Pivoting for Success
WOLF’S RIDGE BREWING
While Geben usually works with Wolf’s Ridge Brewing to showcase it as one of the highest quality and most innovative restaurant/breweries in Central Ohio, COVID-19 brought on new challenges when an announcement by the Governor of Ohio shut down the restaurant industry. Switching gears in a matter of hours, Geben worked alongside Wolf’s Ridge to communicate immediate operational changes resulting in a spike of attention and leading to over $60k in beer delivery sales during the first two weeks of the service.
30+local media mentions in March 2020
52% more mentions of delivery offering
30% of all web referral traffic came from media placements
This is how we do it.
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In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor DeWine announced in a Sunday afternoon press conference that all in-restaurant dining would be closed, sending waves through the restaurant industry. For Wolf’s Ridge, who was committed to keeping as many of their staff employed during this unprecedented situation as possible, it provided an opportunity to showcase the owners’ operational innovation through home beer delivery. However, knowing many other restaurants would be announcing similar pivots, it was vital to get ahead of the already-magnified news cycle due to the pandemic.
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Within an hour of the announcement, the Geben team connected with Wolf’s Ridge, developed a media alert and pitched Central Ohio media to announce the brewery's home beer delivery service. Coordinating both mentions, liveshots, photographers and interviews, this quick action pushed the restaurant and brewery top of mind as the general public reeled with the new reality.
Additionally, using the social media post the brewery shared on Instagram, Geben immediately began reaching out to local influencers who might be interested in sharing this pivot on their own social media profiles.
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Within 24 hours of the news breaking, Geben secured and coordinated five interviews for Wolf’s Ridge including WSYX evening news, Good Day Columbus, Columbus Monthly, Columbus Business First and Columbus Dispatch with 30+ mentions in local media in March alone.
More broadly, the quick action from the Geben team resulted in 52% more mentions of the Wolf’s Ridge delivery service in the media compared to other local breweries who announced similar programs (see image below). Of those media placements, seven were feature stories with the WRB owners as the sole thought leader, Additionally, 30% of all web referral traffic came from media placements the week after the announcement.
On the influencer front, all eight influencers (with a total reach of 66k followers) we reached out to ended up sharing the beer delivery Instagram post from WRB on their own accounts, driving more traffic to both the website and sales.
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