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Key Takeaways Holly Smith saw an opportunity in the strong memories people already have of P.F. Chang’s.
Instead of focusing on follower counts, she emphasized meaningful interactions with guests online.
Restaurants generate enormous amounts of information, and Smith believes the smartest brands use it.
Taking the marketing helm of a brand with more than 300 restaurants across 23 countries might intimidate most executives. For Holly Smith, it felt like an obvious opportunity.
Before accepting the role as Chief Marketing Officer at P.F. Chang’s, Smith started asking friends and family what they thought of the brand. The responses were strikingly consistent. Nearly everyone had a memory tied to it: birthday dinners, family celebrations or first dates.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘I used to love going to P.F. Chang’s.’”
Smith could have taken the “used to love” as a warning sign — that the brand was on its way out. Instead, she saw it as an opportunity.
An iconic brand with decades of emotional equity does not need to be invented from scratch. It needs to be reawakened. Smith saw a chance to reconnect a beloved restaurant with the next generation of diners while reminding former guests why they fell in love with it in the first place.
Smith’s first 90 days as the CMO, however, were not going to be about slick campaigns or flashy commercials. Her focus was on the people.
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