Five Guys - Refreshingly Real
The Situation
Before 2017, Five Guys had never done any advertising. When we took them on as a client, the first information we got about how they like to advertise was, “we don’t.” Classic Nike.
With an extremely limited budget, an incredibly protective brand image, and a lot of fun, we had to create a brand platform that would propel Five Guys into the advertising world, winning over the hearts of consumers and the Five Guys Family.
We were tasked with making Five Guys the meal of choice for more people, more often—while also aiding in the launch of a new consumer app. We defined three main goals based on the customer journey. First, we needed to connect people to Five Guys so they think of us more often - basic awareness. Next, we wanted to help them fall in love with our food and the Five Guys experience - increase consideration. Finally, we needed to convince people to actually try us, we needed them to convert. That means we were looking to increase store visits, online orders, app downloads, and of course: revenue.
The problem
Life is complicated these days. You can’t even buy a toothbrush on Amazon without being bombarded by 48 pages of options. In an already crowded category, quick service restaurants tend to crowd consumers’ minds with endless menu combos, price variations, and marketing fluff—inevitably leading to decision fatigue.
The insight
In a world where everything is complicated, we wanted Five Guys to be a Haven of Simplicity. The simple menu, real ingredients, and relatable brand presence would make Five Guys the go-to choice when the rest of the world is just too much.
The Solution
“Refreshingly Real” shows how a simple, real burger and fries can be a relief from the world’s complexity. Because at Five Guys, what you see is what you get: 100% real, every single day.
The Results
2023 was a banner year for Five Guys. In the year alone, we got over 815.4 million impressions and 12.3 million clicks. And the impressive numbers don’t stop there. Year over year, we increased store visits by 67%, online orders by 29%, and app downloads by 103%. In total, we drove $266 million in revenue–a massive 63% increase over 2022.
Our streaming audio CPA improved 65% year over year, with conversion increasing a massive 86%, despite significantly less investment than in 2022. Leaning into the Refreshingly Real voice was a powerful message.
Our sports creative was extremely successful in producing measurable results throughout the year. “Women's World Cup” outperformed all of our 2023 TikTok creative, driving a 55% higher CTR (Click Through Rate). “Audible” was the top performing creative within Pinterest for the year, driving the highest CTR of all creative and outperforming Pinterest's total CTR by 107%. Across all sports moments, we saw excellent CPAs when we tailored our creative to platform:
Super Bowl had an incredibly efficient CPA at $.75
Women’s World Cup had a CPA of $.97
Youth Sports CPA was $1.03
March Madness CPA was $1.06
Fall sports enthusiasts CPA was $1.13
Rec sports CPA was $1.76
On top of all of this, our channel testing throughout the year provided valuable learnings, leading us to adopt TikTok and Reddit as core opportunities for more platform-specific advertising in 2024.