Client overview
First Watch is an award-winning daytime dining restaurant with 500+ locations in 29 states. It is known for its innovative and health-conscious menu. First Watch has redefined daytime dining with a commitment to serving fresh, made-to-order meals for breakfast, brunch, and lunch.
With a history of culinary creativity, First Watch offers a diverse menu featuring seasonal items, traditional favorites, and specialty beverages. Emphasizing fresh ingredients and unique recipes, they cater to a wide range of dietary preferences. As a rapidly growing chain, First Watch has established a strong presence across the country, attracting customers with its inviting atmosphere and emphasis on quality and service.
Challenge
The restaurant industry can be notoriously difficult with fickle consumer tastes, economic ups and downs, and ever-changing culinary trends. Despite this, First Watch has consistently risen above the competition with its focus on great food and seasonal inspirations along with its friendly and welcoming service. Even with such success, it can be challenging to ensure the entire restaurant footprint is successful and that new locations quickly flourish upon opening. This requires an attentive focus on building awareness in localized markets for both existing and new restaurants to maximize their potential.
Existing locations that may be lagging behind need boosting strategies to reinvigorate themselves while new restaurants require a strong run up and introduction to the local communities, particularly when it is a market where First Watch hasn’t historically operated.
Insights
To optimize performance across the entire First Watch operating system, we knew we had to emphasize what makes them special — the inspirational seasonal menus — and to build a groundswell of interest in markets where they are entering for the first time or reintroduce them to existing markets that had growth potential. Knowing that people “eat with their eyes first” we emphasized the great food in a highly visualized context and let other customers help tell our story by first hand accounts of experiencing First Watch with friends and family. We tested many creative iterations to find the best blend of product imagery and brand ethos that would resonate with their customers.
Solution
In order to bring this all to life, we support First Watch as they roll out their seasonal menus for winter, spring, summer, and fall. These campaigns feature rotating creative that highlights new menu items while celebrating the classics. We are also supporting First Watch as they grow and open new restaurants with approximately 72 planned for this year alone.
Our strategy helps raise awareness in the locality prior to opening, and then supports the stores post-open to make sure people come to try it. Data shows that stores that are supported by our new opening strategy are performing significantly better than if they are not supported.
Our campaigns are deployed across multiple touchpoints including Meta, CTV, TikTok, search, Yelp, and Out-of-Home. We recently supported the launch of an exciting new collaboration between GoodGood Golf and First Watch. This includes targeted social media campaigns on Meta, TikTok, and YouTube with influencer content and user-generated short-form video.
Services Provided
Paid Media Strategy
Paid Media Campaign Development and Management
Partner Collaboration
Influencer Marketing
Creative Testing
Data Collection Infrastructure
Performance Reporting and Analysis
Results
Quarterly
media impressions to boost brand awareness and elevate visibility across campaigns
Increase
in leads per new store opening
Increase
in store traffic for targeted restaurants
New
users to the First Watch site from our campaigns
"Our partnership has driven tangible results, and we are eager to sustain and build upon this momentum together. Parallel Path has been a key partner in helping First Watch with its expansion efforts and revitalization of existing markets by developing customized marketing strategies to engage our audiences and increase brand awareness."