Charley's Grilled Subs Heats Up Marketing Efforts

Charley’s Grilled Subs, a restaurant chain known for its Philly cheesesteaks, has several initiatives cooking. The chain expects to open its 400th location by early next year, which will coincide with its first Philly cheesesteak-eating contest in partnership with Major League Eating. With a marketing budget in the $1 million range, Charley’s is also working with WD Partners to redesign its Web site and logo. (A prototype of the logo--pictured below--emphasizes Charley's hot Philly cheesesteaks.) James Pa, the chain's newly appointed vp of brand management, recently chatted with Brandweek about the chain's efforts to differentiate itself in a crowded quick serve category. Excerpts are below.Brandweek: How will you bring Charley’s to the forefront of the quick service restaurant category?James Pa: Well we’re taking on a lot of new initiatives that are going to reposition us for what I call the new era of the Charley’s brand. For starters, we’re unveiling a new logo and a new brand mantra that’s associated with that logo. We also have a new prototype that we’re working on right now and that’s, of course, designed to enhance our guest experience, [and] enable us to be more relevant to our core customers.Other initiatives that we’re working on is a new website, and that’s geared to be a more energetic website that’s, again, very relevant to our demographic and will feature exciting new elements to the website. BW: You previously worked as a consultant at IBM Global Services. How did you move from technology to fast food?JP: I grew up in the industry. My family’s been involved in the industry basically their entire life. I am very familiar with the operation side of it, particularly the customer service and what that value meant to the consumer. I always told myself that I didn’t believe I’d be involved, or be adequate enough to be involved, in the restaurant business. But quite frankly after leaving technology it was just sort of the right fit for me because I knew it very well and it just kind of dragged me back in. And I love it. I mean, ever since I made the transition I’ve never looked back. BW: How will you apply your experience in technology to Charley’s?JP: For three years, I was a group called business intelligence within IBM, and we implemented CRM (customer relationship management) solutions. We worked with major, major institutions such as State Farm and really helped them [with] long-term goals, which was to reach 40 million households before the year 2000. [What I’ve learned from that experience is] it enables me to understand trends, it enables me to take data and really translate that into information that’s relevant to our business and to be able to key in on those trends and to help enhance our value proposition back to our consumers. BW: What type of customer are you targeting for Charley’s?JP: Currently our target market is 18- to 35-year-old males because we’re predominantly a mall-based organization. We see that [our customer base is] approximately a 60 to 40 male-to-female ratio. BW: How will you reach these customers and how will you reach new customers?JP: We do a lot of local store marketing to win [customers within a] two-mile radius. [With respect to new customers], we use a lot of methods, [including] partnering with some of the local talent here, with companies like RMD (an advertising and public relations agency based in Ohio), that enable us to reach out to these networks. We use social media as well.BW: How do you compete with much larger chains like Subway?JP: I don’t know that we compete with Subway so much as we coexist with them on a larger scale. One thing we refuse to do is be shortsighted and go after the price war. We offer a premium product and we aren’t shy about that. And we have a healthy price point as well. We aren’t shy about that either. And we feel that we provide an excellent value to our consumers. We use choice USDA-certified steak, 100 percent real breast meat and all fresh produce and a hearth-baked bread. So it’s a healthy price point, but it’s also a premium product.BW: Past Charley’s commercials focused on the speed with which its food is made, its freshness and quality. How does this campaign set you apart from other sub chains?JP: Well it’s interesting that you would ask that question actually. We recently did a consumer research study, [or] a brand filter study, as I like to call it. A common thread that continued to come out time after time during this period was “hot,” “bold” and “straightforward.” [And interestingly enough, it’s] straightforward. The way I interpret that is because we cook it in front of the consumer, they know that there’s nothing to hide. BW: Will Charley’s use this strategy in the future?JP: Absolutely. It’s my belief that a brand should strive to own a word in a consumer’s mind and that’s what we intend to do. We may not be able to own certain words that other brands have in the consumers' minds but we’re going after hot, bold [and] fresh. BW: How else are you growing the chain?JP: Well I think what we need to do is to go back to the basics and reevaluate our current processes, but we need to really answer some unanswered questions, like what are unmet needs that nobody’s addressing in the marketplace currently, and be able to fill those gaps. At the same time, [we] continue to drive value to not just those loyal customers, but to those who don’t know us very well. In my opinion, we can sit here and talk about saying all the right things about all the right products and at the end of the day nobody will listen. But, we as a brand, must say it in such a way that people feel it in their gut and really allow that to resonate, and that way we build brand ambassadors, or brand apostles as I like to call them, who go out and really spread the gospel of the brand. And during these turbulent times we call, we ask, we look for greater return on our company investment, and truly it does allow for less error in today’s marketplace, but no aspect of this business goes unscrutinized and we challenge all assumptions. And I’m confident that one day that you’ll be hearing more about us. A lot more. BW: What are your plans for store growth?JP: [We currently have] 382 locations in 13 countries around the world. We continue to be aggressive in our growth strategy internationally right now. We’re very close to inking a deal in Egypt, in Oman, and we continue to grow rapidly in Saudi Arabia and in Kuwait. And we just signed our first area development deal in Venezuela.

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Charley's Grilled Subs Heats Up Marketing Efforts

Elana Glowatz

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Elana Glowatz