USIM | Agency Profile, Contacts, AOR, Client Relationships

• Guajardo, a former president at Focus Brands, will Blaze the way for product innovation, both on the menu and with store formats, and smaller prototypes.
  • As far as product innovation is concerned, Blaze will soon launch a new dessert and teamed up with Coca-Cola to revamp its beverage line 
• He reported that Blaze needs "to be more local to the needs of the customer,” which leads me to believe it's investing in localized ad space around its physical locations.
• Guajardo seems to have succeeded Amanda Shaw, Blaze's president and CEO since August 2019.
  • Shaw originally joined the company in January 2018 as its CFO.
• The company has started working to give people more reasons to visit its restaurants by targeting multi-daypart opportunities.
  • ​​​​​​​However, it's still promoting its pickup, curbside, and delivery services.
• The company will likely:
  • ​​​​​​​Continue ramping up spend
  • Conduct agency reviews
• Target demographic: 
  • ​​​​​​​Gen-Z and millennials, especially parents who don't work during "typical" 9-5 hours

Additional spending insights:

• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • 2021-2022 spend: Blaze spent roughly $8.2m on digital ads last year, almost double the roughly $4.9m spent in 2021.
  • 2022 data: In 2022, the pizza chain earned ~1b digital impressions, 52% via Instagram (51%) and Facebook (49%) ads.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes Google Ads.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: CEO hires don't always lead to agency reviews, but I still suggest reaching out to remain top-of-mind.
  • ​​​​​​​Blaze and both of its agency partners are headquartered in CA, so an advantage may go to those in that area.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​: Media and digital agency partner
  • : PR agency partner

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by .