Bob's Your Uncle

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen is a quick-service restaurant chain with roughly 2,500 restaurants around the globe in about 27 countries. I’m the general manager for Canada, and I oversee all aspects of our operations in Canada, currently for 131 locations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bob’s Your Uncle?

At the time, they were called The Brainstorm Group, and they were our agency of record before I joined Popeye’s seven years ago. As our creative agency, they manage all aspects of marketing in Canada for us. They take everything from the financial side, managing our accounts and budgets. They do media investment, all our social and digital. We typically do a lot of the content, but they’re really accountable for the execution, growing the business, brand awareness, all that type of stuff.

Their number-one goal is to grow the size of our business. Same-store sales in the restaurants is really one of the key metrics on which we measure their success, so that’s always the underlying target for them to hit.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are handling all media purchasing, including television, radio, print, and digital. They handle all relationships with key stakeholders, from purchasing to content. They do a lot of the creative work for us if it’s digital. We handle the creative for television, and they do some editing and minor tweaks. They also act as the marketing face of Popeye’s in Canada, so the franchisees will work with them directly on coupon needs or print jobs. They have really become a fairly integral part of our business.

Like a lot of brands, we don’t do as much print today as we used to, but they do purchase all of our newsprint ads, coupon drops, and things like that. The manage our Facebook page, our Twitter, and our Instagram. They come up with the vast majority of the content for those pages as well. So, they’re doing both creative and execution.  They’re very easy to work with, and they generally pick up the slack in a lot of small areas.

One of the more creative things they’ve done for us was two years ago, when we challenged Bob’s Your Uncle to increase the awareness of our brand and our stature in the community. We’d done an awful lot of TV and really couldn’t grow our TV presence much more. They reached out to several major sports franchises and ultimately presented us with an opportunity to become the official chicken restaurant of the Toronto Raptors. We’ve had a partnership for the last two years now with the Raptors, more of a sponsorship as opposed to traditional media. We have a lot of activation in the arena and with the Raptors’ fans, who tend to be very close to Popeye’s fans with age and demographics. I think that’s probably one of the more outside-the-box ideas that’s really been a significant success for us.

How did you come to work with Bob’s Your Uncle?

I’m not sure how they were initially chosen, but I think they were our first agency, to the best of my knowledge. When they first joined Popeye’s, we probably only had about 20-25 locations, so it was a significantly smaller account than they’re managing for us today. They’ve certainly grown with us and taken us from a small, local brand to where we’re now doing national advertising. We’re definitely better known than we were when they started.

We haven’t considered other agencies since then. We’ve come close a couple times; however, we’ve had roughly four consecutive years of significant and positive comp sales each quarter. The business is continuing to grow and it’s been very healthy. It hasn’t made sense for us to change the positive momentum we’ve achieved in marketing.

How much have you invested with Bob’s Your Uncle?

I’d like to pass on that question.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship began in 2007, and the work is ongoing. I don’t think a week goes by that I don’t talk to them.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I think the growth of our brand in Canada has been incredibly successful. The Popeye’s system has been very strong, and Canada has been the leading international market for the last three years, from a same-store sales perspective. We’ve been continuing to build anywhere from 4.5% on the low end, to over 8%–9% on the high end for same-store sales, year over year. That’s with building another 10–20 restaurants in the same geographic footprint. So, they’ve certainly been driving a lot of traffic to our restaurants, and they’ve made us a lot more of a mainstream QSR. We were a bit of a niche brand back in the day.

The creative work from Bob’s Your Uncle is good. We use them in parallel with some of our US agencies, and we’ve got over 2,000 restaurants in the US. So, we’re typically dealing with larger agencies, but we use them somewhat interchangeably. Sometimes it’s easier to get the team at BYU to make edits and do creative work, and sometimes we use one of the US agencies. There isn’t a noticeable difference in the quality or efficiency of the work that gets done.

How did Bob’s Your Uncle perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very reliable. Our business is fairly cyclical, as we have a lot of limited-time offers and promotions. The execution, although different with each promotion, is somewhat familiar. They’re purchasing the media and executing, communicating with the restaurants about all the different materials and when they need to go up, the POP’s, and everything that goes along with each of the media promotions for those. Those are constantly ongoing. At times, we’ve challenged them with outside-the-box projects, and they’ve always performed at a high level. That includes communicating professionally, being transparent, and hitting deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about Bob’s Your Uncle?

One thing I definitely really appreciate is their flexibility. As a client, we are not always the easiest, as our business is ever-changing. We don’t give as much lead time on things as we would like, but they’re incredibly flexible when things are thrown at them with tight deadlines or when there are big asks of them. They always get the job done and do it with a smile on their faces. You never realize that you were probably putting them in a tough place. Their team is very understanding and flexible to meet the needs of our business.

Are there any areas Bob’s Your Uncle could improve?

For a time, I would have said their social and digital presence was lacking, but they’ve really strengthened that area over the last six months. I’ve been a lot happier with what I’ve seen with them digitally over that time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is Catelli Foods Corporation, and I work on the Olivieri Fresh Pasta business. I’m a senior marketing manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bob’s Your Uncle?

We were launching a new product, called Skillet Gnocchi. This was the biggest launch for the company in this fiscal year, and we needed creative to introduce this new product into the Canadian market.

The new launch was challenging in that, although we already had a gnocchi product on the market, this was a new format and a new way of preparation. It’s made in a skillet and only takes five minutes. We had to cross the barrier of what people’s current perceptions were of gnocchi, to introduce this new product with a totally different method of cooking.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In terms of deliverables, we wanted creative concepts. We were looking at TV advertising, so Bob’s Your Uncle came up with several creative concepts which we then narrowed down, and then took the top four or five concepts into the field with consumers for pretesting. We got feedback from consumers, and it was pretty unanimous as to which concept we should take further into execution. We refined the concept and executed.

They helped produce the spot, and they got us approvals from our advertising standards council. They produced the spot in both English and French and sourced the talent. We work with a separate agency for media placement. Our budget was fairly tight, so we only did the TV. We produced eight spots. There were two 30-second spots, two 15-second spots, one English and one French for each length, and they were both created in new and non-new versions.  

How did you come to work with Bob’s Your Uncle?

Bob’s Your Uncle had worked with us the year before to develop creative for a launch that happened in 2015-2016. I’m new to Olivieri, so this was my first time working with them. We didn’t look at other agencies at the time of this new campaign, as we were already set with Bob’s Your Uncle.

How much have you invested with Bob’s Your Uncle?

We invested about $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I would say we began the work in October of 2016, and the work was completed in May of 2017.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The campaign is currently on air, but it’s too early to have any metrics. We’ve done some in-store sampling. When people came to the booth for a sample, they said they saw the product on TV and they’re interested in trying it. It has definitely piqued the curiosity of the consumer. One consumer asked me if it really tastes as good as it looks, so obviously, there’s great taste appeal within the creative.

How did Bob’s Your Uncle perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re really good. They’re really on top of things. They’re very approachable. I’ve had no issues with them. They’re very good with feedback. I had a very good relationship with my account supervisor and with Bob [Froese, CEO] himself. He’s made himself available throughout the whole project, and he was always there. He’s very participative.

What did you find most impressive about Bob’s Your Uncle?

I feel like they’re very approachable. You have access to the senior people at all times, and they’re very responsive. They take feedback very well, and it’s very easy to work with them.

Are there any areas Bob’s Your Uncle could improve?

At this point, I don’t have anything.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are BSH Home Appliances. We’re the manufacturer of Bosch, Thermidor, and Gaggenau appliances in Canada. I’m the director of marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bob’s Your Uncle?

We were looking for a full-service ad agency. We’ve always had an agency, and according to our policy, we have to do a review every 2–3 years. It just happened that we were doing this process when I spoke to Bob.

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the time, we were already connected with a media agency out of the US, which was partnered with our US head office. We piggy-backed on the relationship with them, and they do the media buying. Bob did everything else; the creative, production, social, digital, pretty much the gamut except for PR. They don’t offer PR in-house, so we had a separate agency.

They did a lot of good work. Even though we’re a manufacturer, we do a lot of consumer-facing promotions. The bulk of the work they did was all the material supporting those promos. We do some other advertising, but it’s much less than the promo stuff, and that’s just indicative of the market. It’s similar with most of our competitors. A lot of the work was tactical-type ads designed to drive traffic into our dealers, featuring whatever the current consumer promotion is, like instant rebate or gift with purchase.

We primarily work with newspaper ads, some magazine ads and a ton of digital. The digital stuff is your typical display advertising, whether it’s bought directly from the publisher or through a programmatic buy. So, it was kind of a mix. Then they also did our social.

How did you come to work with Bob’s Your Uncle?

I think Bob reached out to us first, and we happened to be doing an RFP at the time, so we invited them to pitch. The deciding factor in selecting Bob’s Your Uncle was their creativity.

How much have you invested with Bob’s Your Uncle?

We’ve spent about $1.5 million CAD. [$1,133,400 USD]

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November of 2013, and our partnership is ongoing. We had to do another RFP, as mandated by our corporate policy. At that time, we decided to split the work, and we kept the digital with Bob’s. The other work went to another agency as a result of the RFP.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The consistency of their work really stands out. Every quarter, we would run another promo, and they would put together all the material, whether it was online, print, broadcast, whatever. That’s something we could point to and show a direct result. Obviously, other influences were in play at the time, but certainly the campaigns helped to drive a lot of dealer traffic, which in turn results in sales. We did see an increase in sales quarter over quarter.

I can’t release actual numbers, but I can say that our sales increase was north of 10%. We saw a consistent growth pattern while we were doing these campaigns to push the promotions.

They’re a very creative shop. We liked that the work they did wasn’t just going with what we thought or what seemed to be working for others, which is tough in our business. A lot of our promotions are the same between us and our competitors. We try the same tactics time and again, but Bob’s group was very good at finding unique ways to express it so it didn’t come across as the usual stuff you see every day.

Their work is excellent. They’re very good at taking care of the details. The things that keeps me up at night are errors like leaving out a promo’s end date in a newspaper ad. We’re on the hook for whatever sales happen past that date until we make a correction. The team at Bob’s was very good about taking care of all those details, making sure everything was triple-proofed. When it went out, I knew I didn’t have to worry about it.

How did Bob’s Your Uncle perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very coordinated, and we’re very happy with the team. When we were with Bob’s, we never missed a deadline.

What did you find most impressive about Bob’s Your Uncle?

I have to go back to creativity again. They have a really good creative department. Their creative director is very hands-on, and you can see her work in everything they submit. We have a tone and manner for each of our brands, and they understand that very well.

Are there any areas Bob’s Your Uncle could improve?

Up until now, I would have said they could improve their in-house media capabilities, but they’ve got a new team on that. We still use them for digital, and we’ve used them recently for a TV buy, which was excellent. So, I think they’ve nailed that as well. Right now, I would say they’re a pretty sharp, full-service shop. I honestly can’t think of anything that’s lacking.