Uncategorized – Sean Gleason

Advertising

INTRODUCTION

I love advertising. I grew up watching the legendary Pepsi and Nike commercials. I couldn’t believe that making commercials was a real job! Funny thing at the time: I even thought it was glamorous!

I wanted nothing more than to be in a business that combined everything I was passionate about: graphic design, filmmaking, storytelling, music and working with fun, creative people.

Over the last 20ish years, I have been really fortunate to work on some of the “funnest” Brands one could imagine. While I never worked on Pepsi and Nike, I did have the opportunity to work with many of the people and agencies that created those ads that influenced my career choice and that I loved so much. All in, between all the national launches, local promotions and test spots, I have played a role in easily over 300 commercials. Now that I’m a little older, I realize that it isn’t so glamorous, but it’s now much more fun to see an insight that leads to creative that WORKS and drives the intended results.

PIZZA HUT

I started my career at smaller ad agencies. After my Pizza Hut Client hired me to serve as the mid-Atlantic Marketing Director, my 5-year plan was to work my way up to lead the national advertising. The year after moving to the Corporate office, I reached my goal! I ended up leading Advertising/Media for Pizza Hut for the next 7 years! While I produced over 200 commercials, these are some of my favorites:

the big new yorker pizza

The Stuffed Crust Pizza had been a massive hit 5 years before. Nothing had come close to that pizza’s success. Enter The Big New Yorker Pizza. We had to make this the biggest launch in Pizza Hut history. This campaign launched during the Super Bowl and became the highest-selling pizza overnight. Looking back, a lot has happened since these ads were produced!

The 4-for-All Pizza

We used many celebrities at Pizza Hut, particularly during the Super Bowl launches of new products. In our consumer testing prior to the next big launch, we learned that EVERYONE loved the Muppets (although they couldn’t remember the last time they had seen them!). We also learned that Jessica Simpson was polarizing. Our solution? Put them together.

Obviously, this was a (much) more expensive proposition vs. featuring them in their own unique spots a la The Big New Yorker. But I was confident that it would pay off in PR impressions. I personally guaranteed to the franchisees that this (expensive) combination would land us on every entertainment news show, generate massive PR and that they could fire me if it didn’t!

This spot topped Ad Age’s list of Super Bowl commercials with the highest recall. The pizza broke the sales records of The Big New Yorker. The Muppets roared back into the public consciousness. And, oh yes, we were featured on every entertainment news show.

Cadbury Schweppes America’s Beverages

The CMO at Pizza Hut that I worked for left to work at CSAB. A year to the day after he left Yum Brands, he asked me to join him and work on their stable of Brands that included Dr Pepper, Diet DP, 7UP and more. Sensing that Pizza Hut’s innovation pipeline was running short of new places to put the cheese, I figured it was time to move on!

dr pepper

Music has played a role in Dr Pepper advertising since the ‘70s and the singing/dancing “Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Pepper?” extravaganza. The strategy had evolved over the years from that ‘70s peer pressure approach to a Trial-driving “One Taste And You’ll Get It”. The consensus among the team was that we were not answering WHY the consumer should try it and what they should expect from the taste. A couple of us discovered that the source of the unique taste was that there were 23 flavors in Dr Pepper (A call-out which remains on every bottle and of DP to this day. It’s part of the logo!). We wanted to convey that there are those that settle for a single flavor (the norm) — and then there are those who want bigger, better, MORE.

The next spot is one that never aired (for reasons I won’t go into here), but it marked a turning point for Dr Pepper. After seeing that women were just as likely to drink DP as men, we made women the hero of the spot vs. the usual “nerdy but not too nerdy” guy you see in most CSD spots (see the spot above!). This spot also featured what was a musical innovation at the time, especially for a national advertiser: a “mash-up” of several songs by a prominent DJ that reinforced the unique mix of 23 flavors.

DIET dr pepper

The previous advertising for the popular Diet Brand was based on the premise that it tasted “just like Dr Pepper”. Unfortunately, no one knew what Dr Pepper tasted like! Remember: Dr Pepper was trying to drive Trial at that time. We launched these spots based on the strategy that Diet DP was more like a dessert than anything else. DDP was satisfying on it’s own vs. “just” tasting like Dr Pepper. The Sales of Diet Dr Pepper haven’t slowed since!

7 up natural

The formula for 7UP was modified to use only natural ingredients. This differentiated 7UP and the advertising delivered on that. 7UP had positive sales for the first time in nearly a decade. Not only did 7UP start capturing more share, but this inspired the competition, specifically Sprite, to jump on the “natural” bandwagon!

Dave & Buster’s

When I started at D&B, the advertising budget at D&B was 1/10th of the budget for the other Brands I led. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t do advertising that had a big impact.

The advertising for D&B that preceded me had a fundamental issue: it didn’t convey the unique experience a Guest had with our Brand. The ads spent 2 seconds on the experience and the rest on “comedy”. I believed that that needed to be changed given we were a relatively new Brand to the vast majority of the country!

So we flipped that on it’s head, so that nearly every commercial featured what was happening INSIDE the box. We captured the fun, the winning and even the trash talk of a night out at D&B.

VIDEO: “Gold Chain" — GRETCHEN is getting this.

We maintained the “show the experience inside” principle for the duration of my tenure. The more we showed the D&B experience, the more we increased Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem and Awareness scores in the well-known Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) study. We also learned other valuable lessons:

– We needed a constant stream of new news to drive Traffic. “Brand spots” alone would not do enough to drive the business. The average size of a D&B is 40K square feet. It takes a lot of people to fill them!

– We needed to produce more than two TV spots a year. We figured out new ways to make our production and media spend go farther, so we could have new news every 6 weeks. And we saved over $3 million a year vs. current spend.

– Promotional advertising is harder to create than many think. While we tried to build the Brand in everything we did, the D&B consumer was very promotionally-driven. Crafting a compelling deal and determining the best way to communicate it in :30 (and many times in :15!) was key.

PARTNERSHIPS

We leveraged our partners. Offering the latest and greatest games was a key part of our strategy. To gain access to new intellectual property to use in the development of new games, we worked with Hollywood studios from Disney to Lucasfilm to Sony and Paramount.

In many cases, these collaborations resulted in access to actors and properties we otherwise never would have been able to afford. The Rock, Jack Black and Kevin Hart in a commercial for Dave & Buster’s? Yep. That happened. A spot that included Adam Sandler? We did that, too. Games based on the films? Absolutely. We even appeared in several films as part of our agreements!

APPLE PAY

One of the most exciting partnerships was with Apple. We were launching a new mobile app that had the capability to charge game cards and activate games. While Apple wanted to help us promote it, they were very specific about the advertising. They were so specific that the CEO and CTO had lost hope that Apple would ever approve the spot! But I wasn’t going to give up. After many conversations with the Apple team, the Offsite agency and I collaborated on this spot.

media partners

But it wasn’t all Hollywood and Silicon Valley partnerships! Our CSD partner, Coca Cola helped provide us with ESPN’s College Gameday crew for a commercial to kick off football-watching season at D&B. Our media partners at Viacom stepped up consistently, putting top UFC fighters and their series’ stars in our spots!

Dave & Buster’s + Mobile App

Challenge

Like any business, D&B has points of “friction” as part of the Guest experience. One of the biggest is long lines of guests waiting at the front desk during peak hours to buy Power Cards (yes, we made guests wait to give us their money!).

Insight

The head of Technology and I were convinced that we could alleviate some of those frustrations, particularly with our most loyal guests, through a mobile app. Unfortunately, the rest of the executive team did not share our confidence. Their concerns were that consumers in general were overloaded with apps, and there was no reason for them to download yet another one – especially for an experience as infrequent as D&B.

the solution

No investment dollars were allocated to the project. But we still believed. That’s when we identified a Credit Card Processing company that agreed to build an app for a percentage of the Sales. It would be rudimentary given app development was not their core expertise, but it could provide a clear “Proof of Concept”. If the app generated Sales, we were confident there would be a path towards investment.

results

The initial “Proof of Concept” app generated over $20 million a year with minimal promotion. These “twenty million reasons” helped encourage the executive team to embrace the mobile app as the core driver of the digital transformation.

A new, redesigned mobile app was rolled out in October of 2019 with the functionality to purchase Power Cards and activate games. A partnership and promotion with Apple Pay increased downloads and drove Sales. By February of 2020, the mobile app had over a million users and accounted for over 10% of Sales in a single month.

This is just the beginning. As the hub of the digital eco-system, the future capabilities of the mobile app will include ordering food & beverage (vs. a table-top system such as Ziosk), closing out guest checks and much more.

Dave & Buster’s + Branded Integration

Challenge

At D&B, our marketing budgets were significantly lower than others in the casual dining and entertainment industries. This meant we were in a constant struggle to drive top-of-mind Awareness as effectively – and efficiently – as possible. It is especially challenging, when consumers can easily skip commercials.

In addition, our core focus as an organization was to offer the latest and greatest games. We needed a constant stream of Intellectual Property to build unique, proprietary games. Ideally, the IP in these cases would be on the cusp of heightened popularity and relevance.

Insight

D&B had recently opened a location in the middle of Hollywood in a location next door to the Dolby Theatre (where the Oscars and Emmys are held) and across the street from the El Capitan Theatre where Jimmy Kimmel Live! is taped.

I saw this as an opportunity to make D&B feel like a much, MUCH bigger brand.

In short, make D&B famous.

the solution

A strategic, concerted effort to leverage our new Hollywood location to increase our presence in pop culture and boost our relevance. It was a three-pronged plan:

Partnerships with the Creators. We met with film and television studios to identify opportunities. We knew the upcoming blockbusters, so that we could start building corresponding games.
Celebrity & Writers Outreach. We set up a contact for celebrities and their handlers to call if they needed a special “hook-up”. We ensured confidentiality at the time, and requested subsequent promotion. We set up happy hours with writers’ rooms to help familiarize them with D&B.
VIP Program. We provided celebrities that visited most frequently with a Black Membership card that they could use for special benefits.

results

Increased Media > Increased Relevance > Increased Sales

Media. Tens of millions of media impressions.

Social. Each celebrity visit was leveraged (with their permission), from Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez to record release parties for Beyonce and Drake (in NYC). A birthday party for Khloe Kardashian at D&B garnered millions of impressions alone.

Intellectual Property. We were able to use the motion picture properties in the development of new games. Examples include:

Jurassic World Virtual Reality
Rampage
Pirates of the Caribbean
Spider-Man

Talent. D&B was able to leverage the footage from the films, and even the Talent in some cases.

Kevin Hart and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appearing in a D&B commercial to promote Jumanji.

Dave & Buster’s + Winning

Challenge

Spring Break is a critical time period, where driving Traffic is a must. New game news was typically the focus of our marketing calendar during that time. When we didn’t have a new game to promote, we needed a new promotion.

Insight

Our research had indicated two key aspects of the D&B experience:

Even if a Guest doesn’t care about winning tickets, there is an inherent thrill in WINNING.
There is always that lingering concern that the Guest – or their children – won’t win enough tickets to leave with anything.

the solution

We introduced the “Everyone’s A Winner” promotion during Spring Break. Everyone that purchased a game card was guaranteed to walk away with something. Prizes included everything from Beats headphones and Xbox game consoles to tickets (of course) to the most likely prize: a coupon for a Free $10 in game play on their next visit.

results

Q1 (the quarter including Spring Break) was the strongest in years at +4.9%, and ran for the next two years.

Dave & Buster’s + Families

Challenge

There was an internal “cultural” barrier that maintained we would lose our Adult business if we ever marketed to Families. D&B had never expressly “invited” families into the Brand since it’s inception. Further, a consultant brought in by the ownership group discouraged investing in any target beyond Adults.

Insight

When kids were out of school, we would naturally see more Families visit. But I believed that we were taking them for granted. We weren’t aggressively speaking to them. They were 40% of our Revenue, yet we hadn’t marketed to them simply because of historical biases and a consultant from the private equity group. I felt that we were missing an opportunity.

the solution

I convinced the leadership to conduct a test to determine the potential. We developed a media plan that targeted Kids – and Kids alone – to leverage the “nag factor”. We ran the program for a month in the summer.

results

The test period quarter was up +6%. The test was so successful that we added media during the holidays, where we saw a +12% increase in Walk-In Sales. After that, we kept investing more and more as we continued to see a return.

Today, marketing to Kids is a core aspect of D&B marketing. There are now 38 weeks of media targeting Kids during school holidays and weekends. The Lunch/Afternoon Dayparts where we have seen the greatest increases in Family visits have been the fastest-growing in terms of Sales Growth.