Adamson Barbecue
How to get grilled online and still win
Background:
Adamson Barbecue is a restaurant with a cult-like following and notoriously long lineups for its famous smoked brisket. Outdated negative reviews have stained an otherwise spotless Yelp record, with a small handful of outspoken customers leaving inaccurate and damaging comments about the service quality and wait times.
The Challenge:
Change the perception of the restaurant’s long wait times and repair Adamson’s online image, keeping in line with the Brand voice.
The Tone:
After speaking with the owner to understand the brand’s core values, we summarized the tone of the campaign into the following emotions and themes:
pride
unapologetic
rawness
authenticity
dark humour
risk-taking
strength
The Solution:
The goal was not new customers, but instead fighting back against frustratingly unfair reviews - if your food is so good that lineups are long, why should you be penalized?
We created 5 limited edition shirts that customers could buy in person while they waited to order at the restaurant.
2 were brand focused with a logo redesign, and 1 was a statement shirt, proudly displaying unreasonable negative reviews as a badge of honour.
We used a combination of DTG and Screenprinting and kept a limited colour palette to reduce costs. Scroll below.
The Result:
All PR is good PR. BlogTO and other local TV news outlets picked up on the Tshirt and the story went viral. The review shirt sold out overnight online, and ironically Adamson Barbecue ended up having longer wait lines for the next 3 weeks - the campaign had inadvertently attracted new customers from all the buzz, curious about the restaurant.
In addition, regular and frequent patrons now had branded Adamson merchandise they could proudly wear around the city - more free marketing.
