Chicken Salad Chick focuses on expansion as it increases ad spend (Score 28)

Sales lead: Reach out if you can aid this company with its expansion efforts. 

• Chicken Salad Chick (CSC) recently disclosed some details regarding its expansion plans. 
• The chain, which launched in 2008, currently operates around 230 locations.
• Its current goal is to reach 500 by the end of 2025.
• CSC just announced agreements for new locations in TX, VA, IL, CO, and IN.

Target demographic: Gen-X & millennial women

The company will likely:

• Keep ramping up digital ad spend
• Increase promotional activity & local advertising for new openings
• Seek PR assistance

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: CSC spent about $1.4m on digital display ads YTD, an 87% increase from $747.3k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022.
• YTD data: 188.9m impressions via Facebook (81%), YouTube (9%), Instagram (8%), and desktop display (1%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend jumped 91% from $837k in 2021 to $1.6m in 2022.
• Ad location: It placed 99% of these ads directly onto sites such as facebook.com, youtube.com, instagram.com, nbcwashington.com, and wsav.com. It placed 1% of these ads indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto sites such as football.fantasysports.yahoo.com, fanfiction.net, zillow.com, signupgenius.com, and uberhumor.com. 

 Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: I recommend offering PR services to help CSC promote new locations.
• Current roster:
  • Bloom Ads: media AOR
  • Norton Creative: creative

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics.