Marketing, Operations, and Partnerships Strategy for a Food Brand
Situation:
The client approached Rem and Company seeking support as a new restaurant in a competitive food corridor with limited brand awareness. Their priorities centered around attracting student customers, developing a campus presence, and establishing the operational foundation needed to support increased traffic. Throughout the project, their priorities remained consistent. They focused on student growth through marketing, partnerships, and operational structure.
Challenge:
Our client faced low visibility among university students despite having a strong product offering. As a new restaurant, they did not have recognizable branding, lacked a consistent social media cadence, and had minimal experience with student-focused outreach. Their internal processes such as ordering flow, menu clarity, pricing communication, and basic performance tracking were informal and inconsistent. Our team was tasked with improving marketing reach, identifying partnership opportunities with clubs and offices, and creating internal systems that would support long-term student demand.
Approach:
Our team began by analyzing the client’s existing operations, their online presence, competitor activity, and the product fit within the university market. We utilized three prongs (Marketing, User Experience, and Strategy) because the client required a well-rounded approach to early-stage growth.
Awareness was the client’s biggest barrier. We built a social media foundation that included a weekly content roadmap, student centered promotional calendar, and a clear brand messaging structure. We recommended strategies such as QR code flyers, on campus sampling, and micro influencer outreach to build visibility. These recommendations aligned with the marketing prong.
We benchmarked competitors in the area and identified student clubs, Greek organizations, and nearby offices as high potential catering channels. We created a catering menu, pricing direction, and outreach templates that the client could use immediately. This approach was informed by the partnerships and catering guidance provided by the client which emphasizes sampling events, student organization collaboration, and consistent outreach.
Our operational audit identified opportunities to improve menu design, ordering flow, packaging clarity, and prep consistency. We built workflow recommendations for scheduling, communication, and inventory routines and outlined several KPIs to track such as peak hour data, promotional conversion, and top sellers. These recommendations reflected the operational prong in the REM framework which focuses on system building, bottleneck reduction, and menu clarity.
Across all prongs, the team ensured that solutions were cost effective and realistic for a small business with limited staffing. We used insights from all three REM pillars to create a cohesive approach that strengthened the client's ability to grow within the student market.
Impact:
The project provided the client with a complete foundation for attracting and retaining university customers. Key outcomes included:
A full social media content calendar and brand messaging structure
A university themed promotional activation plan
A catering one pager and email templates for outreach to clubs and offices
Clear internal workflow recommendations and menu improvements
These deliverables created a repeatable growth system for the client. They reported improved ability to approach student organizations, plan campus events, and maintain a consistent online presence. The combined marketing, partnerships, and operational recommendations set them up for greater visibility, higher foot traffic, and stronger operational consistency.
Team Breakdown
Team Lead: Joshua Orlanski
Strategist: Noah Oh
Junior Strategist: Georgia Zander
Junior Strategist: Max Gart
Junior Strategist: Christian Yoo
Junior Strategist: Kai Cheng Tsai
Title: Kiko’s Korean Fried Chicken
Relevant Background Information
Business Type: For-Profit
Industry: Food and Beverage
Location: Nashville, TN
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