Johnny Rockets
Drive sales and encourage brand awareness through local store marketing and public relations campaigns.
What I Did
Planned, developed and executed local store marketing campaigns; increased brand awareness through cooperative marketing, publicity stunts, guerrilla marketing, and community involvement.
Student Rush Ticket Program
To boost evening revenue during slow months Sept. - May, I developed a partnership with Clear Channel's Broadway in Cincinnati to rebrand their education discount initiative the Johnny Rockets Student Rush Ticket Program.
B.i.C. funded a PR and ad-supported campaign to spread the word. In trade, Rockets displayed co-branded marketing collateral produced by B.i.C. in-store, held opening night ticket drawings, and offered a 10%-off bounce-back offer with ticket stub.
+1,500 Bounce-Backs
+33% Evening Sales (5-10pm)
Grillin' Tips
Labor Day weekend means one thing: Grillin' Out! Johnny Rockets is known for having GREAT burgers. Who better than Rockets to serve up grilling tips before the holiday? I developed a TV morning show cooking segment called “How to Build a Better Hamburger” featuring the Ohio franchise president as the grill master. I pitched the segment to the Fox19 Morning Show. Producers liked the spot so much they asked me to turn the single segment into six to be featured throughout the morning.
Lacking a studio kitchen, I partnered with Lowe’s to source everything needed for a great backyard grill out including a new Weber grill and styled the outdoor set myself.
+ 22% Same Day Store Sales
+ $10K Advertising Value Equivalency
+ 83K Viewership
Best of Citysearch
Remember Citysearch? Back in the early 2000s it was the place—for online business reviews. The site was also known for their annual Best of Citysearch survey that let users vote for their favorite local businesses in several categories. In 2004, the survey rules were simple: a user could vote from any computer once daily.
Enrolled at Pepperdine University at the time, I had access to over 50 computers on campus. Ranking #1 in a single category was not a story, but what if Johnny Rockets ranked #1 in multiple categories? Channeling my inner guerrilla, I voted daily on over 20 computers for a week. Thanks, in part, to less than sophisticated algorithms Johnny Rockets came in first place many times.
Results in hand, I distributed a release to Cincinnati media and secured coverage on local ABC and FOX affiliates.
+ $2K Advertising Value Equivalency
+ 40K Viewership
Free American Fries Day
In early March 2003, France began actively trying to thwart the plans of the Bush administration to build international support for a war to depose Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. In response, calls across the U.S. for a boycott of French products, wine in particular, began to reverberate through the media.
Enter Johnny Rockets. With a guiding principle to “serve great all-American food,” and a menu featuring American (not French) Fries, a brief window appeared in the news cycle to generate media coverage, and business for the Ohio franchise. But I'd have to act fast (see newsjacking).
On March 7th, I distributed a press release declaring March 10th—Free American Fries Day at Johnny Rockets. My angle proved timely and the free fry promotion was widely covered by local broadcast media. The next day “French” was stricken from all U.S. House of Representatives’ cafe menus, and fries became known as freedom fries. Sometimes speed to market is everything.
+ 40% Same Day Store Sales
+ $5K Advertising Value Equivalency
+ 210K Viewership