The Marketing Calendar Moves You Aren't Making Yet

I'm going to switch gears on you for a minute because, you know, we're talking about planning things well in advance.

We're talking about discipline and predictability.

But Dave's Hot Chicken is known for being culturally relevant and being part of the zeitgeist.

And so how do you mix that being and being on top of and in front of the culture with the discipline that comes with actually pulling off a launch successfully.

Yeah, I think the cultural relevance, at least for us, we have a relatively limited menu.

It's not like we're Cheesecake Factory with dozens and dozens of pages in a menu.

We're pretty straightforward.

So our product launches tend to be pretty tight in to kind of the core menu.

So typically what we can do is find a way to connect with that relatively simple offering to something happening culturally.

So I'll give you a simple example.

You know, Chili's a couple years ago launched mozzarella planks, right? Well, that's kind of right up our alley because we spice things, all of our, we have seven layers of heat kind of on our menu.

We can take something like that and make it really interesting by adding our spices to it.

So, you know, we saw the habit of cheese pool online.

We saw that in social as a big pull.

Well, it had been two years since that stuff really was in the zeitgeist and kind of in the world.

So we brought it back as part of the launch for that program.

Now, we had other elements to it as well.

But, you know, for us, because the menu is relatively tight, our products generally don't diverge too far.

So it's more about finding a relevant trend and a product that could tie into that trend that makes sense.

And then offering it up in a way that kind of fits Dave's and fits our customers.

So we usually don't have to reinvent the wheel.

We typically kind of know what our customer wants.

We're very connected in social.

We have a huge social following, especially for our size.

And we can usually find a way to kind of connect those dots.

I'm going to switch gears on you for a minute because, you know, we're talking about planning things well in advance.

We're talking about discipline and predictability.

But Dave's Hot Chicken is known for being culturally relevant and being part of the zeitgeist.

And so how do you mix that being and being on top of and in front of the culture with the discipline that comes with actually pulling off a launch successfully.

Yeah, I think the cultural relevance, at least for us, we have a relatively limited menu.

It's not like we're Cheesecake Factory with dozens and dozens of pages in a menu.

We're pretty straightforward.

So our product launches tend to be pretty tight in to kind of the core menu.

So typically what we can do is find a way to connect with that relatively simple offering to something happening culturally.

So I'll give you a simple example.

You know, Chili's a couple years ago launched mozzarella planks, right? Well, that's kind of right up our alley because we spice things, all of our, we have seven layers of heat kind of on our menu.

We can take something like that and make it really interesting by adding our spices to it.

So, you know, we saw the habit of cheese pool online.

We saw that in social as a big pull.

Well, it had been two years since that stuff really was in the zeitgeist and kind of in the world.

So we brought it back as part of the launch for that program.

Now, we had other elements to it as well.

But, you know, for us, because the menu is relatively tight, our products generally don't diverge too far.

So it's more about finding a relevant trend and a product that could tie into that trend that makes sense.

And then offering it up in a way that kind of fits Dave's and fits our customers.

So we usually don't have to reinvent the wheel.

We typically kind of know what our customer wants.

We're very connected in social.

We have a huge social following, especially for our size.

And we can usually find a way to kind of connect those dots.