Denny’s has been an American cultural icon for decades. As young consumers become a more impactful demographic for the brand, Denny’s was looking for a data-driven Gen Z strategy to increase cultural relevance and begin progress to becoming an iconic Gen Z brand.
Leading a Gen Z strategic comeback
Denny’s was looking to build relevance and become an iconic Gen Z brand.
So they called on us to help them build relevance and better understand the role of Denny’s for the Gen Z consumer.
01the work
Challenge, approach, impact.
dcdx ran deep consumer research on Gen Z dining behaviors, combined with Denny’s-specific perception research to lead into a day-long innovation session with members from Denny’s leadership, marketing, insights, and innovation teams. The innovation session was fueled by using the GenZ Score as a research methodology around cultural relevance to build a Denny’s-specific cultural relevance framework.
Based on the results of the innovation session, Denny’s has executed different elements of the cultural relevance roadmap. Alongside these executions, dcdx continues to provide Denny’s with research and data-driven evidence around roadmap-specific items to test, validate and inform critical strategic decisions from Denny’s leadership.
Since December of 2021, Denny’s has continued to advance their popularity and consistency as a brand, moving from a Weak brand on the Gen Z Brand Magnetism Matrix to a Relevant Gen Z brand towards Magnetic. While Denny’s sits far from the top Magnetic brands, its increasingly clear role in the lives of the Gen Z consumer continues to drive consistent relevance for the brand.
02from the case
The initial data
+13.8%
From February to August of 2022, the average popularity percentile rank of Denny’s user-generated content rose by almost 14 points.
+32.5%
The consistency of Denny’s popular content rose 32.5% from February to August of 2022, signaling their brand is resonating more and more with the Gen Z audience.
how magnetic is your brand with Gen Z?
03more work
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Targeted insights for specific business questions, built around identified objectives, RFPs and more. Focused on Gen Z and Gen Alpha, including ongoing custom audience panels and recurring reporting.