Angie Schultz

Angie Schultz

[email protected] • 641-485-0001 • www.oppthumbs.com

mailto:[email protected]

Putting the "public" in public relations

Background: Iowa's Best Bite Restaurant Challenge

Background: Iowa's Best Bite

• Historic building in downtown Grinnell remodeled into a restaurant

• Housed moderately successful restaurant, business declined and restaurant closed

• Building's owner engaged a local realtor to fill the premium space

• Became apparent traditional methods would make filling the space difficult

• Interested parties were unproven, or concepts competed with other restaurants

• With more than 35 restaurants in Grinnell, a successful restaurant would need to find its own place in the dining market

Background: Iowa's Best Bite

• Owner approached the Chamber for ideas

• Chamber president thought a contest to generate excitement with restaurant professionals would be a good idea

• Chamber asked Opposable Thumbs to create and manage a contest

• Grinnell now has award winning Chef Carly Groben and Prairie Canary

• We determined that it could be done again and built a template that could change Iowa’s rural dining landscape

• Several cities agreed with us and we partnered with Oskaloosa for year two

What IS Iowa's Best Bite Restaurant Challenge?

What is Iowa's Best Bite

• Iowa's Best Bite is a nationwide talent search that attracts top quality restaurateurs to cities they may not otherwise be consider

• We ask leaders in the community to gather money and services for a prize package that will help them start a restaurant with less debt

• We promote the location and the city to chefs, restaurateurs and the media to attract great candidates

• The contest REALLY transformed into a nationwide talent search AND a valuable marketing asset for the community and the winning restaurant

How Does Iowa's Best Bite Restaurant Challenge Work?

How Does Iowa's Best Bite Work

Work with community leaders to identify needs:

• Location - is there an existing restaurant building that needs to be filled, or is this a new location

• Gap in dining market - many rural Iowans travel an hour or more to eat

• Communication - helps create messaging

• Prize package - determining what resources can the community gather to create the prize package


Determine what the messaging will be:

• What’s great about the location - or the physical structure of the building?

• What’s great about the city - why would a top-notch restaurateur move to this city?

• What’s the prize package?

• Why is the contest being held?

• How can one enter?

• What are the communication obstacles?


Create the messaging

Much of our messaging the first year was based on the obstacles we identified:

• Opposition by existing restaurateurs

• Attracting restaurateurs to Grinnell

• Creating media appeal

• Gaining local support for the prize package



We developed the following key points used in all of our communication:

1. There is a premium empty restaurant space that WILL be filled. The competition is a way to ensure we don't bring in a direct competitor to an existing restaurant.

2. Operating a restaurant is a challenge - by giving a restaurateur what they need in cash, equipment and attention to get started, they are far more likely to succeed.

3. The competition would help enhance Grinnell as a regional dining destination.

4. The competition is open to anyone; local residents, existing restaurateurs and chefs across the nation.

5. By attracting attention to Grinnell's dining scene, the rising tide of attention would float all boats higher.

6. Rather than letting an investor, realtor or random luck determine Grinnell's next restaurant, the public should have a say in what they wanted in dining options in Grinnell.



After doing a needs assessment in Oskaloosa, we determined that the contest needed to be communicated differently

1. The existing restaurant was great, but the owners of the building wanted owner-operators to take the place to the next level, rather than hiring a management team.

2. The contest is an opportunity to get people to view Oskaloosa as a progressive and exciting city that thinks outside the box.

3. This is a fun way to celebrate more than $10 million in investment in downtown revitalization and city infrastructure.

4. This will mean local residents will be more likely to shop and dine locally.

5. Oskaloosa continues to work on improving quality of life for those looking to live, work and play there.


Create the collateral marketing material

• Fact sheets

• Press releases

• Brochures

• Posters/banners

• Website


Public Participation: video voting and tasting judges

• Key in helping Iowa's Best Bite work

• Gives the community a voice

• Allows community to accomplish great things

• Provides future support for restaurant

Summary

Media Involvement

Iowa’s Best Bite and the two communities have been featured in the media in some ways the communities have found difficult in the past.

• State media covered this year’s contest from the very beginning but only local media covered the finals

• There have been followup stories in various media outlets

• Year one we had trouble getting media attention until the finals – it was a new idea and we were told it "sounded to good to be true"

• This year’s contest was filmed by a local crew and will be aired on Oskaloosa’s local channels. And we hope another Iowa TV outlet might be interested as well

• We are in talks with a production company to take this idea to TV on a national scale. We are also developing a relationship with a major publishing house to gain national magazine coverage.

• We are currently working to bring our unique model to other rural states, as well as perhaps developing similar competitions for other industries.

Interesting facts and figures

• The contest resulted in more than 60 “serious” entries from 8 states in the past two years.

• All four finalists in year one were from Iowa. In year two, one of our finalists drove from Niagara Falls, NY. - 820 miles away.

• All four finalists from year one will have opened a restaurant since entering the competition.

• Of the visitors to the Iowa’s Best Bite website, only 1 in 4 live in Oskaloosa or Grinnell.

• Media outlets covering Iowa’s Best Bite include: The Des Moines Register and Juice Magazine, WHO TV 13, WOI TV, KCCI, Newton Daily News, Marshalltown Times Republican, Quick Service Magazine and many smaller newspapers and radio stations.

What's Next

• We are refining our methods and analyzing the data that we’ve gathered to become more effective

• We are looking at our website traffic patterns to attempt to understand how we can continue to drive traffic and are planning a much larger social media effort to take advantage of those platforms

• Continuing to find more ways to involve the public – like developing pre-contest polling to generate excitement about what type of concept the public thinks is most likely to succeed

• We’re considering ways to tie potential employment at the winning restaurant into the contest

Thank you

Angie Schultz

[email protected] • 641-485-0001 • www.oppthumbs.com

Angie Schultz

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