Yakinori - Multi Channel Campaign
Services provided: Strategy, Creative Campaign, Paid Media, Content, Organic Social, Email, Creators Partnerships
Brief.
The Japanese restaurant brand, Yakinori, approached SHC as they were relaunching their Birmingham New Street restaurant, after it had been closed for two years due to flood damage. They wanted a launch campaign that would scream to all of Birmingham that Yakinori was back serving their infamous katsu curry with an opening event that would see a queue of people lining up the street to get into Yakinori.
Alongside the launch, Yakinori wanted to build a customer database for the Birmingham New Street restaurant by driving new sign ups to the Yakinori Club loyalty programme.
What We Did.
Despite the challenges, we devised a multi-layer launch campaign which would run from the end of November to Christmas Eve to drive momentum and buzz and ultimately drive footfall and revenue during the peak Christmas trading period.
To build awareness of the opening, we launched a digital campaign across organic and paid social, creators and digital PR to announce we were going to offer Yakinori’s famous katsu curry for just £1 on the opening day to Yakinori Club Members. All proceeds from the opening day would be donated to Yakinori’s charity of the year and local charity, Birmingham Children's Hospital.
To add an experiential element to the campaign, we hid posters around the city centre for customers to find and hand into Yakinori on opening day to win a £25 Yakinori voucher. We also worked with a range of creators and social publications such as Independent Birmingham to run multiple competitions, which were drip-fed pre, during and post the launch activity.
On the evening of the opening, we held two creator events where we invited Birmingham key creators and media to an exclusive preview of the new Yakinori restaurant, which was paired with a Sake tasting session delivered by a local Sake influencer.
Once the store had opened, we launched a 25% off Monday - Friday offer to all Yakinori Club Members to continue to drive awareness of the new restaurant opening as well as driving new sign ups to the Yakinori Club database.
Results.
The opening day was a huge success with a long queue of customers queuing through Birmingham New Street all waiting to get a taste of Yakinori’s katsu curry. Over 900 £1 katsu curries were sold between 11am - 3pm on opening day. Throughout the launch campaign, Yakinori gained 6,060 new Yakinori Club members and 677 people redeemed the 25% off offer, which equated to £23,818 in revenue for the Birmingham New Street restaurant.