Dat Dog

A funky, New Orleans-based upscale hot dog and sausage restaurant.

Overview & Objectives

Dat Dog currently has three local locations, serving sausages, hamburgers, chicken, fish and veggie dogs on its signature toasted hotdog buns. A New Orleans cult favorite, Dat Dog tapped Bond Moroch to help grow local market share and begin expanding outside of the Big Easy through franchising and corporate-owned locations.

Approach

With extensive restaurant and multi-unit franchising experience, our team helped Dat Dog’s sales and marketing efforts in a multitude of ways: We helped Dat Dog streamline local promotions; advised on limited-time offerings; we helped them begin scaling down the menu; better utilize their social media channels; and explore additional revenue streams, such as merchandise and private party sales. Finally, we launched a social media advertising campaign and created branded content to boost engagement and drive event attendance.

We also spearheaded the launch of Dat Dog’s franchising program, leading to multi-unit signed franchise agreements for both the Houston and Baton Rouge markets. To communicate Dat Dog’s story to potential franchisees, we created a franchising brochure for use at trade shows and online. We also leveraged Dat Dog’s franchising announcement extensively in the media, garnering positive stories on Dat Dog at the local and national level through business and trade publications.

Results & Impact

We secured numerous media articles announcing Dat Dog’s franchising, including QSR, Franchise Times, The Advocate (New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette editions), New Orleans CityBusiness, Biz New Orleans and more. We also helped secure a bylined article for Dat Dog’s president in Fast Casual’s “State of the Industry” annual issue and upcoming features in key trade publications Restaurant Hospitality and Flavor & the Menu.

Media coverage directly resulted in multiple inquiries from potential franchisees, leading to signed contracts for 25 stores in Houston and three in Baton Rouge.

We also secured ongoing, brand-building coverage locally and nationally, such as features in USAToday.com, BravoTV.com, A.V. Club, Nola.com, all local TV stations, New Orleans Magazine and more.

During our campaign managing PR and social media, sales increased by 10% YOY. Additionally, we helped grow their social impressions by 105%, engagements by nearly 650% and increased total fans across all channels by 142%.