• by Larissa Faw , July 5, 2016

This summer Cracker Barrel and Epsilon are promoting the restaurant chain's limited-time campfire-inspired menu items with "The Worst Camper in the World" campaign. 

Havas serves as Cracker Barrel’s AOR, but this campaign was developed independently by Epsilon as part of a project-based assignment.

Epsilon developed and produced the online video series which appears on Cracker Barrel's YouTube channel. In each of the three videos, “the worst camper in the world” runs into obstacles as he struggles to prepare a campfire meal.

In the Bacon spot, for instance, he advises viewers that the best way to keep bears away from a campsite is to place bacon everywhere.

As he faces each complication, a voice-over says “You don’t need to be a camper to get a great campfire meal,” encouraging viewers to opt for Cracker Barrel’s instead. 

Epsilon also created three emails to help promote the relaunch of Campfire Meals at Cracker Barrel. The first of the three emails launched the last week of June, with the other two debuting later this summer. 

Data is being utilized to help ensure that this campaign reaches its target audience. Epsilon brought new marketing techniques to Cracker Barrel that the chain hadn’t used before, including using Epilson-owned Conversant to target content delivery.  The Conversant team looked at behaviors of Cracker Barrel's target markets, created custom audience profiles and determined where and how to target messaging to most effectively drive traffic in stores. 

Meanwhile, online content is being targeted with location intelligence, including past Cracker Barrel visitors, visitors of competitive locations, as well as audience information targeted by age group.