Overview
In October 2019, Posh Cockney was hired to manage all Marketing and PR for the opening of Happy in Piccadilly. The restaurant opened on February 24th. The following case study is a breakdown of what services were provided and how they were carried out.
Our Objective
Happy is a well-known European restaurant group and our objective was to bring this award-winning restaurant chain to the heart of London. The chosen location was on Coventry Street in Piccadilly and our main objective was to ensure over 1000 customers per day walked through the doors.
Challenges
The Happy brand is relatively unknown in the UK so the brand needed to be promoted to a completely different market. The venue is huge and has large overheads attached, meaning there is little room for error. The area of the restaurant is already heavily populated with casual dining restaurants, which are all fighting over the same clientele.
Some delays in opening the restaurant which meant promoting our official opening date was tricky.
No website or social media to build on, so everything was creating bespoke for the London site.
Our Approach
Our team got to work straight away and started building a new website and social media channels to ensure we had digital platforms to push the Happy brand message.
We reached out to UK press and journalists to ensure the opening was on their radar and started planning a grand opening event. We collectively agreed that influencers and celebrities will be essential to grow the reputation of the restaurant, so we highlighted top talent that would fit with the brand’s identity.
What we did
During a 3-month period (pre-opening) we created a bespoke website, created and managed the Happy London accounts across all social media platforms, boosted the restaurants reputation with the foodie community via a combination of press releases, social media, media relations and word of mouth marketing.
We created a massive buzz with Londoners, Europeans and Tourists throughout the pre-opening phase through clever content creation.
When we finally opened, we decided to have a 2 week soft opening to gage interest and staff training. We planned to throw our main opening party 1 month later.
The pre-opening marketing and pr was so successful that our soft opening turned into a full capacity trade. We had queue’s around the corner from 12pm till close for the first month.
We averaged well over 1000 customers a day and had amazing reviews from diners.
Due to the early success, it was agreed we would not have a grand opening and maintain our growth by having an aggressive influencer campaign.
We had on average 3 influencers a day on site, each had on average 50,000 followers.
The venue and the food execution looked great so this really helps with creating excellent imagery. We ran the influencer campaign alongside a PPC campaign which also had amazing success.
The Results
Bringing Happy to London has been a huge success since it opened, but unfortunately had to close temporarily due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The doors will reopen in July 2020.
Our social media platforms continue to grow daily with Facebook being the star performer.
We managed to get over 20 items of coverage from food journalists and bloggers in the opening month. All 100% positive coverage generated.
Our first press release reached over 12,000,000 people worldwide.
Overall sales smashed company targets and expectations for the opening period.
What's next?
As we move into a post covid19 era, the restaurant is adapting to new guidelines and rules.
We are collectively constructing a new menu for the reopening.
Interior design tweaks are in motion to help the overall customer experience.
Plans for new terrace seating are in play for the Summer months.
Happy is looking for more locations in the UK.
Key Services Supplied
- Marketing – Traditional and Digital
- PR – Press releases/Influencer and Press engagement
- Content Creation – SEO/Photography/Videography/Blog writing
- Social Media Management
- Website development
- Reporting – Weekly/Monthly
- Budget Planning
- Strategic Planning
- Crisis Management
- Online Training
- Event Management
- Project Management