Hyper-Targeting Media for a QSR’s Recipe for Success

A Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chain with approximately 50 franchised locations wanted to build brand consideration to attract traffic during the key lunchtime period. Their challenge? How to do this effectively, given a broad national footprint of locations, with most located in malls or food courts, and catering to an extremely diverse demographic of consumers. Historically relying on Radio and Out of Home (OOH), they sought a means of making media more accountable.

Their Need

For most weekday lunchtime consumers who visit office or mall food courts – be it while shopping or working within nearby office towers – the decision of where to buy lunch is usually not a planned one. Decisions are typically made while heading towards, as they make their way into, or around a food court. Proximity also plays a role and they are unlikely to travel significant distances during a lunch break – so media impressions outside a measured proximity of any of the brand’s locations are generally wasted.

Our Approach

Working in concert with the QSR’s creative agency and a partner media agency managing radio and OOH, we developed a digital media strategy which would hyper-target consumers within a specific radius of each of one their locations, targeted to only run between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. in their local time zone; the lead up to the prime lunchtime period. This would effectively only target potential consumers in the lunchtime consideration period, and within a reasonable commuting distance of each location. With a heavy emphasis on mobile consumers, we targeted consumers on YouTube and Facebook to reach the on-the-go and in-office consumer – whether they’re socially engaging while shopping or taking a social break while at work. A range of creative messages were optimized to deliver on a new brand platform conveying the key benefits of the QSR (diversity of lunch options, freshness, healthy choices).

The Results

Our campaign with its hyper-targeted reach exceeded reach and impression forecasts through our media optimization strategies, adding thousands of incremental positive engagements via brand advocacy and “intent to visit” signals seen from paid media, especially around the key benefits being positioned. Most importantly, same-store sales grew by double digit percentages for the first time in three years – and were easily correlated to the start of our targeted campaign. Franchisees were thrilled and plans to expand this program for future years are already in the works.