Case Study: Marketing & Events

NYC restaurant sees more than 177% digital growth in three months
Client:

CREOLE Restaurant & Music Supper Club

City/State:

New York, NY

Services:

Event Planning; Digital Marketing; Creative/Graphic Design; Community Relations/ Fundraising;

Strategic Direction

Duration:

3 months (Sept. to Dec. 2012)

BACKGROUND/PROGNOSIS:
CREOLE Restaurant and Music Supper Club is a restaurant located in the heart of New Yorks East Harlem
community. The establishment specializes in gourmet Louisiana-style cuisine and is a music and entertainment
venue that hosts various events throughout each month.
The client wanted a new and refreshed branding strategy to promote the venues ongoing signature events, as
well as to expand its customer base to include new target demographics, like tourists and young professionals.
Despite a loyal following, CREOLE owners and management faced many challenges to business growth and
sustainability. Among them were:

Primary: CREOLE locations lack of reasonable proximity to the busy corridors of tourist traffic that
supports other restaurants and cultural attractions in Harlem, New York.
Secondary: The restaurants digital interface critical to addressing the above challenge -- was
substantially out-dated. CREOLEs website, for example, had not been maintained visually or
technically, preventing the business from capitalizing on key low-cost, high-volume strategies
utilized frequently by its competitors.

To address those and other immediate concerns, CREOLE commissioned Pixel Prose Media to carry out highprofile strategic marketing initiatives that would successfully increase restaurant traffic, sales, and publicity.
STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION
Upon project initiation, Pixel Prose Media immediately set out to implement strategies targeted at creating
and promoting key CREOLE events; publicity and marketing would be carried out through various avenues,
including social media, direct media and blogger outreach, and branding collateral design (i.e. event palm

cards, web banner ads, menus). An email marketing outline and social media editorial calendar were created
to organize and schedule all digital activities. Lists of relevant media and bloggers were compiled. The client
declined to invest website upgrades during the contracted period. As an alternative, a blog was created as an
event and content marketing resource.
Once the internal marketing foundation was in place, Pixel Prose created new major events to reach culturally
active and younger professional customers from outside the immediate area.
I:
The Inaugural 2012 Presidential Debate Watch Party, and 2012 Election Night Party: Pixel
Prose formed strategic sponsorship alliances with Organizing for America-Harlem, The Progressive
Democratic Club of East Harlem, Drinking Liberally Harlem, and NYC Council Representative Melissa
Mark-Viverito to increase attendance and diversity of customers for the events. The inaugural debate
watch party garnered extensive mainstream and grassroots press for the venue, including international
news crews and PBS asking to cover the event.
II:
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) African Diaspora Series: For
some time CREOLE had been seeking to form an alliance with a local cultural institution to build new
synergies. CCCADI -- a highly-respected organization with nearly forty years of deep community roots -was a perfect fit, as it was based in East Harlem yet had cultivated a strong and active membership
base throughout New York City. Furthermore, CREOLEs genre of cuisine synced up well with the
cultural food and cooking traditions that CCCADI works to celebrate and preserve. As such, PPM was
able to successfully negotiate and manage this key strategic partnership, working in close collaboration
with CCCADI to create and promote Afrodembe, a twice-monthly series of events slated for the late
fall of 2012 and winter 2013.
III:
Taste of Creole: In an effort to highlight the restaurants Creole-Cajun seafood specialties, an
exclusive culinary event was organized and scheduled just weeks before Christmas. Billed and
promoted as a holiday tasting affair, the event featured an exotic Prix Fixe menu and CREOLEs
signature live entertainment (in this case, an authentic New Orleans Brass Brand). To promote the
tasting, Pixel Prose scouted out the services of an epicurean events coordinator on CREOLES behalf to
specifically manage the menu and dcor of the event. To maximize sales and attendance, discount
tickets were offered exclusively to existing subscribers of CREOLEs mailing list, and robust local
outreach was conducted to generate advance publicity.
IV:
Annual Thanksgiving Charity Dinner: In conjunction with these new events, Pixel Prose was
tasked with promoting CREOLES signature weekly, monthly and yearly functions. Most notable was
the CREOLE Annual Thanksgiving Community Dinner, for which PPM raised $3,000 in less than four
weeks to cover costs of feeding hundreds of local families for the holiday. Key planning components
included creating/designing the event promotional materials; implementing a media and
marketing strategy; and recruiting on-site volunteers to assist with key dinner logistics.

RESULTS & ANALYTICS

Social Media
After three months of active traditional and digital outreach, CREOLE experienced a significant surge in
Facebook fans: from approx. 600 Likes to more than 1,000 in less than three months. In all, the restaurant
saw a more than 177% growth in its digital presence, and an exponential increase in customers both during
the week and on weekends.
Combined analytics show that social media campaigns carried out through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well
as other innovative marketing tools, directly contributed to this spike in customers and strategic partnerships
over the three-month contract period.
Events
Due to extensive on-the-ground outreach and robust digital and social media marketing, CREOLE experienced
major turnouts for both the Presidential Debate Watch Party and the Election Night Party:

More than 100 people attended each of the Pixel Prose-created watch party events (CREOLEs max
capacity= 90). Despite concurrent parties hosted by competing restaurants in the very same area,
CREOLEs Election Night Party was standing room only throughout the several hours of Election Night
media coverage, as new guests quickly filed in to fill the seats of those whod already left.

Based on the success of the inaugural event, New York City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito
requested to host a second Debate Watch Party at CREOLE the following week, and also asked to
become a host partner for the Election Night Party.

Both events were subsequently billed by media and political groups as the biggest election-themed
parties in Harlem.

Community Relations/Fundraising

Pixel Prose Media raised $3000.00 in monetary donations -- and significantly more in in-kind donations
were raised -- towards CREOLES annual Thanksgiving Charity Drive. Notable contributors included:
o
o
o
o

Mount Sinai Medical Center

Artimus Contruction
DDM Development & Services
Gran Piatto DOro

Pixel Prose Media provided support to CREOLE for presentations at community meetings, such as the
Manhattan Community Board 11s general body meeting, and guest appearances at local culinary
events & festivals such as Savor the Season, a high-profile charity event for the non-profit Harvest
Home, hosted by star chef and owner of Harlems popular Red Rooster restaurant, Marcus
Samuelsson.

Strategic Communications

Database of more than 3,500 subscribers was fully optimized and integrated with all CREOLE social
media properties; all contacts were segregated into targeted lists, and more than sixteen distributions
of weekly email campaigns were executed.

At least two press announcements were sent out to more than 100 reporters and bloggers throughout
New York City.

CREOLE received mentions in well-read outlets like The New York Times, Grub Street New York, Harlem
World Magazine, HarlemCondoLife, and others.

Five creative design projects were completed during the three-month project, including:
o Two two-sided event post cards
o One two-sided advertising palm card
o A new brunch menu
o Official e-newsletter template
o Strategic Branding Info-graphic

Two strategic branding PowerPoint presentations were created for and delivered to client.

CLICK BELOW TO VIEW:

Event photos
Marketing collateral
Media announcements
CREOLE on Facebook