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Reinventing Sherman’s: Harlem’s Landmark

By Putman Davis Jr.

IST 400

Instit

utor: Eric Hansen

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Midterm

Executive Summary

This proposal will feature my plan on how to increase awareness about Sherman’s

Bar Be Que by 40% in the Manhattan area. More specifically it will feature what I plan to

do, why I am doing and how it is going to work. I will start by reviewing what Sherman’s

is and the history behind the business. I will then talk about what they are currently doing

wrong in terms of marketing and how I plan to fix that. I will go into using free social

technologies as an advantage, as well as the option of creating an official website. I also

plan on explaining whom we are marketing to and why this viral campaign will

succeed. Finally I will discuss the risks involved, just in case the viral

campaign does not go according to plan.

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Sherman’s Bar Be Que

Company/ Brand: Sherman’s Bar Be Que

Targeted Stakeholders: Consumers of Bar Be Que food located in

the New York, New York (Manhattan) area. Typically these will be

single males from the ages of 24- 30.

Objective: To increase overall awareness of Sherman’s by 40% in the

upper east side of Manhattan and makes them a legitimate opponent

to the competition

History:

Sherman’s is a carry out Bar Be Que ribs restaurant located on

2509 7th Avenue in Harlem, New York. It was opened in 1948 by

Sherman Hibbitt, the founder of the business. He along with his wife

and son used the restaurant as a family owned store and despite its

size (Sherman’s is the size of a small classroom), it grew in popularity.

Particularly in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s Sherman’s was the choice

of many musicians who played in the world famous Apollo Theatre. The

Isley Brothers, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Al Green were

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just examples of the singers who frequently visited Sherman’s. Another

famous customer was the late Percy Sutton, whom was a politician and

a lawyer whom represented Malcolm X. At one point Sherman Hibbit

was known as the “Mayor of Harlem”, he met two presidents and

attended Truman’s inaugural ball. However as the eighties came many

things changed for the business.

(The glory days)

In New York City, the 1980’s were primarily known for the crack

epidemic. Due to the rising of crime and people addicted to the drug

many famous people stayed away from Sherman’s out of fear. These

were dark times for the establishment; they saw profits drop and were

on the edge of closing its doors for good several times. As the nineties

came in the business saw stability for the first time in a long while.

Business was picking back up, though they have not experienced they

success they experienced in the old days, the Hibbitt family was able
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to take a business on the brink of bankruptcy and turn it into a

respectable business once again.

(Now)

Hierarchy:

Sherman Hibbitt- Founder and former owner (his death)

Sherann Hibbitt- Current Owner

Jesse Beasley- cook/ stakeholder

Charles Beasley- cook/ stakeholder

Lashare Beasley- Receptionist/ Stakeholder

Gerald Green-cook/ stakeholder

Mars Williams- Janitor

Situation Analysis:

Sherman’s is a small family owned business in Harlem, so it is

the definition of a “mom and pop shop”. There is no website for the
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business and little is done to advertise for the business. I believe the

owners belief is, since the store has been around since the 50’s, they

have found their core audience. Anyone who wants to know about the

store, should already know. This is partly due to the current economic

situation; they cannot afford to spend money on paid advertising.

They location of the establishment is a very important aspect of

this business. Because this restaurant is located in the upper west side

of Harlem, many people who do not already live there will not want to

go there. Because of the reputation of the neighborhood, people may

fear for their safety. However I do not believe this will be a problem for

very long. Currently within the Harlem area of Manhattan an urban gentrification going

on which means that people in a higher social standing buy property in less fortunate

neighborhoods.

Other Bar Be Que establishments located in the Harlem area include a Dallas

BBQ’S and Dinosaur BBQ. These two very successful restaurants are whom I consider

the primary competition of Sherman’s. Both stores are part of a chain, so just based off of

that they are going to have more of a fan base and more outlets to advertise for them.

This isn’t even looking at the other, smaller Bar Be Que businesses in the Harlem area.

On the island of Manhattan there are over 200 Bar Be Que restaurants and

establishments, which shows that there is a demand for Bar Be Que food in this area. The

main thing is to tap into technology and make people aware of Sherman’s.

With big companies like Wal- Mart and other chains taking over the sales

industry, “mom and pop shops” are hard to come by these days. Many people prefer these

shops more because they feel that the products are more authentic and healthier. I believe

this along with the fact that Sherman’s gives you a lot of food for the money you pay can

really be used to it’s advantage.

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If someone could use current technology to reinvent Sherman’s and promote it in

a proper way, I believe it can become a competitor to the other two major Bar Be Que

chains located in Harlem (Dinosaur BBQ and Dallas BBQ). Sherman’s has been around

since the 1950’s and one can easily see they have the ability to become competitive by

looking at their success decades ago. For them to be able to maintain their business for

more than 50 years is a testament in itself. Currently they are staying in business off of

their customers that have been going there for years and word of mouth.

As I stated there is currently no use of technology in the Sherman marketing

campaign. In an interview with the current owner Sherann Hibbitt she told me “we really

do not spend much money on advertisements, we have been here for a long time. We

have a dedicated audience and we believe good food will sell itself”. This let me know

that they have not thought much about using the current technology to help their

business. When I asked her about what kind of people come to eat, she told that it was

mainly older people. This also let me know that they are not in tune with the younger

generation, so it might not be that younger people don’t enjoy they food, they may not

even be aware of Sherman’s. An easy target audience would be single males in the New

York area 24-30 because they probably do not live at home, don’t cook for themselves

and are tech savvy so they can a see our campaign.

Traditional advertisements wouldn’t be as effective in this campaign because

since this isn’t a chain, TV and radio ads would be a waste of money. Our audience is

not big enough to afford TV and Radio time in New York City; we would end up wasting

too much money, time and resources.

Strategic Outlook:

The primary method to introduce Sherman’s to the younger generation will be to

use information-based marketing. Examples of this is to create both a blog, a Facebook

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and a twitter for the company’s mascot much like the Jack in the Box did in social

networks module B. Facebook advertising will be explored in order to know we are

advertising to the correct audience, this will be done by using information on their

Facebook pages. Finally to cap off the advertising and possibly the first thing needed is

an official website for the restaurant. That is one of the main things needed to catch

Sherman’s up with the times, because as of now if you do not know about Sherman’s

already then you will have a very tough time researching it, because there is very little

information about it online.

Though Bar Be Que may not be the healthiest choice of food this has not stopped

New Yorkers from purchasing it. Bar Be Que is already an established food that many

enjoy and put their money into, so convincing people to eat it is not a problem. The

problem is to convince people to eat OUR Bar Be Que. This kind of food is not just for

snacks; this food would serve as a complete meal. So copying Dallas BBQ’s angle to not

only show the food but also show the experience of eating the food is a major part. As I

have shown earlier it is easy to find Bar Be Que food in New York however, the serious

issue is to show what makes Sherman’s Bar Be Que different from Dallas BBQ’s or

Dinosaur BBQ.

Strengths Of Using New Media:

1. Viral campaigns using social networking sites are very cheap; they cost little to

nothing to have an efficient and powerful campaign. Being that this is a not a

chain business, they do not have a lot of money to spend on campaigning, couple

that with the economic situation that we are currently in, the viral campaign

makes perfect sense.

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2. The audience I would like to reach is very familiar with technology, therefore my

viral campaign will be right up their alley. It would not make sense to have a

campaign and not allow my target audience to connect with it.

3. There are already 250 million users on Facebook as of March 2, 2010 and there

are over 20 million people on twitter. This shows that the audience is there; it is

just our job to connect with them.

The reason I have chosen this plan versus exploring other avenues is because

Sherman’s is living in the 19th century. By that I mean they are still using the same

formula that achieved them great success in their early days. However it is 2010 now and

the things that worked in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s do not work now. Using online

resources now can quickly send out information to a lot of people at once. Sherman’s

needs to connect with the younger generation and this is what the younger generation

understands. My goal is to raise overall awareness of Sherman’s because the food has

showed that it will sell itself, but the business is just not showing itself, and marketing

itself like it should.

Tactics:

1. Facebook:

The first thing we must do is create a Facebook page for Sherman’s and get people to

join it. On these fan pages we plan on including store information (business hours,

address, etc), uploading pictures, interactive voting polls for fans to use and informing

fans about specials that may be going on. We have seen this been done before and it is a

tactic that has been proven to work. The picture below can see an example.
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This is an example of the Wendy’s Facebook page and though it may be blurry there is a

lot that can be taken away from this. The second comment from the top says, “Friday

seems like a good day for a premium fish fillet sandwich”. Notice that 133 people liked

the status and 110 commented on it. Also what cannot be seen is that over 300,000 people

are fans of this page.

Another advertising method we are looking into from Facebook is to have Sherman’s ads

on the right column of the page. Facebook uses your information to determine what ads

they show. This can be seen by my Facebook page and a friend of mines page, look

below.
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On my Facebook it says that I like sports and my favorite team is the Knicks, and if you

look at the ads that are displayed on my profile you can see espn and the New York

Knicks. So I believe a good idea would be for Sherman ads to come up for people only

with New York, NY as their hometown or currently located in. Essentially it would be a

waste of money to do anything else because there is only one Sherman’s open, and I

doubt anyone outside of the island of Manhattan is willing to travel to get Bar Be Que

food when there are so many other options.

Measurement: To get at least 150 users to join the Facebook page, from there we would

like to see user interaction (commenting on the page’s status and speaking in the

discussion). This will show us that people did not jus join the group but, they joined the

group and at least browsed the page.

Twitter:

An account will be made for the Sherman’s mascot and it will take up an identity

to represent the company. Within this twitter messages about specials, upcoming events

and overall promotion will be sent out. The first step after actually creating the twitter
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will be to add as many people as possible in the New York City area. This will generate

interest because if someone on twitter adds you, you are then notified and more than

likely they will visit the page just to see who is the new person following them. From

them seeing the page, that’s free promotion. Even if they do not follow the page, they still

have seen it and are now more aware of Sherman’s than they were before.

The android phone was recently released and Motorola used twitter as a free

advertising billboard. Notice that they are following over 1500 people and from this 200

people are now following them. Since they are following you, from time to time their

tweets can end up on your timeline and essentially this is what we plan on using to get

our message across.

Another use for twitter could be a way to connect to fans, if the mascot can

represent the company the way it should, then people can learn to like Sherman’s as a

brand. For example look at the Geico caveman; even if people do not use Geico that

caveman has made Geico a very liked company. I don’t even have a car and I like Geico

just because of the way they are represented in their advertisements and I believe this can
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go a long way. If you can show people that your company is likeable and different from

the competition, then you have put yourself in a position to gain momentum.

Measurement: Our goal is to get 100 followers on twitter, this is because twitter is

smaller than Facebook, and so I did not want to have the same measurement because with

twitter we are dealing with a smaller market. Another measurement we that can be used

are if twitter users mention you in their status or send us direct messages.

Blogger:

Blogger will be a straightforward news update and a place to post positive

reviews about Sherman’s. Though they do not have an official website yet, there are

many reviews about the food. Sherman’s should use this to their advantage, show people

the good things that are being said about the establishment. Below is an example of

Google’s blog, though Google and Sherman’s are in very different businesses, I would

like for Sherman’s blog to do the same things as Google in terms of functionality.

Basically to give updates about Sherman’s, post articles or reviews about Sherman’s and

give news about upcoming specials or deals. So like Google I would like this blog to be

like an information site about Sherman’s.

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Measurement: We plan to set up an analytics page for the blogger page. From here we

hope to have the amount of visitors to the page go up every month for 15 months.

Sherman’s has no online presence so new visitors should be easy to get and it should not

max out for at least 15 months.

Official Website:

An official website MUST be made for Sherman’s. Many companies, especially

food companies have websites where you can order, view menus and look up useful

information about the business. It also helps to give your business an identity and gives it

more ability to compete with other larger businesses. The picture below is the Dallas

BBQ website. I would like Sherman’s website to have many of the same features such as

address information, contact information, online ordering, and menu browse.

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A big function for the site would be catering and delivery. Bar Be Que is not a

snack food; it is a full meal type of thing. So I think that catering would open up a lot of

doors for the business. People now are lazy and want food to be brought to them. I think

that with online catering it will attract a lot of people that will not travel all the way to

Harlem for food. On top of that online ordering is protocol for many restaurants, so if it

works for so many others, it would be dumb to not feature it.

Measurement: the main way to measure if the site is effective is to look at overall

business. Are we getting more calls, are people using the catering option and have we had

more customers.

Potential Risks

The first potential risk to look at is if people just do not connect with the

campaign. That is a tangible risk, however seeing how many businesses have not

survived in the last ten years and looking at Sherman’s longevity I do not think this risk is

a big problem. Most of the things involved in this campaign are free in terms of money,
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they just take man-hours. The worst thing that can happen is that people just do not

accept the campaign and if that happens it is not the end of the world. This plan is so

economically efficient that even if it failed it would not hurt the business that bad.

Another potential risk is oversaturation. There are a lot of parts to this plan and

there would be a lot of exposure for the virtually unexposed business. Initially this can be

a good thing however too much exposure can get people sick of Sherman’s and find their

answer for Bar Be Que food elsewhere. In all businesses oversaturation is a bad thing,

examples include MySpace, 50 cent and Nextel. Notice all three examples are in very

different businesses but they all suffered from the same thing: oversaturation. MySpace

really made social network sites extremely popular, however they were oversaturated in

their market and Facebook overtook them. 50 cent sold over 10 million records of his

debut album “Get Rich or Die Trying”. Since then he has put out books, movies, vitamin

water, sneaker, clothes and even video games. However the sales from each album go

down every time. According to riaa.org his most recent album hasn’t even been certified

gold yet (500,000 records sold). Nextel was another brand that was very popular; they

had a number of musicians endorsing their brand and were gaining momentum with their

“direct connect” feature (walkie talkie). However they also oversaturated themselves and

were eventually acquired by sprint.

Finally the last risk that we face is that maybe Sherman’s time has passed. This is

a risk that cannot be ignored, even though it is a very negative one. The fact of the matter

is that Sherman’s has fallen a long way from its former glory. Potentially this viral

campaign could be for nothing. Sherman’s could be one of those businesses that are just

not prepared to re-invent it and enter the information age.

Conclusion:

In the end viral campaigns have been the newest and most effective way of

advertising. With the Internet growing everyday, a new way has been created to advertise
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and reach people. It has made it easier for businesses to connect with customers and get

people to pay attention. Though Sherman’s is very late on this trend, they have a chance

to seriously capitalize off of it. Since this is not new, they had an opportunity to look at

what other businesses did in their viral campaigns and capitalize off of that.

Since everything in this campaign has been done and proven successful already I

believe there is little to be worried about from the business perspective. What I am trying

to implement is protocol for many other businesses. I do believe that if given the proper

channels Sherman’s can become a powerhouse in the Bar Be Que business once again.

Bibliography
Dallas BBQ menu page.
http://www.menupages.com/restaurants/dallas-bbq-7/

Twitter Analytics page. (2010) Retrieved March 1, 20210 from

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/twitter.com/

Dallas BBQ homepage. (2010) Retrieved March 2, 2010 from

http://www.dallasbbq.com/

Wendy’s facebook page. (2010) Retrieved March 1, 2010 from

http://www.facebook.com/wendys?ref=search&sid=5524528.909494134..1

Official Google Blog. (2010) Retrieved March 5, 2010 from

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http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139020/Study_54_of_companies_ban_Facebo
ok_Twitter_at_work

Review Of Sherman’s. (2009) Retrieved from

http://www.yelp.com/biz/shermans-barbeque-new-york

Motorola Android Twitter Page. (2010) Retrieved March 5, 2010 from

http://twitter.com/LoveMyDroid

In- person interview With Jesse Beasley. (2010) Conducted February 27, 2010.

Phone interview with Sherann Hibbit. (2010) Conducted March 3, 2010