For Chicago’s Heritage Restaurant & Caviar Bar, an entry into 670 The Score’s “Score Big For Your Business” contest turned into an incredible marketing opportunity. The Ukrainian Village eatery won a 30-second commercial during The Score’s Super Bowl broadcast – a prize that gave the local business a major spotlight during one of the biggest sporting events of the year.
Heritage suffered significant losses from a fire last April, including kitchen equipment, culinary research, and family heirlooms. They were chosen from a field of businesses of all types from across the area, vying to be a part of advertising’s most prolific day.
Radio Ink spoke with Audacy Chicago VP of Sports Programming Mitch Rosen and Heritage Restaurant & Caviar Bar Owner Guy Meikle to discuss the contest’s origins and the thrill of getting to the big game.
Radio Ink: Mitch, how was the idea for Score Big For Your Business born?
Mitch Rosen: Obviously, the Super Bowl is huge for television, but people forget how big radio and audio are for the event. It’s one of our highest-rated broadcasts of the year locally on The Score. We’re fortunate to have the exclusive local rights through our partnership with Westwood One to air the game.
As for the contest, we sell Super Bowl inventory well, but we also keep some for promotional use. We thought, Let’s reward a local business, help them grow, and rebrand if needed.
The prize includes 25 commercials on the station the week before the game and a commercial in the Super Bowl. Our goal with this contest isn’t to attract blue-chip advertisers. We want something grassroots – businesses like restaurants, bars, or family-owned HVAC companies. Those are the kinds of submissions we received.
It took off in a great way, so we decided to do it again this year.
Radio Ink: I take it that last year’s contest was a big success, then.
Mitch Rosen: It was great. Last year, we picked El Tapatio, another restaurant. The response was tremendous. They had been hit hard by COVID and were working to rebuild. The owner came in, recorded his commercial, and throughout the year, we kept hearing how it helped grow their business.
Radio Ink: So, how did you come to choose Heritage?
At the end of the day, we chose Heritage because they had the most compelling story.
It’s funny – two years in a row, we’ve chosen restaurants. But we had all kinds of submissions: a company that does goat yoga, small car dealerships, heating and air conditioning companies. In the end, we just went with the most compelling story.
Radio Ink: And the spots represent that.
Guy Meikle: Yeah, I mean, it sounded great. You know, everybody at The Score has just been absolutely supportive and really lovely.
Radio Ink: Guy, tell me about Heritage. What’s your history there?
Guy Meikle: We’ve been here for about eight years. I’m the executive chef and owner, with my wife, Tiffany, who runs the front of the house. We’ve got 30 really great people. A lot of them have been with us for four or five years, some since the very beginning. A lot of them I’ve known for most of my adult life, 25 or 30 years. So, it’s a lot like running a restaurant with your best friends, and it’s everything that sounds like.
Basically, Heritage is really the culmination of our life experiences. It’s about family, hospitality, and the food we grew up with. And we’re just trying to give that back to Chicago.
Radio Ink: Going into this, Mitch told me beforehand that this was your first time advertising on radio. Is that right?
Guy Meikle: Yeah. I mean, we’ve done interviews and little features here and there, but never a true ad campaign. It’s a totally new experience for us.
Radio Ink: So, how’d you hear about the contest? What made you decide to enter?
Guy Meikle: Taylor Morris, one of our front-of-house managers, and I are both avid Score listeners. It’s how we keep up with Chicago sports when we’re not at the restaurant. We listen while running errands, driving around, or on the Audacy app. We just love it – the personalities, the energy, everything.
Taylor saw the contest and sent me the link. I said, “Alright, that’s your job – you go for it.” And he did. He wrote about our story, and apparently, the folks at The Score connected with it. That’s how it all happened.
Radio Ink: I know it was tough competition. What was your reaction when you found out that you won?
Guy Meikle: Oh, so elated.
Mitch Rosen: When we called Taylor, he thought it was a joke. He didn’t pick up at first. When I called back, he said, I thought someone was pranking me! That made it even better. Again, it just shows the power of radio.
Guy Meikle: It’s just another way for us to share our story and what we do. It’s also really cool because we got to see how many of our current loyal fans listen to The Score, too. In the two weeks of lead-ins leading up to the game, people kept reaching out, saying, “Oh my God, we heard you on The Score!” We got tons of fun messages from people who were longtime listeners and just loved hearing us on the station.
Radio Ink: How was the production process?
Guy Meikle: Tiffany and I sat down with [Creative Production Director] Russ Mitera, and he walked us through everything. They were just so cordial and sweet about everything. So yeah, it was not like a nervous experience at all. It was really, really fun and relaxed.
Mitch Rosen: Once Russ interviewed them and got a feel for their business, he produced their commercials. After that, we put them live on air on The Bernstein & Harris Show with Dan Bernstein and Marshall Harris. They got to talk about their restaurant and what the contest meant to them.
Radio Ink: As a Score fan, I’m sure it was exciting to be on the station, but beyond that, what does it mean for your business to have its own Super Bowl ad air during the game? TV or radio, that’s the biggest stage in advertising.
Guy Meikle: It’s pretty amazing. You don’t really grasp how many people listen to the Super Bowl until you’re in it. I think it’ll be really nice to see what kind of audience we reach from this. Over the next few weeks, we’ll see how it impacts the business. But we’re just excited to be part of the process.
Mitch Rosen: That’s the beauty of it. And people underestimate the power of audio during the Super Bowl. Think about all the people driving to or from a party, a bar, or a restaurant—they’re listening to the game on the radio. You hear Kevin Harlan’s voice on Westwood One, and it’s an incredible, compelling listen.
Guy Meikle: It also feels like a fun relationship is developing with everyone at The Score. We did a food drop-off for them last Thursday, and I think it gave them a real sense of what we do. They got to see that we’re not just another restaurant – we have a multi-dimensional approach to cuisine and hospitality. It should be great.
