On its 10-year anniversary, Resy plots its editorial future

After a decade in the restaurant reservation business, Resy is going beyond bookings.

The company, which was founded in 2014, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a campaign titled “More Than Reservations,” featuring editorial coverage, events across the country, and social content made in partnership with creators and restaurant partners.

“When we’re trying to think of how to claim what it is that we do, what we’ve done, and where we want to go, the idea of calling it what it is, which is being ‘more than reservations,’ felt like the right term and moniker,” Resy CMO Hannah Kelly told Marketing Brew.

The campaign looks back at how dining has changed in the last 10 years, while also positioning Resy as a source for restaurant intel and discoverability.

“Reservations have really become a form of cultural currency and dining has become such an important part of the cultural zeitgeist,” Kelly said. “We see a real opportunity to further that storytelling and further those experiences.”

No reservations

Kelly, who joined the Resy team when the company was acquired by American Express five years ago, said she’s learned in that time “that [Resy’s] restaurants are [its] biggest asset.” Focusing on stories from its partner restaurants has allowed the brand “to fuel bigger campaigns, bigger moments, and bigger marketing tactics,” she said.

There seem to be no plans of slowing that tactic down: Kelly told us that Resy will continue to expand its editorial franchises and the amount of content it produces through its brand publishing efforts.

“I think we feel, on the edit side of the house, a sense of responsibility to help cover what's important in the industry and the restaurants that you should know about to break through all the noise in a very difficult environment,” she said.

In June, Resy unveiled a Discover tab in its app to house all in-house content, both B2C and B2B, with blog post topics ranging from restaurant guides to a post about the state of the restaurant industry written by Resy’s CEO.

In an era where “anyone can be an influencer,” Kelly said she believes it’s important for brands to demonstrate their expertise. For Resy, that means highlighting restaurants on the brand’s platform and championing the industry, particularly “at a time when restaurant margins are slimmer than ever,” she said.

Resy’s increased focus on editorial may also serve to court millennial and Gen Z diners, which Howard Grosfield, president of US consumer services at American Express, said was the company’s “fastest-growing customer segment” in a recent press release about new perks for AmEx cardholders. Kelly confirmed that her team spends a lot of time thinking about those demographics.

“The world is a digital search and discovery engine,” Kelly said. “For Resy, specifically, we really own the fact that our Gen Z and millennials take pride, but also have some fear of making the right decision for the right restaurant at the right time.”

That insight helped inform the decision to create the Discovery tab, and roll out the ability to create sharable restaurant lists in the Resy app.

“That was playing into that insight of taking pride in where I eat or want to eat, but also wanting to get validation and see where others have been,” she said.

While discovering or saving a buzzy restaurant is one thing, actually getting in is another. When asked for tips on how to get into a much-publicized restaurant like Semma in NYC, Kelly said the “go-to trick” is to set a notify alert on Resy.

Of course, the other option, she said, is to just try walking in.