Testing New Concepts for Hooters

The Challenge

Carl Sweat, Chief Marketing Officer at HOA Brands, wanted to gather and evaluate customer feedback on the company’s new fast casual restaurant concept called “Hoot’sRighteous Wings”(HRW), including overall impressions, specific positives/likes/dislikes, frequency of visits, etc. as well as comparisons with specific competitors on key dimensions.

An industry veteran and a senior marketer, Carl knew that doing an online survey would not cut it. He was keen on capturing insights from customers while they were still “real-time” and fresh (just like his product!)

Another challenge that Carl faced was that he wanted to survey customers in multiple markets nationwide, and collect all insights quickly over a short weekend, so that he could have it in time for his important board presentation.

The Solution

So Carl reached out to Gold Research as he knew about their proprietary intercept research solution that yields “real-time” qualitative and quantitative insights from actual customers. Carl also knew that at Gold Research, he would be able to get help quickly from senior researchers in crafting the questionnaire to ask the key questions that would give him the insights he needed.

The Results

By engaging with Gold Research, Carl received:

• Assistance with developing a mobile questionnaire that was customized for in-store surveying
• Targeted on-site data collection from HRW’s customers while they were going through their shopping and dining experiences
• Richer, deeper, “real-time” preferences that yielded fresh, crisp insights while the experiences were still fresh in the minds of customers
• Real-time access to incoming data (no waiting for results!)
• Continuous monitoring of incoming data to ensure quality
• Evaluation of stores in multiple markets concurrently for comparative insights

Testimonial:

I have been working with Gold Research for several years now with outstanding results. Their work quality and execution has been quite consistent, which is hard to find in this industry. We tend to move fast and wanted a partner that could match our speed of execution without compromising on quality. Across my career with Coca-Cola, Starbucks and now Hooters Gold Research stands in a select group of trusted partners that I can rely on to deliver, even when the pressure is on. They bring a team of savy, experienced researchers to conduct research across our U.S. locations to enable Righteous Wings to better serve our customers.

– Carl Sweat, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Hooters, HOA Brands