Inviting y’all to dig into a true Austin original
The Challenge
Mealtimes can be hectic. Wrangling together your pack of ravenous family and friends, as well as deciding on a place everyone loves, is no easy feat. Chuy’s—a growing Mexican restaurant with a Texas twist—challenged us to drive awareness in hungry markets that didn’t realize they needed generous portions of from-scratch Tex-Mex to satisfy the whole crew. Right as we began to build momentum, the world came to a screeching halt.
The restaurant category, especially locations that were less prepared to handle drive-through or curbside, faced formidable challenges. Chuy’s braved the pandemic with us and invested in tried-and-true tactics—trusting us to unlock potential in new spaces to reach broader audiences.
The Possible
Establishing a purposeful brand identity can unlock authentic interactions.
The Provable
Leveraging the power of what makes this Tex-Mex favorite unique generated big results across multiple touchpoints.
The Work
Video
If you’ve been to one Chuy’s … well, you’ve been to one Chuy’s. Each location has unique décor that brings their personality to life, and we wanted to capture that in a new, exciting way. So, we activated a tactic they’d never tried before: a thirty-second commercial as a fun way to familiarize new audiences and remind loyal fans of the Chuy’s experience. What resulted was a total of 66MM impressions and over 41k store visits during its 30-week flight across YouTube and Programmatic Video placements.
Out of Home
Proving to emerging markets that Chuy’s is, in fact, all that and a basket of crispy, delicious tortilla chips, our OOH imagery featured mouthwatering images of ingredients that make a bite of Chuy’s one-of-a-kind.
Social
Chuy’s unique Tex-Mex style is meant to be shared, so we aligned Chuy’s storytelling to be both on-trend in new spaces as well as on-target for higher audience engagement.
Photography
Every dip of queso is picture-worthy, and we brought our A-game to capture the fresh vibrancy you can only get by sharing a Chuy’s meal.
Website
Crafting a UX/UI-friendly home page, menu page and style guide brought Chuy’s energetic atmosphere to a more universal audience. Updating accessibility features and optimizing for SEO made for a design that flows like Creamy Jalapeño on their renovated website.
Limited-Time Menu Productions
We helped launch Chuy’s CKO’s—their take on a limited-time menu—for the first time, enticing Chuy’s audiences into wrangling their hungry pack to come in more often to try these new options, while also serving as a reminder to keep Chuy’s top of mind. We amplified this menu through email, social and on the table in every restaurant. These efforts drove incremental traffic and mix at approximately 2.5% of all entrees sold during the six-week period.
increase of all entrées sold in Q4 of 2022
The Momentum
Pre-pandemic, Chuy’s closed out a record-breaking year at 426M in overall revenue. While most competitors in the restaurant category are still recovering, Chuy’s ended 2022 with total revenue hitting 422M – a surge of 6% growth through adversity, nearly reaching pre-pandemic numbers. With over 40M impressions on their TikTok and a strong first foray into programmatic video spaces under their belt, Chuy’s strong operational execution left people impressed, hungry and eager to come back for more.
