Toby Carvery is a British carvery chain owned and operated by Mitchells & Butlers. With 152 restaurants across the UK, it is renowned for being ‘home of the roast’.
Brief
We were briefed by Toby Carvery in the build-up to Christmas 2021 to help promote the launch of their ‘Festive Super Pig’ — a seasonal version of its footlong pig in blanket, available for one month only.
With over 750,000 pigs in blankets sold every year at Toby Carvery, the footlong Festive Super Pig was created to excite fans of the staple carvery side and tantalise their tastebuds over the Christmas period.
Available nationwide at all 154 Toby Carvery sites, our objective was to drive sales of the festive dish and position the family-friendly chain as the go to place for diners during the festive season by:
- Securing a minimum of 20 pieces of press coverage
- Achieving a media reach of 5 million
- Driving footfall to Toby Carvery sites across the UK during the festive period
Approach
With competition in hospitality fierce over the festive period, to drive footfall we needed a hook that would make noise for one of the nation’s most-loved brands.
With limited time available to us, we focused our efforts on where we could make the biggest impact — a highly targeted regional and national media sell in.
We began by drafting a product-focused national press release in keeping with the clickbait style of journalism favoured by the consumer titles we were targeting. We then created a second version of the release, which we tailored based on location to ensure the story appealed to regional media too.
Utilising our extensive database of national and regional press contacts, we embarked upon a targeted media relations sell-in, speaking to titles in areas across the UK where the Toby Carvery Festive Super Pig was available.
As well as using the media release as a hook to secure coverage, we also organised press visits — giving key journalists the opportunity to be one of the first to sample and review the Festive Footlong Super Pig. We then liaised with the marketing team, local Toby Carvery sites and journalists to book these visits in.
Impact
Our tactics were extremely successful and saw us significantly exceed our KPIs:
- 53 pieces of coverage including 10 pieces of national press (165% higher than target)
- Coverage in tier-one target titles and high domain back links in Daily Star and OK! Magazine
- 100% of coverage secured included a brand mention
- Combined audience reach of 187,943,19 (exceeding our target by 3,659%)
Our impact also went beyond our agreed KPIs in terms of the source of coverage, and alongside the print and online coverage we also achieved broadcast coverage on regional radio stations and saw great results on social media with news sites such as The Tab sharing the story on Twitter.
