Tavistock Restaurants, Timpano Italian Chophouse
Tavistock Restaurants a large restaurant group composed of casual dining to upscale dining brands located throughout the United States, recently purchased a small boutique company comprised of several brands including four upscale Italian restaurants. Polin PR was asked to develop a program to help promote the new offerings and brand across the all locations while keeping program costs to a minimal amount.
Solution:
Polin PR created two concepts – “Chef’s Table Tweet Up” focusing on seasonal appetizer and entrée offerings targeting food/lifestyle and “Wine Lovers Tweet Up” focusing on new innovative wine list with boutique offerings from Italy targeting wine/lifestyle. Through comprehensive research, Polin PR developed databases of bloggers, Tweeters, electronic “influencers” with strong followings in each metro location- Ft. Lauderdale/Miami, Tampa, Orlando and DC/ Rockville, Maryland.
A trial Chef’s Table Tweet Up was held in the Ft. Lauderdale location on September 8, 2011 with 18 attending. Polin PR coordinated with the Chef and staff to have a set menu available so guests could taste a variety of items. The feedback was overwhelming reaching over 47,000 people.
Below is a sampling of the Tweets and summary of the Tweet Reach reports for this trial event and another similar event held in their Tampa location on November 15, 2011.
Lesson Learned
While planning a Chef’s Table Tweet Up for the Orlando market, Polin PR encountered an issue with an invitee from the Orlando Sentinel. A technology reporter re-tweeted our actual invite to all his thousands of followers inviting them to come with him. He did not read that the invite was nontransferable. Polin PR contacted him immediately and he was very upset that the “integrity” of a viral tweet up had been compromised. He tweeted this message out. Fortunately, his followers understood the concept of nontransferable and did not join him in his “rant”.
Following is a list of changes instituted based on this experience:
All event correspondence regarding nontransferable is in clear and bold lettering.
We indicate on the invite that it should not be re-Tweeted.
We no longer use the name Tweet Up as it may indicate to some diehard “techies” a different type of open event.
We now create a name for each event instead of using the generic Tweet Up term. Examples of names we have used are Tweet Seats and Timpano Tweets