Crafting pathways to growth for businesses & brands ready to accelerate

Industry Specialties:

  • Fast Casual, QSR, Casual Dining or Fine Dining

    Solving for the challenges of scale as you grow from 2 to 5 to 15 locations, jump to 50 or 100 locations; regional to national, or US to International territories

    Grow same-store sales, attract new customers, grow average check & same store sales. Tackle new markets, optimize your calendar planning, LTO process, go-to-market and product launches.

    Create feedback and input loops for franchise partners and key stakeholders that uncover, apply and scale best practices as competitive advantages.

    Activate your brand across channels, optimize touchpoints & maximize major investments in technology, agency partners, campaigns and partnerships.

  • multi-unit, omni-channel retail, converting pure-play eCommerce brands into driving revenue from physical channels

    Enhancing customer experience and activating brand DNA across every touchpoint.
    Leveraging experience growing S/S/S in highly competitive QSR & Casual Dining industry to grow transactions and ticket.

    Creating comprehensive omni-channel marketing, seasonal activations, calendar planning, category marketing plans, social and content strategy and partnerships; product/assortment launches.

    Bringing the key differentiators of your brand to life across touchpoints.

  • Comprehensive brand differentiation, positioning, targeting, activation & growth strategy.

    Consumer experience, engagement, loyalty and LTV strategy & initiatives.

    Sponsorship positioning & engagement (including planning & executing game-changing sponsor summits)

    Developing sub-brands, partner brands and ancillary revenue initiatives.

  • Brand Development, competitive landscape & positioning, strategic planning, go-to-market (in conjunction with Commercial/Sales teams), development of brand/category development model, consumer journey mapping.

    Comprehensive marketing planning, team analysis & role recommendations, agency search, onboarding & recommendation

  • Advisory services for applications and service lines targeting:

    • restaurant industry and marketers, operators or other functions

    • marketing departments or senior level marketers

    Help with positioning, UVP, content strategy, pitch doctoring and target customer.

Services for Growth & Innovation:

Starting at $3,500

Strategy Jumpstart

A deep dive on a single issue or opportunity to strengthen your strategic plan, ensuring maximum impact and ROI for your investments

Brand DNA Mining™

Uncover and leverage the elements that make your brand unique; and build an innovation and activation framework to engage consumers, create the right product or service extensions, or focus your efforts on initiatives that build long-term customer value and real revenue.

Brand Springboard™

Leveraging your brand’s key differentiators into a roadmap for growth and scale; guiding new product and services, channel or market expansion and content or activation opportunities.  Accelerate revenue, customer engagement and loyalty by identifying new pathways and optimizing your go-to-market strategies.

Flat-Fee Project/Retainer

What if you could ‘clone yourself’ as a CMO? Thought & action partner to explore/optimize opportunities and score big wins!

  • competitive or category analysis

  • new brands or products - early stage to testing and rollout

  • compelling activation plans & memorable brand experiences designed for ROI

  • search, selection & onboarding of agencies and strategic partners

Also available for fireside chats, panel moderator and keynote presentations

Contract & Retainer

Omni-channel marketing strategy, planning, leadership and integration

  • ‘Righting the ship” in turnarounds, through crisis and addressing underperformance. 2x turnaround veteran.

  • Grow your first/next CMO from within - preparing internal or junior marketers to take on larger roles

  • Installing processes to support rapid scale and/or growth while maintaining fundamentals of differentiation

  • Optimizing brand value, sales & customer LTV to accelerate PE/VC exits

Let's talk about your growth!

Let's talk about your growth!

About our Founder

Melissa Richards-Person lives at the sweet spot between 30,000 feet and the last mile; with a passion for what makes consumers tick and how to use that to drive discovery of, engagement with and loyalty to brands. She’s helped shepherd strategy, creative, experiential, research, social, digital media, and PR programs in four continents and five languages during her 25-year global marketing career.
Her extensive brand leadership at KFC and Papa John’s - as well as her time in field marketing and sponsorship for Starbucks and Olive Garden- shaped her approach to brand-led growth, and makes her a well-rounded advisor and activator for C-suite leadership, founders and funders alike.

Recent Appearances

  • Forging Authentic Connections

    When does an interview leave a lasting impression? In conversation with Lara Schmoisman of The Darl for her Coffee No 5 Podcast. We discuss being memorable, navigating global marketing across two decades and how our shared backgrounds in Field Marketing inform our approaches.

    LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

  • Label Sessions Presents Brand DNA

    It’s NEVER been “brand marketing” VS “performance marketing.” It has always been both! Hear Melissa talk more about applying her ‘brand as north star’ approach using Brand DNA.

    LISTEN NOW

  • The Difference Between Brand and Marketing

    For members of the Cherry Bombe Bombesquad; Melissa did a Brand 101 seminar and Q&A

    LEARN MORE