Ally Tosello is obsessed with marketing data, strategy, ROI and results. And these days getting results can sometimes mean balancing a hamburger on a dog’s head.
Reaching out to the popular and utterly idiosyncratic “Stuff on Scouts Head” ”—a blog dedicated to placing random objects atop the head of a-patient pitbull named Scout—was just one of many tactics used to drive Harvey’sy successful “Copyright” campaign for the Harvey’s brand. It’s also indicative of Tosello’s keen understanding of her consumers and how to connect with them in this digital age. She’s so good at it, in fact, she’s been promoted fives times in just six years since joining Cara Operations after graduating from Queen’s University in 2009.
Today, at 28, she’s director of marketing for Harvey’s, a brand that has been sizzling of late. According to NPD, Harvey’s sales were up 9% in 2014, the highest growth in the quick-service sector.
“Harvey’s is the fastest growing restaurant chain in Canada… and a lot of it is due to her entrepreneurial spirit in terms of making things happen and getting things done,” says Dave Colebrook, her boss and Cara’s vice-president marketing for family division and corporate marketing.
Tosello leads all marketing for the $275 million brand with a lean team of just three (including herself) and a budget of just more than $12 million, about $5 million of that goes to media spend. Aside from managing day-to-day marketing efforts, Tosello sets long-term strategy for the business, leads product development and franchisee communications, and oversees partnerships and marketing alliances.
She’s extremely passionate, has very good intuition and is a great strategic thinker, says Colebrook. “She touches everything. She leads the high level strategic part and is involved in making everything happen and delivers a great final product.”
Highlights from the past couple of years include “Harvey’s 2 Original Burgers for $5” promotion which drove up sales 35% (and was so successful it was included as a talking point in Cara’s IPO prospectus in the spring). The Harvey’s Free Burger Day initiative saw net sales increase 18% and traffic jump 27%; in Quebec a new marketing strategy saw sales improve from -6% one year to +7% the next.
But perhaps the most familiar of her accomplishments was the effort to celebrate Harvey’s key differentiator: customization. All 260 locationsor will be retrofit with new garnish counters with premium garnishes. The changes in store were matched with the ultra-successful “MyHarvey’s Copyright” campaign, a digital effort focusing on millennials.
Consumers could visit a website, select their favourite burger toppings and “copyright” the burger for a 10% discount in store. By sharing it through social feeds, the discount jumped to 20%. Advertising included parody videos starring a pseudo-lawyer character whose firm was “The number one experts in burger registerability.” (“Because we’re the only experts in burger registerability.”)
Paid and promoted posts on Facebook as well as promoted tweets and the hashtag #myburgerisbetter drove the conversation socially. There were two sponsored stories on Buzzfeed, PR outreach to key influencers and bloggers (including “Stuff on Scouts Head”).
Younger consumers embraced the friendly competition of trying to create and show off their burgers, says Tosello. “With the millennial consumer, I think we hit the nail on the head by identifying their need for social endorsement and self identification.”
The campaign generated more than 140 million impressions, bringing approximately 180,000 consumers to the site where they “copyrighted” more than 15,000 burgers, and of those, 28% redeemed their coupons. Aside from plenty of industry recognition, the initiative saw a 30% net sales increase in its test market and a key contributor to strong sales growth so far this year.
While she’s only been in the industry six years, Tosello notices a marked increase in the “the amount of rigour and discipline… that is being applied to marketing.” And she’s more than fine with that.
“It is less about creating the ad and way more about showing the business impact of creating the ad. I love that. I am motivated by seeing results.”
