The reservation platform Resy centers itself around the communal experience that comes from dining, affirming and building connection between restaurants and diners, according to CMO Hannah Kelly.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00 ] Damian: I'm Damian Fowler.

[00:00:01 ] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing

[00:00:02 ] Damian: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:00:05 ] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Hannah Kelly, the CMO of Resy.

[00:00:09 ] Damian: Want to make a restaurant reservation? American Express owned Resy is there for you. With over 40 million global users, the app has driven over 600 million reservations. Now that's a lot of fine dining, I imagine.

[00:00:23 ] Ilyse: With almost 14 years of working at American Express under her belt, Hannah leads marketing efforts to connect restaurants and tastemakers.

[00:00:31 ] Damian: We start off by talking about the value of customer data and how insights inform Resy's marketing strategy. 

[00:00:38 ] Damian: We work in an industry where, data is capital. You know, how does Resy rely on the customer data, especially from its parent company, American Express?

[00:00:47 ] Hannah: Sure. So thank you so much for having me. And you could argue that the premise of the Resyacquisition was based on American Express's deep use of data. So when we look at spend at American Express, dining one [00:01:00 ] of our highest spend categories. We reached 100 billion in spend for the full year in 2023 for the first time ever.

[00:01:06 ] So for us, being an American Express and in the business of membership, we are constantly looking for ways to engage and attract card members and deepen our relationships with merchants. Resy naturally presented that opportunity as a way for us to own an asset, own a brand, and build a community of being able to connect the world's best restaurants to the world's best diners on a proprietary basis.

[00:01:28 ] Damian: That makes a lot of sense. I, as an Amex owner, do spend a lot in restaurants. I wonder if you have any interesting stories around turning those insights into action.

[00:01:38 ] Hannah: Sure. So, We know that millennials and Gen Z's are worried about making the perfect reservation. In fact, we commissioned our own research and we found that 50 percent of the millennial and Gen Z population are worried about making the perfect reservation.

[00:01:52 ] And so with that, that drove three sort of primary objectives and campaigns for us. So first is our brand platform. we launched a brand platform in [00:02:00 ] 2023 called Reservationships, which is really meant to highlight how that Resy is more than reservations, really being that trusted partner in crime when you don't know where to go.

[00:02:09 ] You want to have that fine dining moment with your potential in laws to be with a new date. How can we really own the fact that Resy has served as that sort of curator, and role. I think the second piece has been, this past year we introduced our Resy shareable hit list. so what that function allows you to do in the iOS app is anyone can go in and create a list based on any title that you want.

[00:02:31 ] Go to date nights. Kid friendly places. You name it. We have some very creative takes in there. and you can share them out with friends. So again, it's really meant to give users the confidence that they are selecting and making the best reservation possible for them.

[00:02:48 ] Hannah: And we've extended that and really leaned into that a bit more with our third deliverable this year, which has been around the launch of our discover tab.

[00:02:54 ] So now when you go into the Resy app, you not just only see a list of restaurants based [00:03:00 ] on your location or cities. We've always had collections, but now our discover tab actually brings in all of our editorial content into the app. And just for reference in Q one of 2024, we highlighted over 000 plus restaurants in all of our editorial across 300 stories.

[00:03:17 ] So now all of that content is there in formats that can helpfully guide users on how they can connect with restaurants that they should love if they don't know them already and ones that they want to continue to celebrate their love for and be a patron of.

[00:03:28 ] Ilyse: You know, retail data continues to have a moment among marketers. In your experience, how much do these insights influence your strategy? And what do you think is the future of this type of data?

[00:03:42 ] Hannah: So I think for us, guest research is the number one place that we constantly look to. And for us, a lot of that is where are people notifying, where are people searching, where are people dining. And at American Express, we're able to see where our card members are spending. And with Resy, we're able to see where they're searching.

[00:03:57 ] And we use that to inform our research. Anything from [00:04:00 ] the restaurants that we go after on our platform. So being really thoughtful around what are the types of cuisines that might be missing? What are the types of underrepresented cuisines or restaurants that we need to bring onto our platform? So what's not being searched for?

[00:04:11 ] and then obviously our product offering. So as mentioned, really trying to tap into ways that we can not only help diners based on research that we've collected, but also By introducing the discover tab by introducing things like shareable hit list. Those give us new avenues to really discover. What are the trends and what are the capabilities and offerings that Resy can provide?

[00:04:31 ] And even more importantly, what can we pass to our restaurants that they could learn about guests that they might not be able to get on their own? So we think about it not only as What type of research can we use to improve the experience around discoverability and in restaurant dining, but also think about how we can use that a differentiator for our partners and for our restaurants on our platform as well.

[00:04:51 ] Ilyse: That's, that's made me curious. What is the, most popular cuisine that Resy users are, [00:05:00 ] are making reservations for?

[00:05:01 ] Hannah: I don't know the exact cuisine type, but I can tell you we typically look at the types of cities that we see a lot of dining demand around, and we use that to really guide where we have a lot of our restaurant partners. We also really care about shining a light on underrepresented food types as well.

[00:05:16 ] So, We did a ton of work during, COVID 19 around highlighting the importance of Chinatown and the love stories of Chinatown, knowing that there is xenophobia happening as a result of the pandemic. also in the spring of 2020, when we think back to the wake of George Floyd, looking at how we can really highlight black owners and operators and chefs in our community.

[00:05:35 ] And that's something that we had always done. So, we again look at what's been searched, what hasn't been searched and really how we want to perpetuate the diversity, and future of the industry in the best way possible.

[00:05:47 ] Damian: You mentioned the site is more than a reservations app, and you're basically building kind of editorial and curated content. that's fascinating. could you say a little bit more about that and how you target taste makers and [00:06:00 ] people in the know and those underrepresented kind of food types that you mentioned?

[00:06:04 ] Hannah: So believe it or not, we get asked all the time if restaurants have to apply to be on Resy and what the selection process is. There is no selection process. Any restaurant can pay to be on Resy. But I think the reason why we get that is because of how we are able to surface and highlight the restaurants on our platform in a way that goes beyond just the menu and when their hours of operation are.

[00:06:27 ] So for us, that's really thinking about the editorial stories, as mentioned, where we have, A whole entire editorial team that's dedicated to coming up with ongoing franchises, like the one who keeps the books, which is our most popular, where we see, our guests going in and figuring out of the top restaurants from the actual owners and operators, when they release inventory, how they release inventory, and how best to get seated, also longer form content as well.

[00:06:52 ] Beyond our edit. We're really an experiential brand as well. We'll do around 200 events by the end of [00:07:00 ] 2024 with restaurant partners. Why? Because we know that our guests want to be able to experience restaurants and get that behind the scenes, behind the curtain look and feel. And our restaurant partners view us as a co conspirator and collaborator.

[00:07:13 ] We meet with our top restaurant partners. Frequently and instead of saying, Hey, how is your performance with Rosie? How are you enjoying? We talk about what are your 5 10 year growth plans? What are you thinking about in the immediate future that's keeping you up? What story do you want to be able to tell?

[00:07:27 ] What opening do you have? What new product? What front of house team member do you want to celebrate and really use that to help guide and inspire how we create a lot of our content, not just for edit, but in real life experiences. Yes.

[00:07:48 ] Damian: I suppose that feeds into that in many ways. But, how do you strike a balance between telling those stories and your own story? It's