Killing Politeness for a Legacy Brand.

Challenge: Lion’s Choice was losing sales an being dismissed as a knockoff, despite its well-loved legacy.
Solution: We ran the diagnostic and the campaign at the same time, testing ideas and attitude in real-time.
Results: The boost the brand needed to survive.

Lion’s Choice // Brand Platform

Challenge

When Lion’s Choice named UPBrand as agency of record, the situation was urgent. Store visits were dropping. Chain-wide sales were actively falling. The core customer base was aging out, brand awareness among younger diners was near zero, and non-users had written the brand off as a dated local secret.

The category wasn’t making it easier. National fast-food giants were slashing prices and flooding the zone. Lion’s Choice couldn’t afford to play it safe, or to wait any longer. The brand needed a deep diagnostic and a fast-turn campaign running simultaneously, figuring out what it stood for while stabilizing the business before the slide got worse.

Solution

We went straight to AI-enabled audience research, and the central theme was clear: guests wanted Lion’s Choice to stop hedging and claim its authority as the king of roast beef.

That insight became the Brand Platform, which served as a renewed model for operations, performance and communications, now with language everyone believed and could commit to.

From purpose to promise, every component dripped with brand authenticity: Take down hunger. Serve a real feast, real fast. Everyone eats like a king.

The personality shift was just as intentional. Lion’s Choice leaned into the rebellious archetype it could already claim: rebellious, combative, direct. The brand stopped apologizing for its quirks and started calling out the processed, dinky fast-food burgers it had been quietly competing against for years. The new tagline said it all: Killer Beef Sandwiches.

Rather than waiting for a full media buy, we got scrappy. A targeted digital campaign across search, paid social and display launched immediately, built around “Take Down Hunger”

headlines, high-contrast grungy lion visuals, and bold copy timed to capture hungry decision-makers at lunch and dinner. An in-house photography workflow kept crave-inducing food assets flowing to digital ads, email and social without ballooning production costs.

Results

Sales & Traffic - Reversed

Within days of launch, website sessions were up 21.7% and total visitors up 26.6%. Digital sales climbed 30% and store traffic started to lift.
Search Dominance

Organic search impressions surged 147% year over year. Website conversion rates lifted 8%.
Loyalty Program Growth

Loyalty program sign-ups accelerated immediately and lasted, adding approximately 400 new members per week.
A Solid Foundation

The platform stabilized the business and created the strategic runway for disruptive campaigns.