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Key Takeaways
- Holly Smith saw an opportunity in the strong memories people already have of P.F. Chang’s.
- Instead of focusing on follower counts, she emphasized meaningful interactions with guests online.
- Restaurants generate enormous amounts of information, and Smith believes the smartest brands use it.
Taking the marketing helm of a brand with more than 300 restaurants across 23 countries might intimidate most executives. For Holly Smith, it felt like an obvious opportunity.
Before accepting the role as Chief Marketing Officer at P.F. Chang’s, Smith started asking friends and family what they thought of the brand. The responses were strikingly consistent. Nearly everyone had a memory tied to it: birthday dinners, family celebrations or first dates.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘I used to love going to P.F. Chang’s.’”
Smith could have taken the “used to love” as a warning sign — that the brand was on its way out. Instead, she saw it as an opportunity.
An iconic brand with decades of emotional equity does not need to be invented from scratch. It needs to be reawakened. Smith saw a chance to reconnect a beloved restaurant with the next generation of diners while reminding former guests why they fell in love with it in the first place.
Smith’s first 90 days as the CMO, however, were not going to be about slick campaigns or flashy commercials. Her focus was on the people.
For starters, Smith focused on the internal team. Understanding how marketing, operations, finance and procurement work together was her top priority. Marketing in restaurants cannot operate in isolation. Every campaign ultimately plays out inside the dining room.
“I think marketing departments sometimes work in silos,” Smith said. “That’s just not how I was raised in the industry.”
That philosophy comes from Smith’s background across several major restaurant brands, where she learned that the best marketing strategies are built alongside operators. When everyone across the company is aligned, the results compound. It was all about listening. Smith has spent time understanding how the organization works, where the opportunities lie and how the team can move in the same direction.
There may not be a rulebook for stepping into a global CMO role. But Smith approaches the challenge with a simple mindset.
Start with the people. Then build the strategy together.
Data drives growth
If the first chapter of Holly Smith’s tenure at P.F. Chang’s has been about listening, the next chapter is about evolution.
The marketing landscape in which restaurants operate today barely resembles the one from a decade ago. Followers used to be the scoreboard. Now engagement, views and conversations matter far more. For Smith, that shift changes how a brand should approach everything from social media to loyalty programs.
Smith and her team are reexamining how P.F. Chang’s uses data across the business to help fuel their loyalty programs and advertising strategy. Restaurants generate an enormous amount of information every day. The challenge is knowing how to use it.
“We have so much data that comes into a restaurant from literally twenty different sources,” Smith said. “There’s no reason we can’t make data-driven decisions.”
The strategy also includes a wider content ecosystem. Rather than relying on a single spokesperson or celebrity partnership, Smith is leaning into a mix of creators and influencers who reach different audiences in different ways. Some may produce polished videos. Others may simply share meals with their followers in everyday settings.
The goal is not to chase trends. It is to meet guests where they already spend their time.
That same mindset applies to the dining experience itself. Smith sees an opportunity to bring more excitement back to the restaurant, drawing inspiration from high-energy hospitality concepts that turn meals into moments.
The classics that built the brand, dishes like Mongolian beef and fried rice, are not going anywhere. But Smith believes innovation and theatrical touches can give guests new reasons to return.
The mission moving forward is simple: preserve what people already love about P.F. Chang’s. Then build new experiences that keep the brand relevant for the next generation of diners.
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Shawn P. Walchef