Capriotti’s hired Kim Lewis, who is in love with the chain’s audience and Wagyu Cheesesteaks.
Sandwich concept Capriotti’s is beefing up its executive team with Kim Lewis, its first chief marketing officer. After her time with Sonic Drive-In, Lewis will bring her restaurant experience and love of Wagyu Cheesesteaks to the nearly 50-year-old brand.
Lewis has held various marketing roles over the last 20 years of her career with both restaurant and retail concepts. One of her goals at Sonic was to create more customer interaction with the brand.
“In 2017, restaurants were just beginning to really jump into that digital space,” said Lewis. “Within the broader space, especially as you got into smaller brands, they just weren’t there yet.”
Retail marketing at the time was way ahead of restaurants in terms of direct marketing to consumers, so Lewis used those skills for restaurants. Lewis took on answering consumer questions like “Why would I order through an app?” or “Why would I give my information to Sonic for promotions?” among others.
While Sonic was ahead of the game, Lewis’s idea regarding direct customer interaction was foundational during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those direct consumer questions became pretty easy to answer with everything shut down. Ease of ordering and knowing when sales were going on garnered customer loyalty, which became a huge boon for Sonic.
Kim Lewis.
“Sonic had a big head start by having the foresight to do that,” said Lewis. “Now it’s really part of the go-to market plan is how they’re going to capitalize those digital channels and performance-based marketing.”
With 175 units operating, Capriotti’s is a smaller beast compared to Sonic but much of Lewis’ job will remain the same. The food attracted her to the brand as well as the chance to be more involved on the individual side of Captriotti’s.
“I jumped at the opportunity to dive into a smaller brand,” said Lewis. “I love how hands on I can be with each shop, with individual franchisees, with marketing tactics and really molding the shape of where we want to take this brand as we move towards ambitious growth plans.”
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Stepping into the role in February, Lewis embraces the loyal customers and uses their experiences to drive new sales. Once new customers are sold on the brand, creating is the next step. The current campaign, “Sub-sessed,” is part of the effort to embrace loyal customers while driving curiosity in Capriotti’s.
By next February, Lewis plans to keep driving that loyalty for Capriotti’s as it grows.
“I’ll be honing on that curiosity so people feel like that have to come try it,” said Lewis. “One year from now, I’d love to see progress in all areas.”