In today's tough economic times and fragmented consumer market, companies need to find new ways to attract attention to their products. Last Sunday's Super Bowl brought us two interesting ones. One that I believe will be an overwhelming success, the other - not so much. Denny's was advertising that if you come in today between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. you will get a free Grand Slam breakfast. NBC and Pepsi hyped the show "Chuck" in 3D, saying you could pick up your 3D glasses at Pepsi displays in a store near you.
First, let's look at the good promotion. I think the Denny's promotion is brilliant. Yesterday in our weekly status meeting we talked about how could they afford to just give away all those breakfasts? We all agreed lines would be long and many would be given away. Then we took a quick poll of the people in the room. Of the nine of us there, one person had gone to a Denny's back in November. For the rest of us, it had been years. One guy thought they had all closed in Michigan (not true). I don't know how many of us will actually go today, but we all were thinking about it. More than a few of us looked up Denny's online to see where the nearest one is. And that's the point of their promotion. Get people talking about them. Get people to find out where the nearest one is. And get people who haven't been to their restaurant in years to come in and try the product. With people looking for low cost alternatives, Denny's should be a natural. Reminding people that they exist and have a good product at a good price is, in my mind, a good idea.
NBC/Pepsi on the other hand, didn't seem to execute their promotion very well. The show "Chuck" was on last night. It's a decent show that my wife and I enjoy. 3D episodes aren't a new promotion, but I figured, since I was going to watch it, I should get the glasses. So, on the way home from work I stopped at 4 different stores and looked at their Pepsi displays to find the glasses. None had them. They weren't out, they never had them. People at Walgreen and Rite Aid told me they never got their shipments of glasses. The guy at 7-11 said I was the 15th person to come in looking for them, but they never had them either. So, people were looking, but they just couldn't find them. Watching the show without the glasses just reminded you that you couldn't find them, because it's not a very good picture if you don't have the glasses.
Today, you have to do the unusual to get customers attention and get them to act. We've promotions for our furniture retailer like sending preferred customers a $50 gift card with no minimum purchase. Give someone $50 to spend in your store with no strings attached definitely get them to move. And since the average amount these customers end of spending is close to $1000, it really only costs the client around 5%. But, whatever promotions you do, you need to execute them well. I think Denny's has the right idea. NBC and Pepsi dropped the ball. What promotions have you seen that deserve a pass or fail?
Mike McClure, Executive Creative Director
I bet someone at Pepsi is explaining why they HAD to fire BBDO and hire Chiat/Day. The 3D promo was one of the bigger money wasting efforts in recent time, due to the poor execution you pointed out - that matched my experience too! In a way I'm glad I ended up watching the lame dancing football players/lizards in 2D after all -
Posted by: Jim Gilmore | February 05, 2009 at 04:24 PM
Was the Denny's promotion a success? When you make the front page of USA Today's business section I think the answer might be yes. When you serve 2M people then I definitely think the answer is an unqualified yes. Seems to me they did exactly what they wanted to do...get on people's consideration list. Heck, I even now know that all the Denny's aren't closed in Michigan.
Now if Ford would just do something like this with the Escape or Fusion HyBrid I'd stand in line all week.
Posted by: Mike Morawski | February 06, 2009 at 02:43 PM