Inside the judge's room for Favor Delivery's Gold Effie

Summary

Podcast Summary: On Strategy Showcase – "Inside the Judge's Room for Favor Delivery's Gold Effie"

Introduction

In the August 3, 2025 episode of On Strategy Showcase, host Fergus O’Carroll delves into the award-winning campaign by Favor Delivery and its agency, Preacher, which secured a Gold Effie at the US FES. The episode offers listeners an exclusive look into the judging process of the Effie Awards and explores the strategic brilliance behind Favor Delivery's successful campaign. Fergus is joined by Emily Portnoy, Chief Strategy Officer for BBDO New York and a final-round judge for the Effies, as well as Saher Sikandar, Associate Strategy Director at Preacher, and Chris Raji, Senior Director of Brand and Creative for Favor Delivery.

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Inside the Effie Judges' Room

Understanding the Judging Process

Fergus begins by expressing his curiosity about the Effie judging process, a sentiment shared by many listeners. To shed light on this, he welcomes Emily Portnoy, who provides an in-depth overview of what happens during the final judging rounds.

Emily explains that the final Effie judging process is intense and highly objective. Judges spend several hours focused solely on evaluating cases, ensuring there are no conflicts of interest. Each judge works individually, scoring cases based on their effectiveness without any peer influence.

"Judging for the Effies, particularly in the final round, is not for the faint of heart... it's one of the most objective judging processes out there."
— Emily Portnoy [02:12]

She emphasizes that judges receive no prior information about the cases they will evaluate, maintaining complete impartiality.

"You walk in completely blind to the process. You don't know what categories or cases you're going to see."
— Emily Portnoy [03:48]

The discussion highlights that while judges engage in debates to explore different perspectives, each judge's score remains confidential, making Gold Effies especially prestigious due to the rigorous evaluation.

"Winning a Gold Effie is rare or meaningful because you have all these folks that are super obsessed with effectiveness and pretty judgy people."
— Emily Portnoy [06:08]

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Favor Delivery: Brand Background and Challenges

From Expansion to Texas Focus

Following the conversation with Emily, Fergus introduces Saher Sikandar and Chris Raji, who provide background on Favor Delivery. Chris recounts the company's origins and strategic shifts:

"Favor, we're an on-demand delivery company here in Texas. We started back in 2013 and expanded outside of Austin between 2015-2017, even reaching Canada briefly."
— Chris Raji [12:22]

However, in 2017, Favor made the strategic decision to refocus solely on Texas, recognizing that their strength lay in their deep understanding of the local market rather than competing in oversaturated areas.

"We saw being in Texas as our superpower. We live here, we're from here, and we know Texas better than anyone."
— Chris Raji [15:18]

Acquisition by HEB

In 2018, Favor was acquired by HEB, a leading Texan grocer, enhancing their market position by leveraging HEB's extensive reach and reputation.

"HEB needed to get into grocery delivery, and partnering with Favor made sense for both parties."
— Chris Raji [17:12]

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Strategic Campaign Development

Identifying the Core Challenge

Saher discusses the strategic challenge faced by Favor: maintaining growth amidst increasing competition from giants like Uber and DoorDash. The pandemic had boosted Favor’s popularity, but as consumer habits shifted post-COVID, a revitalized marketing strategy was essential to sustain and grow their market share.

"We needed a strategic partner to set us on the right path again and refresh our messaging."
— Chris Raji [19:22]

Developing the "How Texas Orders In" Campaign

Preacher embarked on developing a campaign that resonated deeply with both long-time Texans and the influx of new residents. The strategy hinged on leveraging Texas pride while addressing the unique needs of newcomers seeking community and belonging.

"Our strategic insight was to make Favor not just a delivery service, but a symbol of Texas pride and community."
— Saher Sikandar [21:39]

Emily Portnoy lauds the simplicity and effectiveness of Favor's strategy, highlighting how it transformed a local delivery service into a cultural icon.

"The strategy was sharp and simple, making it retroactively obvious why it worked."
— Emily Portnoy [06:55]

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Campaign Execution and Creative Direction

Crafting Authentic Narratives

The campaign featured relatable stories of newcomers adapting to Texan life, seamlessly integrating Favor Delivery as a facilitator of both convenience and community connection. Two key TV spots are highlighted:

1. Neighborhood Yard Work Spot: A newcomer struggles with yard work, and friendly neighbors offer unsolicited help, illustrating Texas hospitality.

   "Texans love ordering food with Favor, the restaurant delivery app that's part of HEB, and that front yards are for celebrating your kids' accomplishments."
   — Emily Portnoy [33:28]

2. Family Yard Sign Spot: A native Texan explains the local yard sign culture to a newcomer, reinforcing Favor’s role in fostering community ties.

Multi-Channel Rollout

Chris outlines the comprehensive rollout strategy, which included TV spots, digital ads, social media campaigns, and earned media efforts. This 360-degree approach ensured that both new and existing customers engaged with the refreshed Favor brand across all touchpoints.

"We went live on all our channels, creating a unified presence that resonated with our diverse customer base."
— Chris Raji [34:09]

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Results and Recognition

The "How Texas Orders In" campaign proved highly effective, surpassing competitors like Grubhub in Texas and securing two Effie Awards, including Gold. Emily praises the campaign for its clever integration of local culture and strategic insight.

"They made us all smile in the judges' room with their witty and provocative approach."
— Emily Portnoy [10:01]

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Future Directions

Looking ahead, Saher shares that Favor and Preacher plan to continue building on the campaign’s success with new executions that further explore Texas culture's richness.

"We're excited to try new expressions and own the sandbox we set with our first campaign."
— Saher Sikandar [36:48]

Chris echoes this sentiment, emphasizing ongoing collaboration to maintain Favor’s position as a Texas cultural staple.

"We've already done a bunch of campaigns since the original 'How Texas Orders In' and are working on another one that's about to come out."
— Saher Sikandar [36:48]

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Fergus commending the collaborative efforts of Favor Delivery and Preacher, underlining the campaign's role in reinforcing Favor's brand identity and market leadership in Texas. Listeners are encouraged to visit the On Strategy Showcase website and YouTube channel for more detailed case studies and episodes.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "Judging for the Effies... is one of the most objective judging processes out there." — Emily Portnoy [02:12]
• "You walk in completely blind to the process." — Emily Portnoy [03:48]
• "Winning a Gold Effie is rare... because you have all these folks that are super obsessed with effectiveness." — Emily Portnoy [06:08]
• "We saw being in Texas as our superpower." — Chris Raji [15:18]
• "HEB needed to get into grocery delivery... they just realized, hey, we've got to provide our customers with a delivery option as well." — Chris Raji [17:12]
• "We needed a strategic partner to set us on the right path again." — Chris Raji [19:22]
• "The strategy was sharp and simple, making it retroactively obvious why it worked." — Emily Portnoy [06:55]
• "Texans love ordering food with Favor... and that front yards are for celebrating your kids' accomplishments." — Emily Portnoy [33:28]
• "We've already done a bunch of campaigns since the original and are working on another one." — Saher Sikandar [36:48]

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This episode provides a comprehensive look into the meticulous Effie judging process and the strategic ingenuity behind Favor Delivery's award-winning campaign. It underscores the importance of local cultural resonance and strategic focus in crafting effective marketing campaigns.

Transcript

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll in Chicago. Today we are going to be focusing on a great case that came out of the US FES this past year. It's favored delivery and their agency is Preacher out of Austin, Texas. Now I love this case and if you're into Effie cases as much as I am, you can go to our website and under the Effie's tab on the Homepage there's about 150, if I'm not mistaken, about 150 episodes that are on there that are Effie. So you can browse through all of those episodes and play them as you wish. We've also just launched last month our YouTube channel and we have episodes posting there every week, new episodes. So you can go there and not only now listen to the show, but you can watch the show. I'm not sure if that's an advantage or not, but you can be the judge of that. One of the things that I wanted to do today because I'm super curious about it is I have never been in a judge's room. So I was very curious to understand what happens in the judge's room during Effie's and so I've invited Emily Portnoy, she is Chief Strategy Officer for BBDO New York to join us. She was a final rounds judge in the David and Goliath category this year and it was a gold Effie that Favor and Preacher won out of that judges room. So I wanted to actually ask Emily to come in and share a little bit about her, her impressions of the favor case study, but also and for me personally, more importantly, what happens inside the judge's room. So before we hear about the case, let's have a conversation with Emily. So I've always been fascinated by the judging process and we see photographs of the judging process so I'm like really interested literally in how it happens. I see pictures of 10 people in a room, Emily, and they're all looking at their computers. Something's happening. So tell us a little bit about what's actually going on in that room and how, how does it, how, what's the flow like?

[Emily Portnoy]

Well, I could probably talk about the FE judging process for a long, long time. I'm actually quite passionate about it in the most nerdy ways. But really, you know, judging for the Effie's particularly final round, it is not for the faint of heart. You definitely need a lot of snacks and you need a lot of energy. It's a pretty much you have to commit to A half day or a full day. First and foremost, when you go into the room, it really is complete and total focus. One of the things I love most about the FES is that I do believe it is one of the most objective judging processes out there. Every detail in terms of how it's orchestrated is really meant to truly, really reward effectiveness. So, you know, the. The last day, the final round. Judges, you probably have anywhere from six to 10 folks in a room, all very, very senior clients and marketers and strategists. They actually spend a lot of time orchestrating the judges to make sure that there won't be any conflicts of interest in terms of judging the cases. So they try to make sure that your agency is not in the cases that you'll see or a client. But I really hold a lot of respect for them because it's a pretty strict process. And really what we do is each room has a set of categories that they go through during the day, and you may have two cases or six for each one. What we each have is we each have our computers, we each have a portal. It is anonymous and it is individualized. And it is quite intense in terms of the scoring process. So we sit there, we probably have a lot of snacks and some coffee, and we start to go through the cases. And so, you know, we pretty much get about 15 minutes to read through the case, which, if, you know, FES is quite exhaustive and comprehensive.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And would you have. Would you have read the case in advance of sitting in final?

[Emily Portnoy]

No, actually, that's a really important point. You don't know what categories you're going to see, and you don't know what cases you're going to see.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Interesting.

[Emily Portnoy]

You walk in completely blind to the process.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So it's not like you're a jury in a jury room who has heard the arguments. You don't know you're in there because of your qualities and your experience with a mix of people. I didn't know that. That is fascinating.

[Emily Portnoy]

You know, I think that's something I wish more people did know. Because you can't lobby for an effie. It is actually impossible to lobby for an EFFIE because of how individualized and objective the judging process is, not just in the final rounds, but even kind of round by round to get there. Because the way it works is you score based on the different components, up to 100. And even that, even what we give in that room that day gets combined with all the other scores that the case received along the way, which we have no visibility into and we never will know what it is. And it's computerized and it's actual and it's fair. So no, you can never lobby for an fe. Actually Fergus, it's not possible.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And so when you talk about, you get 15, 20 minutes, whatever to read the case. So that's what I'm seeing when I see photographs of people sitting around, they're studying, in essence, they're reading through the case. Maybe they're able to watch the case video. And then is there conversation without getting into details, is there conversation and debate?

[Emily Portnoy]

There is a lot of conversation and debate because that's also part of the effes. I'm glad you asked. So what I think is really unique is that the FES does not require consensus. So there is a lot of debate and people prod each other on the various cases. And maybe we try to see different perspectives. Maybe there's a client that might look at this differently than away an agency person. But ultimately you get to give your score and nobody ever sees your score. So yes, we do debate. But if you and I are debating something, you still may decide to not agree with me. And that is totally fine. And that is your right. And that's usually what happens. So no judges know what the other judges actually gave.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

I love that. So even when you leave after final judges round, you don't know what the win, what the. You don't know which case has won what or if anything. Right?

[Emily Portnoy]

No, I mean, I think sometimes you can have a gut. Sometimes there will be certain cases that are pretty unanimous in terms of the wow factor and how well the case was written, how clear the case study was and you know, the video itself, really bringing that to life. But I think that's why winning an effie, particularly a gold, is so rare or meaningful because you have sort of all these folks that are super obsessed with effectiveness and pretty judgy people. We're pretty judgy and we don't have to come to a consensus. So it's pretty hard to win a gold EFFIE because of that.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So this particular case that we're talking about today, Favor Delivery out of Texas Preacher, is the agency. What was it that first struck you about the case?

[Emily Portnoy]

So I personally believe that the best strategies are so sharp and so simple that they're retroactively obvious. In fact, that's a term that I use a lot here at bbdo and I try to hold my strategies to that with my team. And when we read the whole notion, when I read the notion of how Text disorders. And it was so simple that on sort of three levels. And I actually remember this without even reading the case, like, the first thing that impressed me. And I think with David and Goliath in particular, it's really hard because there's always a lot of scrutiny on, okay, well, how much are you really a David and is that really a Goliath? It was very, very clear in the business case that they were an icon that had lost ground and they were losing to the big guys and they realized they weren't going to be able to compete. So, like, first and foremost, super, super clear on the business reason for why they had to do something radically different. Then they found this amazing insight, which is like, turn our limitation into a superpower. Everybody loves those kind of strategies when they. And this time it really, really worked because it was all about making, you know, Texas Pride. Every. With every click, you're actually becoming more Texan. And I think we saw that play out with, okay, they had a cool insight. We're going to lean into Texas Pride. But they didn't stop there. They didn't just say, we're going to do this more broadly. They actually went to the target. And maybe we won't be able to share this, but, you know, they went to that target of really the new. The new Texans or the transplants. And yes, yes, to me, what I remember standing out, and this is how I remember it was, you know, with every click, you're not asking someone to choose a delivery service over another, but actually with every click, you are flexing your own Texas Pride and you're sort of becoming more Texas every time you interact with favor. And in a nutshell, months later, I still remember that case in those three sentences. And that, to me, is one of the reasons why it really stood out.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Nine million people moved to Texas since 2000. It's been a huge thing in the US and it recognized that when people move into a new market, particularly one with the level of pride that Texas has, people naturally want to find their way. They're open to trying new things, having new experiences. And that's what I loved about it, because they could have just been about. Were about Texas, but it was that extra layer, right. Of the newcomers as a device creatively, that really took. Took it to the top for me, absolutely.

[Emily Portnoy]

And I think for these newcomers, with every. Every time they interact with this brand and this app, they're not just feeding the hunger for tacos, but they're actually feeding this hunger for belonging. Because at the end of the Day when you move to a new place, you want to find your community, you want to belong, you want to start to understand what that culture is. And it was so clear that when you come into Texas and Texas has such a. You don't mess with Texas. They've got this big, big culture to actually give people a window and an ability to feel that they had a shortcut to that level of belonging was. Was really powerful and very, very smart. And it was done in a really witty, provocative manner. Creatively. They just made us all smile in the judges room.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Why do you think it was worthy of a gold?

[Emily Portnoy]

So I think a lot of times we talk about, you know, challenger brands and sometimes it's a herculean feat to try to beat a bigger guy at the own. At their own game. And it was very, very clear. And they put they were never going to win on more features. They were never going to win on more budget, they were never going to win in more noise or more deals. And so they just boldly said, we are never going to win at this game. So we have to write radically different rules that only we can play by and therefore only we can win. Which again, retroactively is sort of the challenger brand playbook. But they doubled down on, you know, what they. What made them different. I think what really stood out was that line, you know, proudly unavailable in 49 states. They just brought this attitude to doubling down on the fact that they were not the big guys, that they were local and they made this batch of honor. And you know, similar to what you said, it was the audience piece that was so smart that he put it over the edge. Cause it could have just been about generic Texas pride or spirit. I don't think it would have landed that idea that they really. They made a welcome mat. And they also made it an inside joke at the same time.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Yeah.

[Emily Portnoy]

Is one way to think about it. And I think it was that. It was that combination and that duality that really put it over the edge. Because they carried that reframe throughout everything. You could see it threaded through to the work, to why they did what they did. And all of a sudden it was very clear they were no longer just background noise and this icon that had faded into the background, but it was actually kind of put on a pedestal. And Texans wanted to put it on a pedestal because it was able to awaken something just because of how clever and real they were in the Texas isms, for lack of a better word, that were really able to create that lightning rod and that Rallying Cry and ultimately leapfrog past competition. The stats were through the roof. I know we can't go into details, but they were pretty impressive.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

It's Emily Portnoy, chief strategy officer for BBDO in New York. Thanks so much for being a part of this. Great to see you again. And so here's my conversation with Saher Sikandar. She's associate strategy director at Preacher in New York. And Chris Raji is senior director, brand and creative for Favor. Enjoy. For those who don't know Favor, Chris, tell us about Favor. A little bit of background on the brand and its history. Just maybe just a minute or so.

[Chris Raji]

So Favor, we're an on demand delivery company here in Texas. We started back in 2013. In 2015, we actually started to expand outside of Austin. Austin is where we got our start to expand outside of Austin. In 2015-2017, we were even outside of Texas. Fun fact. We were outside of the US and our low logo was Favor with a U in it.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Interesting.

[Chris Raji]

Yes, it was another fun fact. One of my first projects as I started was to send a bunch of flyers to Prints for North Carolina and I used the wrong logo. I used the Favor logo and our co founders had a whole big joke about it.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And so which country were you were in Europe with that sort of a spelling, I'm assuming or no.

[Chris Raji]

So we were just in Canada.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

In Canada. So they spelled. They use the U in favor. Do they like behavior is the IOU or, or whatever it is?

[Chris Raji]

It is, yeah. So it's super fun. We have the whole email address that you can still access us@favor delivery.com outside of Texas.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Did you just say that? Was that the Canada your phrase here?

[Chris Raji]

We were, yeah, we were outside of Texas. Yeah. So we were in. I forgot exactly how many markets, but yeah, we were everywhere from Tempe, Arizona to, you know, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Boston, et cetera.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Right. And then you've pulled in since then to be Texas only.

[Chris Raji]

We have, yeah. So in 2017, we're just looking around, we're looking at the competitive landscape we're seeing in what markets we felt that we had the right to win in and what markets we felt we were already, you know, had a leg up and it was Texas. Right. You have some of those markets like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City especially, which actually we were never in that just had delivery. You know, they had a high density. They had competitors in there that already kind of established strongholds in those markets. So in 2017 we said, hey, let's pull back to Just being in Texas, we're seeing a lot of great success here. We got our start here.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

That must have been a difficult decision, because some might see that as we're not growing enough, not able to expand, so we have to pull it in. I mean, I got to think that culturally, you guys had to sort of pump yourselves up because you were now concentrating versus expanding geographically.

[Chris Raji]

It's funny, because I think sometimes people see limiting and pulling back as a limitation, and we actually saw it as a superpower. And we'll go into it a little bit here in a second with Texas in general, but I think sometimes you have to just understand what you're good at and where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are, you know, and we realize that, hey, if there's a market that we don't feel we have the right to win in, competition already has a stronghold. They're already winning market share. It's kind of fools, Aaron, for us to be in there. Why be in there, right? Whereas Texas felt like we had the right to win here. And it kind of goes back to our Texas strategy over overall, and kind of a good t oven a little bit for the strategy of this campaign is we see being in Texas as our superpower. Right. We live here. We're from here. We're all Texans. We know Texas better than anyone. And so we just had. We just felt we had a, you know, real, real opportunity to. To pull back to just being in Texas and.

[Emily Portnoy]

Yeah.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, Sahara, when you look at. When you look at favor in the past, how would you describe the way it used to message itself?

[Saher Sikandar]

I would say it was, you know, it was what Favor neighbor, I think, was kind of one of the, you know, the early sentiments around the brand. And I think it was just seen as like a very charming, local, neighborly brand. I think that one thing that we found in the messaging audit was that favor in, you know, trying to find its footing, was trying out lots of different kinds of messaging, you know, from content to tonally to whether or not and how much to include their parent company. H e B. So there was a lot of experimenting going on, which didn't necessarily bode as well for kind of like a clear picture in the customer's mind about who favor was and even what they did, because there was a time. And, Chris, maybe you talk about this more if it makes sense, but there was a time where they were also experimenting with the product offering of anything delivered. So because of that, there was quite a bit of messaging all the way from food focus to More general convenience, focused messaging for us.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So what is HB for those outside of Texas?

[Chris Raji]

I've never heard of it, which is crazy. As I was thinking about this podcast, I was like, I'm going to have to describe HB and for those in Texas, it feels, you know, almost sacrilegious. Have to describe HB to somebody. So HB is a grocer here in Texas. They're, they're even outside in Mexico as well. They are the number one rated grocer according to Dun Humby. They are just a staple of the Texas landscape, of the ecosystem here, of the culture. When you move to Texas and you.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Guys are owned by AGB and we.

[Chris Raji]

Are owned by AGB. Yeah. So in 2017, or actually 2018, so we pulled back to Texas in 2017, you know, really focused on making sure, you know, we were providing service well to those Texas markets. And then in 2018 we got acquired by HEB.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And was that part. Were you still in the maybe we'll deliver groceries business and therefore that's why you were of interest to heb?

[Chris Raji]

Yeah. So there's kind of three big reasons that we joined forces with hcb. The first one is, yeah, groceries, right. So they need to get into grocery delivery. They'd been in it for a while. This was around the time Amazon and Whole Foods were joining forces as well. And they just realized, hey, we've, we've got to, you know, provide our customers with a delivery option as well. Favor has that ability to do that last mile delivery. Makes sense to just join force with them rather than us trying to build something on their own. HEB is great at really thinking ahead. Right. And thinking about what their customers need 5, 10, 15, 20 years in the future. So made sense from their end. From our end, it's heb, it's literally the best in Texas. No brainer.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And you guys overtly co brand with H E B as we'll see when everybody hears the work later. So, Sahar, so this is a challenger brand. This is up against Uber and DoorDash, you guys, in terms of our favor in terms of market share is closest to grubhub in Texas. You've just surpassed grubhub, as the data shows. Tell us about how this starts with Preacher. What's the initial conversation? What's the business problem you're asked to solve?

[Saher Sikandar]

Favor was this Neighbor Favor hospitality centric brand that really came through in the pandemic for local Texans. It was deeply beloved. You know, then gets bought out by hdb who has, you know, an even grander history of these kind of things, of kind of community investment. And as you know, the bigger players came into the space naturally they have so many more resources, you know, as being, as being these kind of tech behemoths. And with that, naturally, when the landscape changes, maybe your original strategies don't work the same way that they used to. Right. And so favor was really they were. There was a challenge to maintain the ground that they had gained.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So what's the problem you have that leads to this campaign? Because you also have an internal agency. Right. So why reach out to Preacher? What was the ask?

[Chris Raji]

So we realized that, you know, by investing in Covid and those product lines, by investing in our service as well. After Covid hit, we just wanted to make sure we had a lot more customers at the time, want to make sure our service levels are right. We realized we hadn't invested in marketing in a while. And it's the Harris point. We kind of haven't looked at our messaging in a while. Anything delivered was still kind of lingering in the background. We had a bunch of kind of just promotional offers that kept making their way into our kind of mass awareness messaging. And we realized that we need a strategic partner that can come in here and just help set us on the right path again. You said it. We have an amazing internal agency in house. Team's amazing, very talented. But I'm very big on the belief of kind of one plus one equals 11. Right. We've got a team. If we can get that one of Preacher, we're really going to help train.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

But do you think at the time, from a business perspective, was this an initiative and you can't answer it's both. By the way, was this about growth or were you defending against share loss?

[Chris Raji]

That is a really good question. I would say it was about growth because we started to see some of the COVID customers then move back into their old covet habits, meaning, hey, now I want to go out to eat more. Right. And so what we said is, hey, we need to get back on the growth train again. We need to get our name back out there.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So now, from a preacher perspective, what happened in those early days, Sahara, was there anything you've been able to sort of think through in terms of what were some of the key learnings from research that was done at that time or planning that was done at that time that set up this sort of strategic pathway that you guys ultimately went down?

[Saher Sikandar]

The conversation often returned to this thing about all, you know, a record amount of newcomers Coming to Texas and wanting to be mindful of whatever strategic route we went down, whatever creative campaign route we went down, that we didn't alienate the new folks or the old folks. And if there was a way to talk to them both at once, even better. And so that was something that obviously came out in the work that you saw. And then to be honest, yes, there were things that came out of DES research and other places that were crystallizing, but it was like, this is actually my favorite thing about the strategy is it was intuition, you know, and I, I brought up the Texas part, right? I brought up the pitch process because it's, it's actually relevant to the arc of this, the strategy journey on my part, at least with my counterpart. So my counterpart Eugene was on the pitch process and we came up with three strategic territories in a nutshell. One was called, called Small. So just about being a smaller business and you know, and really in that sense being kin or kindred with other smaller and, you know, local businesses. Another one was about H E B, naturally, you know, to what degree should we be telegraphing off of the brand equity of, of this beloved, you know, iconic brand? And then thirdly, was Texas in some form or fashion, you know, leaning into the brand equity of Texas? Right. And we, I was looking back at, you know, our kickoff deck and we had had summarized favors feedback to these three territories. And this was, you know, something that my counterpart Eugene was downloading me on when I first got brought onto the project. And for Small, it was like, don't want to really lean into that, but you know, we do like the sentiment of being human centered. And, you know, that, that hearkens back to our hospitality ethos. Texas, there's, there's something there. But the mood was like, that's not the thing. Maybe sprinkle a little Texas on it, you know. Right. And then it was like, HEB is where the heat is because naturally it's the icon, right? That was the feedback we got. And then on top of that, come back with some differentiated territories that feel truly distinct. And I got this download from Eugene and I was like, okay, we're definitely going to try to see if we can find some differentiated new territories in our first formal strategy round one. But I think it's Texas. I know they're, they, they might not be feeling it, they might be side eyeing us, but it's Texas for you.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Chris, I mean, were you in that room when those first initial scenarios were teed up of Small H E B in Texas? I was Tell us about the reaction from your side.

[Chris Raji]

It's debate we have every single day. Right? Those are the three pillars, Right. They're so part of our brand. And I think it's something we discuss, how you play on each of those. And just Heb as an example. Anyone out there who's, you know, whose brand is part of a larger company knows it's hard to find that balance, Right. Of leaning on the larger brand's equity and trust. Again, Saher said it better than I will. They're awesome. They're amazing. They're number one in Texas, number one even in the country. So it's easy for us just to say, hey, we're part of that company. Right? But then do customers understand? Okay, that's awesome. Why should I care? Why? What.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Who.

[Chris Raji]

Who exactly are you? And so I think that was the strategic lens with HB that we weren't able to crack. So that's why we were so keen, as Preacher preached it, to say, hey, bring us something back there. I think, you know, with the small, it's something we all talked about. It's what I alluded to earlier, right. We view it as a superpower. You know, we view, you know, not being national, being able to focus on Texas as a superpower, but we didn't know really what, you know, a couple that couldn't really see where that was going. And Texas is something that we just felt like it is. It's right, it's local, it's a little bit of that small, but we didn't really know the way in there. And so that's kind of the feedback we gave them is like, well, yeah, Heb is the home run. That's the one we always feel like. And we're like, yeah, Texas feels like it's it. But we were struggling to kind of see how that was really going to.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Come to life with that layer of new Texans coming in. When did that come to the. When did that bubble up? Because I get the. Because you could have gone strategically just with War 4 Texans and without having the target audience or extended target audience of the new Texans. It could still have been really strong, but in my opinion, the new Texans took it to a whole new level. When did you decide that you needed to use new Texans and do you think of them as. And this would be a question to both of you. Do you guys think of them as a device or as a target audience? Do you know what I mean by that for sure?

[Saher Sikandar]

I think it's a little bit of both. And honestly, even the way that the new Texans became, in a sense, our heroes or device or sort of audience all at the same time is because, like I said, ever since the pitch process, they were a constant pulse throughout our conversations. Don't alienate them. There's something relevant here about record waves of transplants coming to Texas. There's something here. There's something here. Don't alienate them. Should we be talking about it? And so I think they were always there with us. There was maybe a little bit of a spirit animal. I don't know how to put it, but they were there for us. And I think that, yeah, it was there every step of the way. And then I think it really coalesced. Speaking of the device part, when we landed on the one execution amongst many, that was the newcomer, focused execution. And yes, on one end, they were used as a device in the execution, but they were also used as almost like a. I don't know what, like the good version of like a dog whistle is, but they were used as, like, as a target audience, as a conduit to, like, wink at.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Yeah, it was a wink in both directions.

[Emily Portnoy]

Exactly.

[Saher Sikandar]

Right. And so by talking with, you know, specificity to this hyper targeted audience, but in a way that felt universal, we were speaking to our base target as well.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So how does it come around for you, Chris? How do you get from. How do you get from Texas to looking at these new Texans? Was there rounds of creative work where you went back and forth and figured out. Well, because I think Sahara was sort of suggesting that maybe there was one of many executions and one of them was leveraging new Texans. Maybe. I picked that up right around.

[Chris Raji]

Yeah. So we did another round of Strat where we were like, what is Texas mean for y'? All? And. And they started to illustrate it a bit more. Right. It's. It's the mix of the culture and. And whatnot. And I think that gave us confidence that this was the right direction, that we said, okay, this. This feels like it come to life. Right. And then the first round of creative pitching, we were like, I don't know if this is it. And then we're starting to evaluate is. Is it Texas? You know, because.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Why, why, why did you. Why were you doubting it?

[Chris Raji]

We were down. Yeah. A little bit of execution because we hadn't gotten that insight in that we felt like was unique. Right. There were a couple executions that were around things like, we're from here, so we kind of run the state. We deserve to, you know, be here, and we're like, doesn't feel. Feel it. You know, I think there's. Texans have a sense of pride, which is amazing, but sometimes when you lean on just that pride, it's kind of like, well, why. Why do you have it?

[Fergus O'Carroll]

You know, there's a thousand cliches about Texas culture, right?

[Chris Raji]

And so when the new Texans came in, I remember at first kind of getting worried because I was like, are we limiting ourself with talking to new Texans? You know, because we talked about it at a high level, right? Like, what we're exactly saying is, what do you think about new Texans? I was like, oh, is that going to limit us? Because we don't want to alienate, you know, our current customers and Texans. And then we brought this device back of like. Like, hey, what if we spoke to new. New Texans, but did it in a way that felt so connected to actual Texans that even, you know, or an actual Texan, an old Texan just looked at it and was like, ah, that's a. That's me. They're talking to me, right? And to me, that was a home run. Because you're. You're talking to everyone in the state and you're doing it in a way that isn't braggadocious. And this is actually a note that I was thinking through as I was reminiscing on the work is the first round, I would say, felt like we were talking to ourselves. And I think that's a mistake. Brands can often get into. We as marketers, we as branders and creatives, we develop these campaigns that we're like, that's awesome, because we really care about it, but it doesn't connect with your customer. Your customer's like, okay, great. Tell me you run the state and tell me you're really cool. Okay, why should I still use you? But what I think when you can get this strategic insight and weigh in, you know, that transcends culture. You know, that's what connects with your customers, and that's what this campaign felt like. It was these moments where any new Texan or old Texan would say, wow. Yeah, they feel like they get me. I feel seen in the sat. I feel represented.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So saher from internally, creatively, how easy was it to get to these executions? I mean, you guys are. You're not from Texas yourself, right? But there. There are many who understood it. Was it tough to narrow it down to these three executions?

[Saher Sikandar]

You know, it. It was definitely a labor of love there. There. It's just like a razor's edge, you know, trying to find that balance between, you know, we were really keen on finding true to Texas this insights for, for, you know, the angles of each of these spots. And it's so easy to fall into tropes and we didn't want to do that and we didn't want to be so like kind of deep cuts that no one got it right. So it's like finding this, the universality but not trophy but you know, able to be funny but easy enough to like, you know, translate into like a 15 and a 30, you know, that was like, it was, it was quite a bit of puzzling we did to land right stories for each one, I would say.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So the first part we're going to see is this guy. He's a newcomer to Texas. He stands in his front yard and his neighbors notice that he's about to do some yard work. And then because they're so extraordinarily neighborly, they insist on being of help. So that's what you're going to be hearing. For those people who are hearing but not seeing this. The second spot I believe is. I'm not sure if she's a newcomer to Texas, the mother, or is she a Texan. She's a newcomer. Right. Standing in the front yard where there's all of these signs. How, how would you guys explain that one?

[Saher Sikandar]

The, the observer is. Is the newcomer and the person whose home it is and daughter is the native Texan and she's explaining the yard sign culture to person. Since moving to Texas, I've learned that.

[Chris Raji]

Texans love ordering food with favor, the.

[Saher Sikandar]

Restaurant delivery app that's part of H E B.

[Chris Raji]

Thanks, Chris.

[Saher Sikandar]

And that if you're doing something in the yard, if you're not, neighbors will.

[Chris Raji]

Always offer to help.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Hey, need a hand?

[Saher Sikandar]

I'll bring my tools.

[Chris Raji]

Yeah, I could probably just take care of it myself.

[Saher Sikandar]

Here, use mine.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Favor How Texas orders in.

[Emily Portnoy]

Since moving to Texas, I've learned that Texans love ordering food with favor, the restaurant delivery app that's part of H E B and that front yards are for celebrating your kids accomplishments.

[Chris Raji]

Wow, that's a lot of signs.

[Emily Portnoy]

Yep, we have a lot of pride. Jenny, lunch is here.

[Saher Sikandar]

Yeah, yeah, she's ferocious.

[Emily Portnoy]

Well, thank you.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Favor of Texas orders in. Download now to get $0 delivery fees your first four weeks. This is great. So Chris, let's talk about how this all rolls out by channel. You guys did a lot of it internally or was all of it sort of rolled out to preacher?

[Chris Raji]

A lot of it was through preacher. But one of the things that I love about Our relationship is we're super collaborative and so one of the big asks was film. We needed some TV spots. That's something we don't have the capabilities to do in house. So that was the first big bullet point on the brief. We need these beautiful 30 second spots that we were going to run on through some big linear TV buys and streaming TV buys. But we were keen to Saher's point of not only getting a refresh for the brand and the look and feel that helped reduce ourselves after not marketing heavily for three plus years, but to go live on all our other channels. Right. A lot of our customers live in the digital space. Right. So we were super heavy with a lot of digital ads and we loved doing those in tandem with Preacher because a lot of those were developed as part or cut downs of the TV spots and some more developed, you know, as other insights. Right. We had whole insights that we made and developed uniquely for social. Right. So we're leading to the same device of speaking to newcomers, but just were even more of these little cultural nuggets that we dropped on social, both paid and organic. We had a big earned approach as well that we kind of went out with this, you know, how Texas orders in report of data and insights around how our customers were interacting with with Texas foods to really lend that hey, we're from Texas, we know it the best. And then we ingested the same campaign look and feel into our existing customer messaging. So Lifecycle and an app and push. So we loved it because it was really 360 approach to where new customers who are becoming acquainted with our brand got to see this. But even our current customers there, as they were coming into our ecosystem got to interact with this campaign and interact with this kind of reintroduction of favor as well.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So the campaign won two Effies this year for the US Effies. So Sahara, as we get ready to close out here, where does it go from here? Because it just seems that you could just do iterations of this and it would still be incredibly funny, still be incredibly fresh. Is that the plan? Because as as we all on this call know brand isn't built overnight. You've got to do it over multiple years and consistently and at least not consistently necessarily, but fresh wise. Yeah. So are you guys working on the next round or where do you. Where are you guys talking about taking it in the future?

[Saher Sikandar]

Oh my goodness. We've already done a bunch of campaigns since the original How Texas order is in campaign. We we've probably done 3ish and we're on another one that's about to come out. And so all of them live, you know, under the Texas banner, you know, the kind of that being the heart of things in different ways. So the newcomer approach was very specific and timely to what was a big and new new story back then. It's still something that that's, you know, happening now. But there's so much richness in, in Texas culture. And really it's like, you know, I think sometimes and shout out to favor for this too, when you know, you're trying to reposition a brand or reintroduce a brand. You know, as strategists, we, we, you know, we like to set the, set the high in a way that is aspirational, not in a way of aspirational. This is out of reach and this is what you could become, but this is who you are in your DNA. As in for favor. Like an expert on Texas culture who cares about their community. Maybe they don't have every single dot connected and all the show improve that they want for it, but we as outsiders were able to see this is who you are and it's okay to take the time to fill that in, you know, color in that picture. And so now the activity is to, to to try on all these different ways where we get to be, you know, these, these Texas experts, part of the community, building a community. And so it's exciting. We get, we get to try on different expressions and really own what we the kind of the sandbox that we set out for ourselves with this first campaign.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Yeah, it's wonderful work. And everybody can see both the new Texans work and all the latest work on our [e-mail] Saher Sikander, Associate Strategy Director for Preacher in Austin, Texas and Chris Raji is senior director, brand and creative for favor delivery. Thank you both for your time today.

[Chris Raji]

Thanks so much.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Appreciate it. And we'll see everyone on the next episode.