Maurice Pfister

wagamama, is a relatively small but spirited restaurant brand, selling an unfamiliar cuisine in a market that, though once booming, was becoming saturated and dominated by promotional discounting.

 

While this inevitably put pressure on margins, wagamama was determined not to get sucked into the promotional arms race. Instead, and for the first time, wagamama invested in a major ATL campaign ‘from bowl to soul’, to differentiate itself from other casual-dining brands and thereby sustain top-line growth.

 

Urban butterflies are the heaviest spenders in the category. In order to reach them with wagamama’s soulful promise, we took the unlikely route of cinema; a channel deemed to be the least effective on multiple counts, but one surprisingly well placed to reach our audience. It was a winning strategy.

 

We defied the category, building a powerhouse brand, landing our distinctive brand promise and upping our ‘cool’ factor. While others closed shop, our campaign delivered a 6% point penetration increase among urban butterflies and grew like for like sales 9.7% vs. market growth of just 1.0%. The campaign delivered £29 million in incremental revenue, a profit return on investment of £5.21 for every £1 invested. Cinema was pivotal, delivering 60% of incremental sales, with both immediate and long-lived sales effects. The campaign went on to win a Bronze IPA Effectiveness Award and Bronze Effie in 2020.