Red Lobster's Biz Comeback

After years of swimming upstream, Red Lobster’s new leadership and a bold brand refresh look to be steering the once-struggling casual dining restaurant chain into calmer, more abundant waters.

In the months since its emergence from bankruptcy in late 2024, the chain has undergone a number of changes that have set the industry abuzz, most notably the appointment of its new CEO, Damola Adamolekun, who — at the age of 36 — is the company’s youngest CEO since its founding in 1968. The Harvard Business School grad, who’d previously turned around the business of Asian-fusion eatery P.F. Chang’s as its CEO, hit the ground running in September 2024, trimming operational costs and famously eliminating the seafood chain’s wildly popular but money-hemorrhaging all-you-can-eat shrimp special. 

Under Adamolekun’s leadership, the chain has added new menu offerings and brought back fan favorites, increased its social media presence and customer engagement, and partnered sports leagues and HBCUs. Red Lobster has also launched endearingly cheeky, pop-culture focused campaigns featuring retired NBA star Blake Griffin, using his famed dunking skills to get the perfect amount of butter on his lobster to tout its beloved Lobsterfest event, and NSync’s Joey Fatone playing up his ’90s heyday as “a big deal” to promote another big deal — a three-course Shrimp Sensation meal, priced at $19.99. 

From CEO to spokesman

As a result, the executive — who’s been making the media rounds touting the restaurant’s new direction — has found himself met with a combination of fascination and curiosity around his age and experience by the business world since his appointment to the role. He has also become an unexpected breakout star for fans taken by his affable, telegenic and approachable demeanor, who were initially shocked by the beloved-but-forgotten and mismanaged chain’s woes.

So, it came as no surprise that Nichole Robillard, Red Lobster’s chief marketing officer, decided to use that to the company’s advantage, although she admits the move wasn’t without trepidation.

“That was definitely not something that came too lightly,” Robillard told Campaign about the decision. “I'm a former agency person. I can't tell you the amount of times clients came to me and said, ‘Put my CEO in a commercial,’ and it was not something that ever really made sense.”

Robillard made the call after the team noticed a sharp uptick in business at the restaurants following an appearance Adamolekun made on The Breakfast Club, a popular radio show co-hosted by media personality Charlamagne Tha God that airs in more than 90 markets across the country.

The CMO says listeners were drawn to Adamolekun’s authenticity and unapologetic transparency, admitting the brand’s past mistakes and painting a digestible picture of its vision for the future and how it shows up for its guests.

“He came out of that [conversation] and immediately sales started to go up.” 

With the company’s agency, BarkleyOKRP, Robillard made Adamolekun the chain’s official spokesperson, launching the first spot, Real Talk. Real Change Happening at Red Lobster, in late May, in which he uses his signature down-to-earth delivery to inform viewers of the changes, improvements and mainstays (like its famed Cheddar Bay biscuits) guests could expect when they visit the restaurant.

Hooking a solid brand ethos

While having a likable C-suite exec has been helpful, Robillard said the new team understood they would still need to tackle a sea of challenges in the wake of its troubles, not the least of which would be establishing the brand’s ethos and overcoming the misperceptions often associated with filing for bankruptcy.

“We've had a lot of things that have gone right, but one of the things that I noticed coming in here was that we didn't really stand for anything externally,” she said. “All of our creative, all of our campaigns, everything was focused on whatever promotion we were running at that given point. So the challenge with that is, if you were not into Lobsterfest, or you were not into whatever shrimp promotion we were running, you didn't understand how Red Lobster fit into your life.” 

After “digging through research,” Robillard and her team discovered that the chain was mainly considered a destination for milestone events, which left a void — and an opportunity — during the days in between.  

“We've always wanted special occasions, but there are only a handful of those throughout the year, and there aren't enough of them to kind of fill the pipeline and fill the well for us. So we need to fit into a Tuesday night as much as we fit into a graduation or a Valentine's Day or a Mother's Day.”

She continued: “We needed something to kind of turn the tide immediately, because what we were doing wasn't working. So that's where we started really leaning into pop culture and trying to do things that made us more relevant in the eyes of consumers, that got us into conversations and consideration sets that we weren't in and, frankly, made people remember that we're still here.”

According to Robillard, another challenge coming out of last year was the consumer’s lack of clarity between “Chapter 11” and “out of business.” The team needed to remind people the 60-year-old brand isn’t going anywhere.

“We are part of the fabric of this culture, but we needed to show up in a different way. We needed to attract a younger audience that's going to be that next generation of Red Lobster lovers.” 

Part of that showing-up included the campaigns with Griffin and Fatone, adding $5 Happy Hour cocktails, and new menu items, including lobster pappardelle pasta, a sangria flight and “seafood boils,” a feast consisting of shellfish served with potatoes and corn, prepared with a selection of seasonings and packed in a large plastic bag for optimal cleanup. The latter item was recently launched during the restaurant’s Crabfest tentpole summer event on June 24, prompting the brand to trend as excited fans took to social media to express their approval of the new additions.

Red Lobster is about to have seafood boil bags, a sangria flight, and $5 drinks. Whew, that new CEO came in the door swinging.

Netting new partnerships and marketing opportunities

The brand has also entered a number of new partnerships, some of which include launching Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s new gin brand, Still G.I.N., and creating a limited-time-only specialty cocktail made with the spirit during a 4/20 promotion; partnering with Ice Cube’s BIG3 three-on-three basketball league for its new “Bring the Fire” rule allowing coaches to challenge an official’s call per half; and sponsoring the popular “tunnel walks” for the Chicago Sky WNBA team. 

According to Robillard, the brand’s partnership with the Sky is not only part of its new Red Lobster Hospitality initiative, it’s part of a grander strategy and an opportunity as it looks to deepen its footprint in the region. 

“It's somewhere we're putting a lot of energy right now. [The Sky’s] got some of the best players in the league, and they’ve got some of the highest social followings in the league, which is a huge channel for us,” she stated.

“It's a huge synergy for a number of reasons. Our audience — our ideal target audience — overindexes on sports in general, but in particular football, basketball, both college and pro, men's and women's.” The company has increased media spend in college football, and ran the spot featuring Adamolekun during the NBA conference finals.

Another partnership near-and-dear to Robillard’s heart — Tinder for Valentine’s Day. “We had an influencer initiative where we sent out kits with all these ‘Find Your Lobster’ swag moments and components,” she said. The brand did a takeover of the dating app for a week encouraging users to take pop quizzes to “find their lobster” — a reference to the classic Friends episode. 

Rolling out the ‘Red’ carpet for next-gen seafood lovers

As the brand continues to look for opportunities to connect with new seafood lovers, one thing has especially become a priority: ensuring current guests feel welcome and motivated to return to dine on a regular basis.

“We're in the hospitality business, but our scores, our online sentiment, and our guest sentiment scores had kind of been dipping — as a lot of casual dining had,” said Robillard. The team looked for ways to enhance our guests’ experience and came up with the idea of “red carpet hospitality.”

For the team, “Red” is now an acronym that stands for “Recognize, Engage and Delight,” to ensure no guest leaves feeling blue. 

“It is something that everyone from top down all the way to the greeter at the restaurants can understand, and they know what it means to deliver red carpet treatment to someone,” she said. “So it was very easy to translate that into action steps for the field, and our ratings have gone through the roof.” 

She noted the brand’s sentiment scores have tripled since implementing the initiative in February. 

“Hospitality is really driving that, because we put this focus on delivering a really great guest experience. I like to say ‘we do seafood with a smile.’”

She continued: “Our price range is ‘polish casual,’ but we're not stuffy. We want people to have fun. You're cracking crab claws [and] lobster claws with your hands. Playing with your food is not only allowed, it's encouraged. We always want to remind people that this is a fun experience. And Red Lobster is a fun brand, and we try to have fun with the partnerships and the activations that we're doing. 

We're not taking ourselves too seriously. We take the food seriously, but this is a fun experience, and we want people to enjoy it.”