Male Millennial Opps: Chili's taps menu AOR amid spend increases (Score 83)

Sales lead: Reach out to score some of these extra ad dollars & to see if Chili's needs any more agency assistance. 

• Chili's Grill & Bar appointed Signal Theory as its menu AOR in October 2023.
• Signal Theory is tasked with creating a new food & bar menu, food photography, feature cards, and multi-market tests. 
• Pile & Company handled the review for Chili's. 
• This closely follows Chili's adding GALE as CRM AOR in September. 

Target demographic: Millennials with a male skew

The company will likely:

• Revamp its menu & accompanying imagery
• Keep increasing ad spend/launch a campaign once it releases the new menu
• Continue seeking new agency partners

Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Chili's spent about $30m on national TV ads YTD after not airing an ad during the same time period of 2022. 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend totaled $453k in 2021. 
  • It did not utilize this channel during 2022. 
• Ad programming: It placed ads during programming such as NFL Football, College Basketball, College Football, NBA Basketball, and The Bachelor. 

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

• YTD spend: Chili's spent around $6.5m on digital display ads YTD, a significant increase from $514.7k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 841.9m impressions via Facebook (39%), Instagram (36%), YouTube (20%), desktop video (4%), and desktop display (1%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell from $1.2m in 2021 to $993.1k in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 100% of these ads directly onto sites such as facebook.com, instagram.com, youtube.com, twitch.tv, and genius.com. 

Additional channel insights  

• Vivvix: Chili's also utilizes OOH, radio, and local broadcast. 

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: Keep reaching out because Chili's has added two new agencies to its roster this year. 
• Current roster:
  • Mischief @ No Fixed Address: creative AOR
  • Edelman: PR AOR
  • GALE: CRM AOR
  • Signal Theory: menu AOR
  • Dentsu X: media AOR

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix.