The Garden Bar is Ruby Tuesday's differentiator within the competitive casual dining industry, and in 2016, the dining chain ran a 12-week program in 23 Atlanta-area locations to test a revamped Garden Bar. VaynerMedia was tasked with leveraging social media to introduce diners to the revamped Garden Bar.
The primary goal was to increase awareness and trial within the Atlanta area of the improved Garden Bar by showcasing the wide variety of unique, fresh, colorful and appealing new ingredients. It was necessary to drive guests to test locations so that Ruby Tuesday could gauge feasibility of a national rollout and learn more about diners' reactions to the revamped Garden Bar.
Ruby Tuesday, while high in awareness for the restaurant category, was battling low consideration amongst their target consumers (25-44 year old moms). As such, VaynerMedia needed to provide lapsed guests and non- patrons a clear reason to reconsider or try Ruby Tuesday and its new Garden Bar.
In addition to declines in brand consideration, the casual dining industry as a whole is fighting declining foot traffic as consumers look to alternative dining choices and with decreasing food prices in grocery stores.
To combat that low consideration amongst Ruby Tuesday's target audience, VaynerMedia took a narrative-based storytelling approach and targeted the demographic in the Atlanta area on social media with an emotional video to change perception of Ruby Tuesday and drive trial of the new Garden Bar. The "Shy Girl" video incorporated a cover of the hit '90s song "Dreams" by the Cranberries to further resonate with the target audience.
The Shy Girl video was posted on Facebook as well as YouTube and promoted to those within our target audience within a 5-20 mile radius of Atlanta Ruby Tuesday locations.
Users who completed the videos, were then retargeted across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube with related microcontent and coupons to further build awareness of the new Garden Bar offering and to drive visits to Ruby Tuesday. The brand also did a YouTube brand lift study to analyze ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration.
Within the casual dining industry, the majority of competitors focuses on promoting the food itself as well as the value proposition. Typical videos within the casual dining space are slow motion fly-over shots of the food being served. Ruby Tuesday took a unique approach with its Shy Girl video by focusing on storytelling and emotions in order to resonate with the target audience while increasing awareness of the New Garden Bar.
Utilizing location and demographic targeting, VaynerMedia ensured 91% audience penetration of females, including mothers, age 25-44 on Facebook in the Atlanta market during the campaign's duration. Across Facebook and Youtube, the "Shy Girl" video garnered 1.25MM views during the 12-week campaign.
A YouTube BrandLift study revealed a 142% lift in ad recall by users who watched 30 seconds of the "Shy Girl" video--3x higher than YouTube's benchmark for "Best in Class" videos. The study also showed an 18% lift in consideration by those who were exposed to the ad.
These positive results and directional learnings from the Atlanta campaign have led Ruby Tuesday to roll out the new Garden Bar nationally in January 2017.
