Sweetgreen
REAL FOOD FOR A REAL IMPACT
As Sweetgreen moves to non-cash payment options, there is a business opportunity for the brand to execute a digital marketing campaign to upsell its mobile application as an alternate payment option. Through increased use of the mobile app with its core audience, Sweetgreen will be able to collect customer data that will allow for a more personalized experience and increase customer retention, and ultimately drive sales.
About Sweetgreen
Sweetgreen opened its doors in Washington, D.C. in 2007, quickly growing into one of the most beloved salad chains in metropolitan areas across the United States. The chain’s ability to offer a certain lifestyle through salad has created a loyal, cult-like following, similar to brands like Apple, Soulcycle, and Harley-Davidson. The company has maintained a captive audience by keeping up with trends — from hosting an annual music concert known as the Sweetlife to advertising its local, organic offerings in natural-looking stores. In 2013, the company launched a mobile application designed to build loyalty and decrease wait lines, which was a smart move as mobile ordering will be a $38 billion dollar industry by 2020. Wanting to remain ahead of the curve, the brand decided to go cashless in 2017, which was meant to increase efficiencies, decrease the chance of robberies, and eliminate any hygiene issues that stem from handling cash.
Opportunities
Currently, 40% of fast-casual consumers indicate that they would prefer to pay with their phones.
Furthermore, over 80% of urban millennials report having visited a salad/bowls/wrap fast-casual
restaurant in the last three months, indicating an audience that is captivated and more likely to download a mobile application.
What Are We Going to Achieve?
The integrated digital marketing campaign is designed to help increase mobile application downloads that will streamline the ordering process and decrease long wait lines. With Sweetgreen going cashless, the mobile application will provide an additional payment method. Success will be measured by an increase in mobile application downloads and an increase in transactions that occur via the app. In addition, a 20% increase in mobile downloads by urban millennials will be considered successful, as well as a 17% increase in total mobile transactions.
Consumer Incentives
Campaign Messaging
Our target audience of urban millennials care about healthy eating and real, natural food.
To our target audience, ordering at Sweetgreen signals more than a lunchtime craving, but a wider dedication and passion for sustainability and positive impact.
Deliver brand passion for “Real food so you can make a real impact” by inviting our target audience to join the Sweetgreen community
Every order they placed on the app, 1 dollar will be donating to support local organic farms
Call to Action
Achieve a 30% lift in awareness of the mobile application within the brand’s target segment
Increase Sweetgreen app installs by 20% among the brand’s target segment
Ultimately Increase transactions via Sweetgreen app from 33% to 50% within urban millennials in the cities in which we have stores
local Chef Partnership
Add an addendum to existing celebrity chef partnerships to include promotional posts on the chef’s social platforms about the use of the app for ordering the exclusive salad in DC, NYC, Boston, and Philly
measurement
App downloads and usage, Referrals
CSR Videos
Highlight Sweetgreen’s corporate social responsibility through powerful video stories, featuring the partnership with celebrity chefs to raise the audience’s awareness and encourage them to make a positive impact by ordering on the app
measurement
Impressions, Likes, Video Completion rate, Website clicks
Social media influencers
According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising. We will empower influencers to use word of mouth marketing on Facebook and Instagram for increasing app downloads
measurement
Reach, Likes, Engagements (likes comments,shares), Followers growth
Paid media
Targeting to urban millennials who spend a large amount of time on their phones, the campaign will leverage both desktop and mobile programmatic display ads and SEO on Google and app stores for promoting the Sweetgreen app
measurement
Reach, Likes, Engagements (likes comments, shares), Followers growth
How Does it Come to Life?
Sample Instagram Influencer @districteats (38.8k )
Instagram users are guaranteed to be on a mobile device with undivided attention for seeing ads, making them more likely to install the app. Food photography is one of the most popular categories on Instagram with 3 million geo-tagged food posts, which provide a great opportunity for Sweetgreen to raise awareness to food lovers through sponsored ads and influencers.
As 80% of Snapchatters in the U.S. have used Snapchat in restaurants, we plan to drive brand awareness by inviting users to be an organic part of the Sweetgreen community with our Snapchat Geofilters, encouraging millennials to share their Sweetgreen experience with their friends.
Sample Snapchat Geofilter
Campaign Timeline
Oct. 2017
Dec. 2017
Jan. 2018
Mar. 2018
May. 2018
Creative Brief & Development
Media Planning
App Upgrade
Website Update
CSR Video
Facebook and Instagram Sponsored Ads
SEO
Snapchat Geofilter
Programmatic Display Ads
Campaign tracking throughout and evaluation in May 2018
Generate leads and raise awareness
Engage interaction & conversion
Pre-Campaign
Ramp up the exclusive offerings that are available via the app by creating more unique opportunities that come from the app, and incentivizing repeat usage
Examples of exclusive app content include:
a. Exclusive celebrity chef-designed salads
b. CSR Video content featuring Sweetgreen culture
Launch Campaign
Once the revamped app and website are live, we’ll push go on our top-of-the-funnel marketing efforts that raise awareness for 2 months.
Some of the core awareness channels include:
a. All social media efforts
b. In-store promotions
Midway Campaign
Further into the campaign, we’ll allocate more resources towards empowering the influencers and celebrity chefs to engage their followers interact and convert.
Conversion channels include:
a. All social media efforts
b. E-mail
c. App Store/Paid Search
d. Programmatic Display Ads
Campaign Finalization
In the last 2 months of the campaign, we’ll increase the value of the promotional opportunity and allocate funds towards the channels that are operating most successfully.