A large national casual dining brand was struggling to maintain and increase same-store sales. Existing brand positioning was not differentiated from the competition nor executed cohesively across all customer touchpoints. Opportunities existed to reach customers in previously overlooked markets and channels.

The Candela team led management through an extensive brand positioning exercise, designed and executed customer surveys and interviews around To-Go dining preferences, and identified and implemented strategic partnerships to drive sales in regions close to large universities. The brand positioning exercise included the facilitation of brand workshops to develop positioning concepts and create a revised positioning statement. The workshop was informed by a Geographic Information System customer model Candela constructed to uncover the demographic and psychographic makeup of the company's core customer base and the results of online feedback designed and analyzed by Candela.

The national dining brand increased annual incremental sales by $20M+ thanks to the new university partnerships, refined existing positioning and critical actions needed to differentiate their existing positioning from competition across all customer touchpoints, and improved their To Go customer experience through customer survey findings.