase demand.
Relationships: On behalf of the client, AXIA built and leveraged its relationships with local and national food editors, writers and bloggers as well as restaurant business writers, who covered the restaurant’s new menu, new loyalty program, redesigned website, as well as other features and enhancements. AXIA Public Relations developed a strategy to focus the restaurant’s brand on a local-community level (“hyperlocal PR”) in each of its markets in order to build long-lasting relationships that drive customer traffic while targeting a younger demographic.
This Florida public relations campaign included guiding the company through its entry into social media as well as developing a company-wide social media and news media policy.
Results: Through these public relations efforts, consumers read more of the restaurant group in major news outlets such as the Tampa Bay Business Journal, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, Florida Trend, Today’s Restaurant, Nation’s Restaurant News, Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Business Journal and Florida television appearances.The restaurant group enjoyed more than $3.7 million in measured earned media coverage generated by AXIA Public Relations, including 245 media mentions and an audience reach of 146 million Florida consumers. Such publicity efforts generated companywide sales increases of about 15 percent during a period of economic uncertainty.
