Photo courtesy of The White HouseThis might not come as too much of a surprise, but President Obama’s visit last month to the Taylor Gourmet restaurant on 14th Street NW provided quite the bump to the growing chain of sandwich shops, according to data compiled by a marketing agency.
A colorful flowchart whipped up by the creative marketing firm JESS3 shows that Obama’s 15-minute hoagie run back on May 16 raised Taylor Gourmet’s profile and caused sales to grow, especially of the sandwich the president ordered for himself. Obama, before taking seven more sandwiches back to the White House to share with a lunch with Congressional leaders, grabbed himself a Spruce Street, a turkey hoagie prepared with prosciutto, roasted red peppers and provolone.
Before Obama visited, that Taylor shop was dishing out an average of 21 Spruce Street sandwiches a day at each of its four locations; since May 16, that number has spiked to 53.
JESS3’s chart, as noted by The Huffington Post, also reports that in addition to sandwich sales, the presidential appearance significantly raised Taylor’s social media profile. On the day Obama dropped by, Taylor Gourmet climbed up the ranks of Twitter’s trending topics, while its reach across Facebook grew exponentially. Before the commotion, Taylor Gourmet’s Facebook page received an average of 36 views a day. Since then, it’s enjoyed 2,205 a day.
And don’t forget all the news coverage. In addition to DCist’s article, there were another 1,678 reports published about Obama’s visit.
Of course, this is the usual trend for eateries that get the White House’s stamp of approval. In March, following a campaign event at Boundary Road featuring the president and Michelle Obama, reservations spiked at the H Street NE restaurant. Michael Landrum called the day in May 2009 when President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden dropped in for lunch at Ray’s Hell Burger “one of the greatest days of my life.” (And it was pretty good exposure for the burger shop that had been open less than a year.)
Check out JESS3’s splashy data analysis:
