Case Study: Public Relations

CLIENT:  Circa 1886, a 4 Star, 4 Diamond restaurant in downtown Charleston, S.C.

GOALS:

• Create renewed interest in and awareness of longtime Charleston restaurant Circa 1886 amongst locals
• Drive sales during August, a traditionally slow period.

OVERVIEW:

• Created the Charleston’s Choice Ice Cream Contest, inviting locals to submit on the restaurant’s website the answer to “If Charleston was an ice cream flavor, what would it be?” through July. The winning ice cream flavor was served throughout August as a dessert at the restaurant.
• Once the contest closed, Circa 1886 chefs narrowed the 300+ submissions down to the top three entries. We held a “judging” event, inviting three local media personalities to judge the contest. We also invited the submitters of the winning entries and their families, along with media and local bloggers.
• For the event, the chefs prepared all three flavors, allowing everyone to sample, and then asked the judges to rate them. Executive Chef Marc Collins announced the winner who received a complimentary dinner for four at Circa 1886.
• Seersucker ice cream was the winning flavor, made up of Charleston Chew candy, blueberries and roasted nuts, and served as a dessert item throughout the month of August.

APPROACH:

• To promote the event, we used multiple platforms, including sending a traditional press release to media announcing the contest.  We also invited media to attend the judging and had several attend and cover the event and the winning flavor. A press release was also sent nationally announcing the winning flavor.
• Because the restaurant was not engaging social media at the time, the staff promoted the event on our personal Twitter and Facebook accounts.
• We created a link on the restaurant’s homepage.
• We produced informal video of the judging event, interviewing the three submitters about their entries, as well as capturing the judging and the announcement of the winner. We then posted the video to the Circa 1886 Web site, included it with the news release distributed online, and posted to 20+ online video sites for maximum visibility.

RESULTS:

• More than 300 contest entries
• 17 media hits including two features in the food section of the Charleston Post & Courier and a post on the About.com Southeast Travel website.
• During the week of the judging/winning flavor announcement and the following week, the site’s traffic increased 24% from an average of 2041 page views to 2523 page views.
• 59 seersucker desserts sold, one of the highest-selling dishes during the month of August.
• The video from the judging event was watched 193 times and posted on the Charleston Post & Courier site, as well as CoastalCompanionTV.com