Great Wolf Resorts: Great Wolf Lodge

How to develop 4 new restaurant concepts to increase hotel guest engagement for on-premise F&B locations

Challenge: Great Wolf Lodge resort guests  have a low engagement rate with Lodge F&B concepts.  There is an opportunity to increase this engagement with property food service operations that leverage the Great Wolf brand experience during guest stays which will drive revenue/profits and increase overall resort guest satisfaction, which will in turn lead to a higher conversion rates of first time guests to become brand repeaters.

Solution: We worked collaboratively with the Great Wolf F&B, Operations and Marketing teams to develop proprietary brands that are a fit with the overall Great Wolf brand.  Our team utilized a disciplined approach to bring new concepts to reality.  Steps included:

• Tour of properties
• Discovery Tour
• Brand Marketing Assessment
• Concept Book creation for four new proposed Great Wolf F&B concepts
• Brand Positioning sessions for each new Great Wolf F&B concept
• Menu engineering for each new concept followed by culinary development, menu design and food photography
• Marketing work to support each of the new concepts.

Rationale: Using the Ellish Marketing Group proprietary brand positioning process and a combined Discovery and Concept Book creation approach, four unique new restaurant concepts were developed – – each to attract a different segment of the hotel guests and/or eating occasions. The first of the four concepts has been successfully launched as the Lodge Wood Fired Grill.

Results: Tim Black, EVP of Great Wolf Resorts noted: “Great Wolf Resorts engaged Warren Ellish and Ellish Marketing Group in the fall of 2012 to assist us in rebranding our 11 domestic resorts F&B outlets.  Over the next 12 months we met for in-depth food Discovery tours and multi-day branding sessions.  The results have been nothing short of impressive! Many locations have now been rebranded, food quality and presentation have been greatly improved and our per guest spending is up high single digits.”