Work / Restaurant, San Francisco Bay Area
Filling tables on the nights that need filling
A vegetarian Mediterranean restaurant and bar in the East Bay, with a drinks list built so that people who do not drink are not an afterthought. Both of those are unusual, and both are reasons to choose it, but only if the advertising says them.
At a glance
The problem they came with.
What was actually going wrong, before anything was built.
The differentiator is not visual
A photograph of a plate looks like every other restaurant photograph. What makes this place worth the drive, the menu it serves and the bar it runs for people who are not drinking, has to be said rather than shown.
A catchment, not a city
People drive a certain distance for dinner and no further. Advertising to a metropolitan area spends most of the budget on people who were never going to come.
The result is a booking, that week
Reach and engagement are not the point. A restaurant needs covers on a given night, which is a much shorter and more demanding chain.
What we built.
Described by what it does for the business. How it is put together is a conversation we are happy to have, but it is not what this page is for.
Led with what makes it different
The advertising carries the actual reason to choose this place rather than a generic appetite appeal.
Scoped to the real catchment
Audiences are built around the distance people genuinely travel for a meal, rather than a whole metro area.
Pointed at booking and ordering
Ads lead to the reservation and the online order the restaurant already runs, so the shortest route to a cover is the one that is offered.
The results
What is different about the way this business runs now.
- The advertising says the thing that makes the restaurant worth choosing, rather than showing food that looks like everyone else's.
- Budget goes to people inside the distance they would actually drive.
- Every ad leads to a reservation or an order rather than to a page.
- Spend is judged against covers and orders, not against reach.
Restaurant advertising is not a branding exercise. It is this week's tables, and everything in the campaign is pointed at that.
Other work like this
Is something in your business working like this?
Describe what is taking the time, and we will tell you whether it is worth automating, including when the answer is no.