The Challenge

2B Hospitality owns and operates two successful high-end restaurants brands, Bella Brava and Stillwater Tavern, on Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. The proprietors, chef and operation director sought HCP to help develop and implement a marketing and advertising plan to expand the customer base for both establishments during a time of explosive growth in downtown St. Petersburg.

The Solution 

HCP’s research team conducted a media audit of existing advertising and marketing, and hosted focus groups with patrons to gain a pulse of the F&B offering, the atmosphere and services. In addition, HCP shopped competing restaurants in downtown St. Pete and created a marketing strategy to increase awareness and grow patron engagement at both Bella Brava and Stillwater Tavern.

2B Hospitality Group has owned and operated Bella Brava for more than a decade in downtown St. Pete.  The restaurant’s success is largely due to its prime location on Beach Drive and the delicious menu highlighting classic Italian cuisine.  Thanks to explosive economic and tourism growth in the downtown district, Bella Brava has enjoyed expanded success in the market. Increased economic growth also led to increased competition as new restaurants began to operate in the area. One of those restaurants was 2B’s own Stillwater Tavern, a concept created by famed chef Jeffrey Jew.  Together, the two restaurants were poised for success on Beach Drive but faced increased pressure due to constantly growing competition.

HCP’s first step was to conduct a full review of the two restaurants’ creative assets and media campaigns. The audit took a deep dive into promotions including holiday specials and the media strategies including digital, print, radio, and broadcast buying schedules. After the assessment was completed, it was determined that modest alterations to the creative message would be adopted but no significant reboot of creative was necessary.  HCP’s recommendation was to further expand the media buying schedules to create a greater focus on digital platforms. Once the market was defined and the media buy schedule confirmed, HCP created a monthly marketing calendar to produce and promote various offerings that where successful in the past and new opportunities identified by the creative strategy sessions.  To measure success, HCP identified several key performance indicators to define the digital campaign using various online rating platforms, Google Analytics, and social media platforms. Throughout the engagement HCP was able to identify substantive gains within the market share.

HCP created a full-service calendar and budget to manage the various aspects of the marketing and promotional aspect of both restaurants. This included community outreach, promotional programs, social media, websites, advertising, customer databases, media relations and brand management.