Lots of restaurants market themselves as serving “fresh” food. However, few of them actually mean it. In an effort to stand apart from the competition, Chuy’s asked Social Distillery to create a campaign to show off their made-from-scratch mission.
With a focus on humor, Social Distillery created an integrated social-first campaign using online content, influencer marketing and in-store activations to drive restaurant visits.
With so much emphasis on the word “fresh” in advertising it’s become a bad word to many restaurants. Thinking in terms of the f-word, Social Distillery created the hashtag #ChuysAF to drive home the overall campaign messaging through a three-pronged approach…because AF stands for Always Fresh right?
Knowing this campaign could be controversial, Social Distillery recognized the importance of the campaign’s message delivery. A series of short videos were produced starring Chuy’s head of kitchen operations Raul Herrera as our loveable Chuy’s spokesperson. Raul took viewers behind-the-scenes to highlight why Chuy’s AF means Chuy’s Always Fresh.
In an effort to spread the #ChuysAF word, Social Distillery invited local influencers to take a behind-the-scenes tour of a Chuy’s restaurant. John Mountford (Chuy’s VP of Culinary Operations) and Raul served as hosts, while the Social Distillery team captured every moment for a documentary-style video series. Following the tour, influencers created #ChuysAF giveaways for their unique social media communities.
To extend #ChuyAF beyond social media, tiny food flags were placed in every Chuy’s dish during the entire four-week campaign. The food flags were designed to be simple, saying only the words #ChuysAF. Diners were instantly drawn to the hot pink flags and without any call to action, started posting photos of them online using the hashtag, ChuysAF. To thank fans and followers for playing along, Social Distillery began using surprise and delight tactics to reward those who shared their flags.
Food flags
Impressions
Video views
Uses of #ChuysAF
