Brand comparison project for Digital Marketing Analytics class, comparing Olive Garden and Carrabba's social/digital marketing presence.

1. WHO POSTED IT BETTER?
CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL VS
OLIVE GARDEN
Samantha Snyder
February 28, 2017
Carrabba’s Italian Grill
2202 N.West Shore Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33607
(800) 354-1416
Olive Garden
1000 Darden Center Dr
Orlando, FL 32837
(407) 245-4000

2. Executive Summary………………………………………………………………. 3
History…………………………………………………………………………… 4
Audience Profiles…………………………………………………………………. 6
Goals and Strategies……………………………………………………………… 7
Social Media Metrics…………………………………………………………….... 9
Platforms…………………………………………………………………………. 11
Facebook……………………………………………………………………. 12
Twitter………………………………………………………………………. 14
Instagram……………………………………………………………………. 16
Email………………………………………………………………………… 18
In-Store Engagement……………………………………………………………... 20
Recent Campaigns……………………………………………………………….. 22
Summary…………………………………………………………………………. 26
TABLEOFCONTENTS

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Carrabba’s Italian Grill Olive Garden
Year Founded 1986 1982
Founding Location Houston,TX Orlando, FL
Number of Stores 242 837
2014 Revenue $710 Million $3.8 Billion
2014 Average Per-Person Check $21.00 $16.50
Facebook Likes 406,465 6,622,557
Twitter Followers 24.8k 363k
Instagram Followers 8,795 357k
Carrabba’s Italian Grill and Olive Garden are two of many Italian-American Cuisine restaurant chains. Carrabba’s
was founded in 1986 by an uncle-nephew pair in Houston,TX and currently has approximately 250 stores across
the United States.As a chain, Carrabba’s makes up 17% of Bloomin’ Brands’ revenue and has a combined social
following of approximately 440,000 users. Olive Garden, started in 1982, is a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants,
Inc.With 837 stores across the globe, Olive Garden accounts for approximately 55% of Darden revenue. Across
all active social platforms, Olive Garden has an approximate collective following of 7,342,557. 3

4. In 1986, Carrabba’s Italian Grill (or simply Carrabba’s) was founded in Houston,TX by Johnny Carrabba and his uncle,
Damian Mandola.The restaurant focuses on family, history and “traditional” Italian cuisine made from family recipes. It
is known for high quality food and customer experiences.
The restaurant was expanded through a joint venture with Outback Steakhouse, Inc. and expansion rights were
bought by Bloomin’ Brands (formerly Outback Steakhouse, Inc.) in 1995. Carrabba’s is now headquartered inTampa,
FL and has approximately 250 stores across the United States.
HISTORY OF CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL
The first Carrabba’s
has been
remodeled, but still
stands in its’
original location in
Houston,TX.
”There is no love more sincere than the love of food”
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5. HISTORY OF OLIVE GARDEN
Olive Garden was founded in 1982 as a unit of General Mills, Inc. in Orlando, FL. It quickly became the fastest
growing unit in the General Mills, Inc. restaurant division, growing by an average of 20 stores per year for the
first 7 years after opening.
General Mills, Inc. later split their restaurant business off into
a freestanding company called Darden Restaurants, Inc. in
1995. Headquartered in Orange County, FL, Olive Garden is
now a global brand with over 800 stores.
“We’re all family here”
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6. CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL
Carrabba’s initially targeted
families, friends, and “regulars.”
As the brand has matured, an
older, more affluent crowd has
been the focus of targeted
marketing. A wealthier man or
woman between the ages of 27
and 65 is the general targeted
demographics group.
Olive Garden’s traditional target
market includes wealthy families
and seniors. Recently, various
campaigns and menu changes
have been initiated to attract a
more “financially constrained”
guest.
OLIVE GARDEN
AUDIENCE PROFILES
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7. Carrabba’s is a growing restaurant.With less than
300 stores in the United States, brand awareness
is key to expanding into new markets. Using
YouTube, Carrabba’s is sharing video content
with socially relevant themes (think TastyVideos)
that are also rich with Carrabba’s history and the
familial relationships so engrained in the
restaurant’s culture.
Carrabba’s is currently positioned as a middle-to-upper-middle
class family-friendly restaurant, however they are trying to
attract an older, wealthier clientele as well. Carrabba’s is
appealing to this group with monthly 4 course Italian wine
dinners through email campaigns and TV commercials.
GOALS AND STRATEGIES | CARRABBA’S
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8. Olive Garden’s present
clientele is middle-to-
upper class families and
upper-class seniors. In an
effort to expand into new
markets, Olive Garden is
utilizing Facebook to
reach Baby Boomers by
promoting quick and
affordable lunch specials
for the working individual.
GOALS AND STRATEGIES | OLIVE GARDEN
Olive Garden has an
average check-per-person
of $16.50. Lately, there has
been a focus on attracting
a more “financially
constrained” consumer.
Lower-price-point menu
items, buy-one-take-one
entrée deals and a “Kids
eat for $1!” email
campaign have been
implemented in an effort
to penetrate this market.
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9. SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
• Strength: the likelihood that a brand is being talked about on the social web
• Sentiment: the ratio of generally positive to generally negative comments
being made
• Passion: the likelihood that people talking about the brand on the social web
will continue to do so
• Reach: the number of unique individuals talking about the brand divided by
the number of mentions
When assessing the digital health of a brand, there are 4 particular metrics that are particularly helpful.
Using SocialMention, it is possible to search any brand, product, etc. and see how often people are
talking about that particular keyword, how they feel about it, how likely they are to keep talking about
it, etc.The following terms explain each metric and their importance to the SocialMention report.
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10. CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL
33%
Strength
6:1
Sentiment
26%
Passion
37%
Reach
Unique Authors 59
Positive Comments 13
Neutral Comments 58
Negative Comments 2
OLIVE GARDEN
SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
67%
Strength
6:1
Sentiment
23%
Passion
58%
Reach
Unique Authors 128
Positive Comments 34
Neutral Comments 130
Negative Comments 7
When comparing SocialMention reports, it is clear that Olive Garden has a much larger presence in
social conversation that Carrabba’s. However, this is to be expected as the Olive Garden chain is
almost 4 times larger than Carrabba’s.The most interesting numbers from the above tables are the
passion percentages—users are 26% likely to talk about Carrabba’s continually, and only 24% likely to
continue talking about Olive Garden. Perhaps this is because the Carrabba’s customer base is generally
younger (and more active on social media) than the customer base of Olive Garden.
**these numbers are aggregate averages of data collected over a 4 week period.
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11. PLATFORMS

12. The Carrabba’s Facebook page features bright,
beautiful, food-centric images, customer service
responses, and various company status updates.
Carrabba’s does an outstanding job of sharing a
balanced assortment of post-types: encouragement for
customer engagement, promotional ads, general brand
awareness, as well as capitalizing on a few pop-culture
moments.The page is polished and posts are
appropriate for the intended audience. All branding on
the page is good quality and up to date. Carrabba’s
posts once every 10-14 days, which seems to be a
slower-than-appropriate cadence. However, Carrabba’s
responds to consumer engagement with their posts
quickly with a personal, warm tone.
FACEBOOK | CARRABBA’S
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13. Olive Garden’s Facebook page features images of
steamy, fresh, delicious looking pasta dishes,
humorous gifs, and calls to action (“place a
catering order,” “share,” “comment below”).The
cadence of Olive Garden’s posts is too quick,
flooding the timelines of followers, resulting in
engagement disproportionate to number of
followers.While the posts are beautiful and
promote daily deals, limited-time-only specials
and company updates, the captions are often not
appropriate for this platform, or for their older,
wealthier client base.
FACEBOOK | OLIVE GARDEN
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14. Carrabba’sTwitter page
features the same cover photo
that can be found on
Facebook. Carrabba’sTwitter
engagement seems to consist
almost entirely of customer
service engagement, with an
estimated average response
time of less than 3 hours.
While Twitter is a powerful
tool for customer service,
Carrabba’s is not utilizing the
full potential of this platform.
TWITTER | CARRABBA’S
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15. Olive Garden’sTwitter page is visually consistent with other Olive Garden
social accounts.Tweet-style varies widely and beautifully takes advantage
of several Twitter features like pinned tweets, polls, contests, and GIF &
video support. Olive Garden shares content that is appropriate for this
platform’s typical age demographic, and also appeals to the newer
”financially constrained” consumer that Olive Garden is trying to reach.
TWITTER | OLIVE GARDEN
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16. Carrabba’s Instagram features
dazzling pictures of delicious
looking food and wine, without a
“sales-y” tone. Most of the
pictures on the page appear to be
professionally shot and are
aesthetically pleasing.The page
also features links to blog posts
with recipes and links toYouTube
videos on wine education. Posts
include appropriate hashtags, have
a regular cadence and often drive
traffic back to other content.
During a 4 week research period,
Carrabba’s Instagram followers
grew by 3%— more than any
other platform for either
restaurant chain.
INSTAGRAM | CARRABBA’S
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17. Olive Garden’s Instagram account has a mix of professional images and what appears to
be user-generated content. Posts have a very high cadence and often feature humorous,
cheeky or promotional captions.Although the captions are an obvious attempt at being
socially relevant and invoking social conversation, they often miss the mark and come
off as not age-appropriate for Olive Garden’s audience.
INSTAGRAM | OLIVE GARDEN
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18. Carrabba’s opt-in email newsletter was sent out 6 times during the research period—an appropriate
cadence of one email per week with one time-sensitive promotion and oneValentine’s Day promotional
email.The emails look polished and are visually consistent with Carrabba’s social media presence. Each
email contains an aesthetically pleasing balance of words and copy, and only appropriate calls to action.
EMAIL | CARRABBA’S
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19. Olive Garden has an opt-in email
newsletter that includes time-
sensitive promotional deals, holiday
reminders, and general awareness
campaigns.The emails themselves are
very simple with an audience-
appropriate tone, which differs from
the tone of other digital platforms.
Over the course of a 4 week
research period, Olive Garden sent
out 12 emails (avg 3/week)—a
seemingly high cadence for the busy,
money-strapped baby boomers they
are intended to target. One-third of
the emails contained words like
“Hurry!” and “For a limited time!” in
the subject lines.While a sense of
urgency surrounding promotions can
be helpful, using this tactic too often
can make a consumer feel as though
they can get a good deal at any time,
thus put off visiting an Olive Garden,
and instead visiting a restaurant with
promotions that feel more exclusive.
EMAIL | OLIVE GARDEN
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20. IN-STORE ENGAGEMENT

21. CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL
Carrabba’s has sign in the front of the store
on the sidewalk encouraging visitors to
download the Carrabba’s app.There is also
a sticker on the front door and table tents
encouraging the app download and further
description of the app’s capabilities.
Olive Garden has Ziosk machines (tabletop
ordering tablets). On this machine, users
are able to download games to play, browse
the dessert menu, order another drink, pay
their bill and enter their email address for
rewards points.
OLIVE GARDEN
Because Carrabba’s in-store digital engagement encourages users to download an app they can
access at any time, and the Ziosk machines only offer in-store engagement, Carrabba’s is the
clear “vincitore!” in this category.
IN-STORE ENGAGEMENT
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22. RECENT CAMPAIGNS

23. VALENTINE’S DAY | CARRABBA’S
Carrabba’sValentine’s Day campaign can be described as simple but powerful.
The campaign was visually consistent over all mediums, contained beautiful and
emotion-eliciting images, and a very simple call to action:“Say ’I love you’ the
Italian way.” In addition to pre-holiday digital promotions, the campaign also
included an in-store promotion for digital engagement on every table.
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24. Olive Garden’sValentine’s Day Campaign
was less polished and less extensive.The
only mentions of the holiday are found on
the chain’s Instagram—which featured a
platform-appropriate, though poorly
executed, Boomerang—and an email that
features a new dish. Olive Garden missed
the mark on what could have been a fun
campaign for an extremely industry-
relevant holiday.
VALENTINE’S DAY | OLIVE GARDEN
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25. SUMMARY

26. VINCITORE:
CARRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL
After comparing Facebook,Twitter, Instagram, Email campaigns and in-store
engagement, it is clear that Carrabba’s Italian Grill has a polished, audience
appropriate social presence that correctly and efficiently utilizes several
different social platforms. Olive Garden, though a larger and longer standing
restaurant chain, has not developed a consistent or appropriate social
presence for the channels they engage with or their target audience.
It is assumed that as Carrabba’s grows as a restaurant chain, their digital
presence will grow as well—in followers and sophistication. Should Olive
Garden wish to compete in the digital space with Carrabba’s, it is
recommended that a new vision be created, mapped out and executed for
their social media presence.
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