In 2017, Kip’s Irish Pub decided to upgrade its menus. They wanted to create a finer dining experience for their customers while still retaining their identity as a pub. From a marketing perspective, it was important to update the Kip’s Pub brand. The new menus did not reflect the existing brand as a rustic and authentic Irish pub. We landed on “an elevated pub experience” as the new tagline for Kip’s. In addition to streamlining the logo and updating the color scheme, it was decided to upgrade the website as well. For one, it was not responsive or even mobile-friendly and, secondly, all the visuals reflected the old branding. I created a responsive website and decided to use their monthly newsletter to announce the new website in a subverted way. On April 1st, 2017, I sent out an eblast to Kip’s subscribers announcing that they had changed their name from “Kip’s Irish Pub” to “Kip’s Sushi Bar”. This April Fool’s joke was intended to spark enough interest with the subscribers, that they click through to the new website. It worked! The eblast resulted in the highest click-through rate of any eblast sent in seven years. In 2017, the website was awarded the Bronze Award for Digital Marketing from HSMAI.
