Schlotzsky's reintroduces brand with new TV spots

Nation's Restaurant News, April 11, 2005 by Gregg Cebrzynski

There hasn't been much to say about Schlotzsky's advertising since last July, owing to the fact that Schlotzsky's hasn't done anything significant since then.

It's been a troubled brand since 2003, when it began closing stores because of poor sales. Then, just before Schlotzsky's broke a new TV campaign last summer, the chain's board of directors fired president and chief executive John Wooley and his brother, Jeffrey, who was senior vice president, and laid off 20 percent of its corporate workforce. Last August the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Late last year Bobby Cox Cos., which owns the Rosa's Tortilla Co., Taco Villa and Texas Burger chains, announced it had bought the 445-unit Schlotzsky's. About six weeks after the sale was completed in January, the chain hired an ad agency, The Ward Group of Dallas, and within two weeks or so it had created a new TV campaign.

Schlotzsky's had to move quickly because it already was fading from the minds of consumers.

"We love Schlotzsky's, but we don't ever remember to go there," people said repeatedly during recent focus groups about the chain, according to Michelle Bythewood, the director of national marketing for the chain.

And so the decision was made to "get on the air and let them know we make great sandwiches," she said. The first spots in the campaign support promotions--the Albuquerque Turkey sandwich and a $2.99 combosandwich special--and revive the tag "Schlotzsky's. Funny name. Serious Sandwich."

Bythewood said bringing back the old tag made sense from a brand-awareness standpoint because "if you ask anyone on the street [what the tag is], they'll rattle it off."

The TV spots have the look of a campaign that would air to promote a new restaurant chain, which Schlotzsky's is, in a manner of speaking. It has new management and a new marketing strategy, and it's much smaller than the 700-unit system it was in 1999, when it broke its first network TV campaign.

That campaign is not network but regional, and the 135 ad groups of the chain are working with The Ward Group on media buys. The spots focus on Schlotzsky's strength: homemade bread baked daily.

In "Dad," the title character is preparing a sandwich at home for his son. The bread is mushy, and the meat looks as if Dad bought 10 pounds for only 99 cents. When Dad completes the unappetizing concoction, he slides it over to his son and says proudly, "The perfect sandwich."

The son frowns and says, "It's not Schlotzsky's."

The camera cuts to a really appealing shot of Schlotzsky's bread, while a voice-over describes how it's freshly baked. The next scene is inside Schlotzsky's, where father and son are eating sandwiches. The son is as happy as the dickens. He looks at the camera and says, "Yeah, it's Schlotzsky's."

"Bread" opens on the manager of a sandwich store spilling loaves of frozen bread onto a table and telling an employee to wait while they defrost. The employee can't believe his ears, thinking that the restaurant makes its own bread.

"No, they just ship it in frozen," the manager says.

The employee takes a bite of some thawed bread. "It's not Schlotzsky's," he says, and the spot ends with him at Schlotzsky's, enjoying a sandwich. "Yeah, it's Schlotzsky's," he says predictably.

The spots are straightforward in the way they differentiate product attributes from those of the competition, and the humor is subdued. There's nothing wacky here, and right now Schlotzsky's doesn't need wackiness.

The campaign is as good a way as any other to reintroduce the brand and get people to remember it.