Pizza Hut and Amex Launch Super Bowl Deal

February 2012

Pizza Hut and Amex are teaming up for a Foursquare Super Bowl promotion, offering a $5 rebate on Pizza Hut orders over $10. Amex members will check into Foursquare’s “Super Swarm Sunday” feature, and upon ordering via phone, online or in-store at Pizza Hut they’ll receive an alert within moments regarding their Amex account credit. Pizza Hut will also run their pre-game spot on NBC, a part of their user-generated video contest promoting the Foursquare deal. For more information, please see Mashable.

Tragus Restaurant Group Engages On FB

December, 2011

The Tragus Group, owner of British restaurant chains Strada, Bella Italia, and Café Rouge, is looking to increase consumer traffic by encouraging engagement on their Facebook pages.  Consumers can record and upload videos and photos documenting their experience in any of the Strada, Bella Italia, or Café Rouge restaurants.  In return, they receive discounts and offers for the restaurant.  The Tragus Group believes that this user generated content will help pull in new consumers and encourage them to continue frequenting the restaurants. They also feel this content will help their efforts to re-brand Café Rouge as a full service restaurant rather than a small scale café.  For more information, please see Marketing Week UK.

Chipotle and Nelson Collaborate for Food

September, 2011

Chipotle has become the fast food industries leader in sustainable farming. They have recently released a new “stop-motion animation” video which features Willie Nelson’s new cover of Coldplay’s The Scientist. The video depicts a farmer who it tired of corporate food production and decides to start his own sustainable farm. To watch the video and see how they produced it, or for more information, please see Sustainable Farming.

SCVNGR and Buffalo Wild Wings Promotion Success

June, 2011

SCVNGR and Buffalo Wild Wings have released stats showing the success of their March Madness promotion.  For the 12 weeks leading up to March Madness, SCVNGR and Buffalo Wild Wings partnered at all 730 restaurant locations to have customized challenges that engaged consumers and rewarded them for completing pre determined tasks.  The partnership was in the form of a customized SCVNGR game on the app platform that was centered around eating and watching basketball games at Buffalo Wild Wings. Once a consumer completed challenges, they could instantly redeem rewards in the restaurant and also post their success to the SCVNGR network, Twitter, and Facebook. The first week of the promotion showed 30,000 players, and by the end of the promotion there were over 184,000 players nationwide. The partnership was a good match due to cross over between the SCVNGR player’s competitive nature and Buffalo Wild Wings clientele that love challenges, competition, and games. Chris Mahl, the SVP of Marketing at SVNGR said good timing with march madness, strong staff training at the restaurants, and mass marketing on-premise also contributed to the success of the game partnership.  For more information, see Mashable.

DENNY’S CELEBRATES WITH BACONFEST Sweeps

April, 2011

Denny’s has recently launched a new, limited time only “Baconalia” menu, which contains seven new dishes for the ultimate bacon lover. To promote it, the brand is offering a Facebook sweepstakes that sends the Grand Prize Winner and guest to Chicago’s 2011 (sold out) BaconFest with 2-day VIP passes. Five Second Prize Winners will each receive a $100 Denny’s gift card. To further support this program, Denny’s has added other related tabs to its Facebook page. These tabs include the history of Baconalia and the Bacon Scented Phone App, which is actually an April Fool’s joke with coupon.

Hardee’s Pushes “Happy Star Rewards” App

April, 2011

The CKE Restaurants’ Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. have found their mobile advertising very successful, and are now directly promoting their mobile app, “Happy Star Rewards” in restaurants via merchandising. Whenever customers purchase food, they will receive a small flyer with download directions. “Happy Star Rewards” works as a GPS-enabled loyalty program that lets customers earn free food and prizes, working both as an extension of CKE’s social media program and as an easier loyalty card. It even has a social media interface that can be used to check in with Foursquare, and receive content feed from Facebook and Twitter.

Starbucks Card Mobile Hits 3 Million Users

March, 2011

Starbucks new mobile payment system “Starbucks Card Mobile” has recently reached  3 million users and has been deemed a huge success by the company.  The system launched in January and is currently considered the largest mobile payment system in use.  Users can download an app which generates a barcode the cashier can quickly scan at the cash register.  The barcode links to the user’s Starbuck’s card account and automatically withdraws the purchase amount.  Users can reload their card via PayPal or credit card.  The app also allows users to access and use their Starbucks rewards points.  The “touch to pay” system is the first of its kind for the store and is currently offered for Blackberry, iPhone, and iPod touch.  The company plans to roll out the app for Android phones in the future. For more information see Mashable.

Free Burrito for Watching NBC Promo

February, 2011

NBC is offering a coupon for buy one, get one free on Chipotle burritos for consumers who watch a preview for the new show “America’s Next Great Restaurant”.  The promotion is housed on a facebook tab on which the user is prompted to watch the 1:31 minute preview to unlock the printable coupon.  In Chipotle stores, consumers can enter to win a free catered burrito party by texting “ANGR” (America’s Next Great Restaurant) from any Chipotle location.

America’s Next Great Restaurant is a reality TV challenge where contestants compete to have their restaurant dream become a reality. The promotion ends on the day the show premieres, March 6. For more information see Mashable.

Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s New Mobile Rewards App

December, 2010. Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s launched a new location-based mobile app, The Happy Star,  for the iPhone and Android that rewards consumers for checking in at their locations. Consumers earn spins on the “Wheel of Awesome” for the chance to win free menu items, discounts, gift cards, and other merchandise from partners. Besides rewards, the app offers videos, restaurant locator and menu and nutritional information. It also has the option to post users’ check-ins on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. This app is the first within the fast-food industry to combine location-based technology with rewards.

Introducing Dealery

November, 2010  Dealery has just joined the arena of companies that provide online local group deals including Groupon and LivingSocial.  Dealery combines all of the daily group deals into one convenient place allowing users to see all of the available deals in their area.

McDonald’s Brands Farmville Farm

October, 2010

For one day only, McDonald’s is branding a Farmville farm and offering players a chance to win virtual prizes. Prizes include a virtual hot air balloon Farmville users can keep on their farms after the promotion is done. McDonald’s is hoping to reach the diehard Farmville users who are noted to spend roughly 15 minutes each day caring for their farms. Anja Carroll, director of media at McDonald’s, said, ”This is all part of a larger social-media strategy. It’s difficult to ignore the sheer volume of the audience that FarmVille brings.” You can read more about this social media initiative at USAToday.com.

Chipotle Turns Junk E-mail Into Healthy Lunches

June, 2010

Chipotle launches a new campaign with non-profit organization, The Lunch Box, to turn junk e-mail into healthier school lunches for kids.  The program is called “No Junk” and Chipotle will donate $10,000 for every 100,000 spam messages sent to nojunk@chipotlejunk.com.

WePay Manages Group Spending

April, 2010

WePay provides users with a service that removes the mystey and headache of paying for services and items as a group. With insured payment methods via bankaccounts or credit cards, WePay is an innovative new way to split the rent or payments your utilities among friends and groups.

DEALCHIME OFFERS REAL TIME DEALS ON THE GO.

April, 2010

DealChime is a geo-based store finder, shopping list and coupon dispenser created by Moosylvania. This real time app engine identifies your location and provides the closest retailers and geo-relevant coupons. The mobile coupons have been tested for various retailers including Dominos and McDonalds. DealChime coupons reached 10x the audience for the same cost as a standard FSI, while delivering greater flexibility in mobile coupon messaging.

Check.in: A New Way to Discover New Places

March, 2010

Check.In is a new online application that provides users with “check-in” information from Foursquare, Gowala Bright Kite and Yelp. The site uses Google maps as its platform to display check-ins amoung the four previously mentioned sites. This one-stop-site for viewing check-in infomration makes searching for popular venues oa quick and easy.

Hardee’s Thickburger is Back with Text-in Deals

February, 2010 Hardee’s is currently running television commercials to advertise the return of their Jalapeno Thickburger. During these commercial spots, a text-in code rolls across the bottom of the screen. Consumers can text-in the code and receive a buy one get one free coupon texted back.

Dairy Queen Mobile App

January, 2010 Dairy Queen targets the simple-minded mobile user with its newest iPhone app. The app is easy to use and allows  consumers to locate the nearest Dairy Queen. It also gives a simplified version of their menu and nutritional information.

Wendys Mobile Coupons

December, 2009

Wendy’s is targeting on-the-go consumers with a campaign that allows them to opt-in to receive mobile discounts. The fast food chain is currently testing the promotion with its Northeast U.S. demographic.

KC Masterpiece & Kingsford “Meet Keith”

November, 2009

KC Masterpiece and Kingsford Charcoal targeted country music fans with an SMS campaign at the Keith Urban World Tour. Consumers could text-in for a chance to meet the artist or win seat upgrades. Urban also involved fans by encouraging them to leave messages about their favorite summer memories. Over the course of the tour, over 500,000 consumers participated in the campaign.

Ronald McDonald Uses Text-Based Donations

October, 2009

The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana utilized text messaging for charity donations at the annual Macy’s Glamorama. Raising money to build the largest Ronald McDonald house in the world, attendees of the Macy’s event were invited to text in to a numbers to donate via their mobile devices. The representatives from the event said the use of SMS donations were effective due to immidiate audience attention and an effortless/fast transaction.

Burger King SMS Call-Outs

October, 2009

Burger King is targeting college sports fans by sponsoring SMS call-outs during CBS College Sports broadcasts. Polls and quizzes throughout NCAA football games ask consumers to text-in their opinions and the results are displayed on screen with Burger King’s logo. The sponsorship engages consumers and connects the brand with the sport.

Rubio’s “Yowza!!”

September, 2009

Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill is partnering with “Yowza!!” to create an application available to iPhone and iPod touch users. Consumers will receive mobile coupons from the app, which they can redeem by showing them to the store’s cashier. The coupons are an easy way to promote the restaurant to on-the-go consumers.

iCanEat OnTheGo

September, 2009

“iCanEat OnTheGo” is an iPhone application that provides consumers with a guide to fast-food chains and their allergy-safe or gluten-free products. From Boston Market to KFC, the app guides consumers to dine-out safely. The app allows consumers to create a profile of what they are allergic or sensitive to and updates a list of available restraints accordingly. Although not all chains are listed, the company is reaching out to build options for more consumers. The app follows a pay-per-download process providing free updates as menus change.

Domino’s Pizza Corners Market on Mobile

September, 2009

Domino’s Pizza is utilizing mobile marketing to reach more general consumers. With a mobile site, consumers can order a pizza and see the progress of their order step-by-step. Execs at Domino’s say this move has been tremendously well received and is expected to grow their business enormously. Domino’s attributes most of its revenue last year to the digital move and anticipates where it will go next.

LongHorn Steakhouse “Discover the West”

August, 2009

LongHorn Steakhouse is targeting its core consumer with “Discover the West in You,” a free mobile app that allows the user to cook a steak by flipping it up to four times on a grill. It can also be viewed in 3D with the use of special glasses.

McDonald’s “McCafé”

August, 2009

McDonald’s is targeting on-the-go Hispanics with Spanish-language mobile banner ads. The ads link to a page, which allows consumers to opt-in to receive an SMS alert reminding them to visit their local McDonald’s to get a free McCafé beverage.

Hooters Calendar Girls “Crazy Eights”

Pizza Hut iPhone App

July, 2009

A new Pizza Hut iPhone and iPod Touch application allows customers to personalize their pizza by dragging and dropping their own toppings. They can also order Tuscani Pastas from a virtual waiter and “cook” their own wings by shaking the device until the wings are smothered in the selected sauce. Then, the Pizza Hut Racer game keeps consumers occupied while they wait for their order to arrive.

Hardee’s “NameOurHoles.com”

June, 2009

Hardee’s is targeting males ages 18-49 through a mobile website, NameOurHoles.com. The site asks consumers to submit a suggested name for their new biscuit holes and gathers demographical data. Then, its database pulls suggested names into Hardee’s television spots.

Dairy Queen “Sweet Deals”

April, 2009

Dairy Queen is targeting consumers with idle screen advertising on Mobile Posse, a site that offers on-the-go entertainment, news, weather, sports, horoscopes and more. Dairy Queen’s idle screen ads saw tremendous success with average click-through-rates of more than 22-percent. Additionally, close to 54-percent of Mobile Posse users opted to view Dairy Queen’s Sweet Deals by clicking on the idle screen banner ad or browsing the site’s “Recent Offers Menu.”