Helping drive sales for national retail franchise
Challenge
Create an ownable brand presence for Rita's Italian Ice that would stand out in a highly competitive landscape to create a lasting imprint in both new and legacy markets and get customers in the door!
Solution
We developed a core customer persona and created a positioning strategy around their core differentiator: Italian Ice. Our "Layer It / Blend It / Drink It" strategy harnessed the power of Rita’s primary product differentiator (Ice) and created a platform for promotional content across digital, social, broadcast and OOH channels in both national and local markets. Unique to the campaign were weather-trigger programs, branded content, organic content / contests, influencer programs, competitive conquesting programs and various paid strategies, both traditional and digital. Our programs integrated geo-based targeting strategies pulsed in tandem with local market product and co-brand promotions as well as a comprehensive social content strategy to drive foot traffic (customer count) and increase ticket sales. We leveraged in-market influencers (blog, sponsorship, posts, video) to increase net sentiment scores, engagement and online mentions and created precision targeting at scale including video distribution platforms, custom content partnerships, paid influencer and social (Facebook and Instagram) and programmatic digital display to drive frequency alongside paid search in key markets, specifically honing in on primary / core millennial customer. Our unique weather-based media plans and programs successfully developed trigger-based purchase behavior, tracked at POS. Along the way we produced custom content across all paid and owned channels to bring their brand story to life.
Results
Our programs saw impressive return tracked over a 2-year period including a +18% System-wide sales increase YoY, 11% Increase in same store ticket sales and a 2X increase for online mentions, a 32% increase in total engagement ratios across the top 5 product and co-branded.promotions across social. Today's Rita's has a footprint over more than 550 retail locations, entering new, emerging markets and retaining the foothold in core legacy markets.
Tent Collective, Inc.
TENT develops brand stories through insight-driven strategy and breakthrough content. We help our partners scale with cross channel, digital creative strategies and lead with content that is timely and resonates with what consumers are talking, thinking and sharing about. We’ve helped create success for some of America’s most iconic...
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