Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar, a Philadelphia-based chain with three locations, was caught between a rock and a hard place. The restaurant chain plans to open two or three units annually in major metro areas and wants to increase name recognition and diner frequency.

But with an average check of more than $40 for dinner and more than $20 for lunch, the concept is not really ripe for traditional, value-focused TV advertising.

“I do not feel TV is the best medium for the restaurant,” explains Director of Marketing Stacy Schulist. But doing the kind of high-end chef cooking demonstration an independent restaurant might offer may not result in the kind of awareness an expanding chain demands.

Schulist and her team decided to combine those two traditional ideas with new technology such as YouTube to get the cooking demonstration video to lure new diners in.

Timed with the chain's fall 2008 lobster paella promotion, the team videotaped Chef Guillermo Pernot preparing his signature dish. The professionally shot video was posted on Cuba Libre's Web site as well as on YouTube and other free video sites. The wide distribution of the video, which was also picked up by local news broadcasts and other media, drove new guests to Cuba Libre's paella evenings at a limited cost to the chain.

“We saw increased sales of people coming in for paella, which is a special, time-intensive dish,” Schulist says. “But, more important, this was another way to let people know about our concept.”

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