Case Study: Marketing & Events

NYC restaurant sees more than 177% digital growth in three months

Client: CREOLE Restaurant & Music Supper Club

City/State: New York, NY

Services: Event Planning; Digital Marketing; Creative/Graphic Design; Community Relations/ Fundraising;

Strategic Direction

Duration: 3 months (Sept. to Dec. 2012)

BACKGROUND/PROGNOSIS:

CREOLE Restaurant and Music Supper Club is a restaurant located in the heart of New York’s East Harlem

community. The establishment specializes in gourmet Louisiana-style cuisine and is a music and entertainment

venue that hosts various events throughout each month.

The client wanted a new and refreshed branding strategy to promote the venue’s ongoing signature events, as

well as to expand its customer base to include new target demographics, like tourists and young professionals.

Despite a loyal following, CREOLE owners and management faced many challenges to business growth and

sustainability. Among them were:

Primary: CREOLE location’s lack of reasonable proximity to the busy corridors of tourist traffic that

supports other restaurants and cultural attractions in Harlem, New York.

Secondary: The restaurant’s digital interface – critical to addressing the above challenge -- was

substantially out-dated. CREOLE’s website, for example, had not been maintained visually or

technically, preventing the business from capitalizing on key low-cost, high-volume strategies

utilized frequently by its competitors.

To address those and other immediate concerns, CREOLE commissioned Pixel Prose Media to carry out high-

profile strategic marketing initiatives that would successfully increase restaurant traffic, sales, and publicity.

STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION

Upon project initiation, Pixel Prose Media immediately set out to implement strategies targeted at creating

and promoting key CREOLE events; publicity and marketing would be carried out through various avenues,

including social media, direct media and blogger outreach, and branding collateral design (i.e. event palm

cards, web banner ads, menus). An email marketing outline and social media editorial calendar were created

to organize and schedule all digital activities. Lists of relevant media and bloggers were compiled. The client

declined to invest website upgrades during the contracted period. As an alternative, a blog was created as an

event and content marketing resource.

Once the internal marketing foundation was in place, Pixel Prose created new major events to reach culturally

active and younger professional customers from outside the immediate area.

I: The Inaugural 2012 Presidential Debate Watch Party, and 2012 Election Night Party: Pixel

Prose formed strategic sponsorship alliances with Organizing for America-Harlem, The Progressive

Democratic Club of East Harlem, Drinking Liberally Harlem, and NYC Council Representative Melissa

Mark-Viverito to increase attendance and diversity of customers for the events. The inaugural debate

watch party garnered extensive mainstream and grassroots press for the venue, including international

news crews and PBS asking to cover the event.

II: Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) African Diaspora Series: For

some time CREOLE had been seeking to form an alliance with a local cultural institution to build new

synergies. CCCADI -- a highly-respected organization with nearly forty years of deep community roots --

was a perfect fit, as it was based in East Harlem yet had cultivated a strong and active membership

base throughout New York City. Furthermore, CREOLE’s genre of cuisine synced up well with the

cultural food and cooking traditions that CCCADI works to celebrate and preserve. As such, PPM was

able to successfully negotiate and manage this key strategic partnership, working in close collaboration

with CCCADI to create and promote “Afrodembe,” a twice-monthly series of events slated for the late

fall of 2012 and winter 2013.

III: Taste of Creole: In an effort to highlight the restaurant’s Creole-Cajun seafood specialties, an

exclusive culinary event was organized and scheduled just weeks before Christmas. Billed and

promoted as a holiday tasting affair, the event featured an exotic Prix Fixe menu and CREOLE’s

signature live entertainment (in this case, an authentic New Orleans Brass Brand). To promote the

tasting, Pixel Prose scouted out the services of an epicurean events coordinator on CREOLE’S behalf to

specifically manage the menu and décor of the event. To maximize sales and attendance, discount

tickets were offered exclusively to existing subscribers of CREOLE’s mailing list, and robust local

outreach was conducted to generate advance publicity.

IV: Annual Thanksgiving Charity Dinner: In conjunction with these new events, Pixel Prose was

tasked with promoting CREOLE’S signature weekly, monthly and yearly functions. Most notable was

the CREOLE Annual Thanksgiving Community Dinner, for which PPM raised $3,000 in less than four

weeks to cover costs of feeding hundreds of local families for the holiday. Key planning components

included creating/designing the event promotional materials; implementing a media and

marketing strategy; and recruiting on-site volunteers to assist with key dinner logistics.

RESULTS & ANALYTICS

Social Media

After three months of active traditional and digital outreach, CREOLE experienced a significant surge in

Facebook fans: from approx. 600 “Likes” to more than 1,000 in less than three months. In all, the restaurant

saw a more than 177% growth in its digital presence, and an exponential increase in customers both during

the week and on weekends.

Combined analytics show that social media campaigns carried out through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well

as other innovative marketing tools, directly contributed to this spike in customers and strategic partnerships

over the three-month contract period.

Events

Due to extensive on-the-ground outreach and robust digital and social media marketing, CREOLE experienced

major turnouts for both the Presidential Debate Watch Party and the Election Night Party:

More than 100 people attended each of the Pixel Prose-created watch party events (CREOLE’s max

capacity= 90). Despite concurrent parties hosted by competing restaurants in the very same area,

CREOLE’s Election Night Party was standing room only throughout the several hours of Election Night

media coverage, as new guests quickly filed in to fill the seats of those who’d already left.

Based on the success of the inaugural event, New York City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito

requested to host a second Debate Watch Party at CREOLE the following week, and also asked to

become a host partner for the Election Night Party.

Both events were subsequently billed by media and political groups as the biggest election-themed

parties in Harlem.

Community Relations/Fundraising

Pixel Prose Media raised $3000.00 in monetary donations -- and significantly more in in-kind donations

were raised -- towards CREOLE’S annual Thanksgiving Charity Drive. Notable contributors included:

o Mount Sinai Medical Center

o Artimus Contruction

o DDM Development & Services

o Gran Piatto D’Oro

Pixel Prose Media provided support to CREOLE for presentations at community meetings, such as the

Manhattan Community Board 11’s general body meeting, and guest appearances at local culinary

events & festivals such as Savor the Season, a high-profile charity event for the non-profit Harvest

Home, hosted by star chef and owner of Harlem’s popular “Red Rooster” restaurant, Marcus

Samuelsson.

Strategic Communications

Database of more than 3,500 subscribers was fully optimized and integrated with all CREOLE social

media properties; all contacts were segregated into targeted lists, and more than sixteen distributions

of weekly email campaigns were executed.

At least two press announcements were sent out to more than 100 reporters and bloggers throughout

New York City.

CREOLE received mentions in well-read outlets like The New York Times, Grub Street New York, Harlem

World Magazine, HarlemCondoLife, and others.

Five creative design projects were completed during the three-month project, including:

o Two two-sided event post cards

o One two-sided advertising palm card

o A new brunch menu

o Official e-newsletter template

o Strategic Branding Info-graphic

Two strategic branding PowerPoint presentations were created for and delivered to client.

CLICK BELOW TO VIEW:

Event photos

Marketing collateral

Media announcements

CREOLE on Facebook