The much-loved Roebuck on Richmond Hill had been lovingly reclaimed, restored and elevated by the group, and reopened with a brand-new, more premium proposition. Everything from the food and drinks menu to the décor and the service had had a thoughtful and beautiful facelift, offering existing and new customers the ultimate quintessential British pub experience.
All they needed now was a creative content agency to support the reimagining of this local favourite. While we developed our strategy for the launch campaign, our first brief from Greene King was to plan and art-direct a high-end photo shoot at The Roebuck, showing off its gorgeous new interiors and food and drinks menus. The premium quality of the photography produced promotional assets that have been used across above-the-line media activity including OOH and print as well as the pub’s own website.
We then set about planning and delivering our social-first campaign for the pub relaunch, aimed at boosting engagement among loyal customers, increasing and sustaining growth of traffic and engagement on their social channels, and raising awareness among new audiences who they knew were going to love the pub’s transformation.
To create excitement for the relaunch of the Roebuck in a hyperlocal market, the content needed to work in conjunction with paid, influencer and community management activity. We collaborated closely with the marketing team at Greene King to develop a suite of inspirational organic content that helped retain new followers brought in through other channels, while simultaneously building up and maintaining an organic following.
Our campaign assets celebrate everything that makes the Roebuck special, showcasing the people who love it, the beautiful venue and its environs, its rich heritage and delicious food and drinks menu, with a particular focus on the ever-popular Sunday roast. To encourage further engagement and motivate people to visit, our social team created a series of gamification and poll assets for the pub’s local audience to interact with while telling its intriguing story through fun trivia.
Our strategy worked. For the first 10 weeks of the campaign, The Roebuck’s Instagram followers increased by 43% and Facebook followers increased by 8.5%. Reach on Instagram increased by 60% and engagement is up 10.8%, with figures continuing to rise. Sentiment on posts has been overwhelmingly positive, and visitor numbers have increased so much that we have had to refocus the social content away from the food to the drinks as the pub is struggling to meet demand for table bookings.
What a great problem to have. We’ll drink to that!