Brand Evolution: From Gas Station to QSR
Client: Sheetz Convenience Stores
Brand Evolution: From Gas Station to QSR
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Led strategy and creative for dozens of 360 annual campaigns and quarterly promotional campaigns. Includes television, digital video and audio, point of purchase (in-store and on-lot), out-of-home, print, social, PR activations, and experiential.
Led strategy and creative for new loyalty program marketing, store openings, a wide variety of new product launches, app and website redesign.
Produced 200+ commercials and digital videos; average tv production budget $350K.
Sheetz grew from $2 billion to $7.2 billion in sales in conjunction with the time I was a creative marketing leader for the brand.
Overall marketing achieved increased brand recognition, total store transactions, average check size, sign-ups and usage of loyalty programs, and online ordering.
Produced 200+ commercials and digital videos with average production budget of $350K/30 seconds.
Modulated app and website design, resulting in increased brand recognition, total store transactions, average check size, sign-ups and usage of loyalty programs, and online ordering.
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Sheetz Convenience Stores is a $7.2 billion privately-held convenience store chain, with an ongoing effort to represent the brand as a QSR with high quality food and not just a gas station. As strategic and creative lead, I provided strong team leadership through our team’s tremendous contribution to the brand’s growth over many years. This section provides a broad snapshot of the breadth and depth of my experience in QSR/convenience. Other specific campaigns are represented independently within my portfolio.
To the general public in new Sheetz markets, the idea of a gas station with delicious cuisine was a foreign concept. Most people don’t prefer to eat dinner at the same place they fill their gas tanks. The challenge was to get potential Sheetz customers to look past the pumps and give the food a fair try. Millennial men represented the core target audience for Sheetz. Millennials, in particular, are affected by the 24/7 nature of communication in the digital age. The ability to constantly connect and share updates intensifies the pressure to succeed and leads to constant comparison with peers. We used this human truth of "one-upsmanship" as the creative strategy for a Millennial-male-focused consideration campaign.
Sheetz wanted everyone watching the Super Bowl to understand you CAN get restaurant quality food at a gas station. So we were not only competing with the best ads of the year, we were also competing with decades of road warriors’ assumptions. Through stakeholder interviews and secondary research during the development of the strategy, we gleaned valuable human insights on consumer behaviors and attitudes pertaining to “assumptions”. The creative that was developed from the brief hit very transparently, and the client loved it.
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