While The Cheesecake Factory needs no introduction, it’s an ongoing objective to continue to raise brand awareness and remain top of mind using relevant topics to make the Cheesecake Factory’s social feeds feel as fun and over-the-top as the in-restaurant dining experience.
In the saturated restaurant industry, our strategy is to highlight the differentiated aspects of The Cheesecake Factory restaurant experience that make it truly unique. From the whimsical decor to the generous portion sizes to the massive variety of options, there are a laundry list of aspects that make the restaurant an experience like no other. These unique aspects have transformed The Cheesecake Factory to be more than just a restaurant – rather, it's a pillar of culture.
In order to insert ourselves into culture, we worked with the client to establish a consistent voice and creative guidelines to allow the brand to authentically engage with relevant, trending topics in a way that remained on-brand and on-strategy. This allowed us to position the brand as a recognizable pillar of culture alongside iconic moments from entertainment, history, and broader society.
The beginning of October coincided with the release of a long-awaited sequel to the cult-classic (coven-classic?) Hocus Pocus, a piece of culture that has been part of the Halloween zeitgeist since it’s release in 1993. The viral trending conversations around the sequel’s release, presented the perfect opportunity to insert Cheesecake into a larger cultural conversation. The Cheesecake Factory is known for many things, one being its extremely long menu. With both caption copy and creative, we clearly inserted The Cheesecake Factory into the original Hocus Pocus movie by swapping an iconic book from a famous scene in the film with the Cheesecake Factory menu. In the flim the Sanderson Sisters lovingly and iconically call to their spellbook with the line “BooOooOOooK!,” so we, of course, paired creative with a caption that read, “MenUuUuuUuuUu” to drive home the comparison even more. This timely, reactive post clearly placed The Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant loved by generations, into a piece of iconic culture loved by generations.
The engagement around this piece garnered significant results and most importantly, generated positive conversation amongst fans about the content itself and the brand. This post received 134,844 impressions, 7,950 engagements – including 1,267 shares and 64 comments.
