The LTO, or limited time offer, is a staple of restaurant marketing. Whether the goal is to test potential new menu items, highlight seasonality, or give guests a new reason to visit, the restaurant LTO shows up on most restaurant marketing plans. When it does, we create the campaign that makes this tried and true restaurant marketing strategy feel fresh.

For larger clients, we develop an omnichannel marketing campaign for each LTO that’s built around cornerstone creative. This key art combines photography, graphics, copy and typography to showcase the LTO across marketing channels. From in-store POP, menus and banners, to digital assets including website and social media, and paid media. The key art ties the restaurant marketing campaign together, ensuring that messaging across all channels is consistent and compelling.

How do we get there?

After a creative brainstorm, the first visual component of a restaurant LTO marketing campaign is a sketch. The sketch gives us a reference for the food photography that forms the core of the campaign. Before the shoot, we hunt down the props, ingredients, flavor cues and other details that ensure that we nail not just the photo, but the branding. (Those red, white and blue striped pot holders were so perfect for Handel’s).  At the same time, our copywriters draft a batch of headlines, so we can ensure that the whole campaign ties together. Once the food photography is done, the graphic design team takes their turn, adding backgrounds, surfaces, textures and typography to bring the LTO to life.

Depending on the campaign, we may shoot two concepts for a client to choose from, or as many as 6 pieces of key art that work together for a store takeover. Once the concepts are approved by the client, we roll them out to all of the different creative applications.

Make a Splash

Whatever the product, our creative process ensures that our client’s creative makes a splash – sometimes literally!