O’Charley’s wanted something beyond the ordinary ribbon cutting for their multi-year restaurant reimage plan. They called on our team to make that happen, and we continued to secure coverage for the Nashville-based restaurant chain for more than seven years following the campaign.
O’Charley’s is more than your regular casual dining restaurant. It’s a modern, all-American dining experience that hasn’t forgotten its roots.
Couple the reopening of each restaurant with a special celebration that would generate publicity around the reimage, increase business and sales at each location and display the culture of the O’Charley’s brand.
To gain local media interest around each O’Charley’s restaurant remodel and reopening, we carried out more than 80 Hometown Hero celebrations – one celebration per reimage – honoring local members of the armed services at each newly redesigned restaurant. We were responsible for the integrated communications strategy surrounding each Hometown Hero celebration, ribbon cutting and promotion.
REED also coordinated a dozen ribbon cuttings and 60 promotions between 2018 and 2019 to promote free meal deals and Thank You Thursday bar events.
We secured 150 media hits across 88 outlets in 62 different cities covering Hometown Hero events, ribbon cuttings, promotions and overall reopening news. Media hits spanned TV, print, radio and online outlets. Our efforts resulted in a total of 7,444,051 media impressions. Former U.S. Senator Bob Corker’s office also caught on to the Hometown Hero celebrations and wrote personal thank you letters to several of O’Charley’s Hometown Heroes.
While these stats are certainly impressive, the Hometown Heroes team is most proud of the one thing that is immeasurable – the goodwill that this program created across the O’Charley’s footprint. The heartfelt reaction from the honorees, their local communities and the O’Charley’s employees was tremendous.