Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arby's, coupon, fast food, Food Service, interactive marketing, mobile, ping, Pittsburgh
Click to view Arbys ad
A couple months ago I was taking Direct (Interactive) Marketing and began to notice things that I would not have noticed before the class. One in particular was a FSI (Free Standing Insert) from the Sunday Edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Now normally I only look at a couple sections of the paper, the crosswords, maybe the Proctor and Gamble coupons booklet and the Jobs Now employment section. However, while flipping through the sale papers for Target, Wal-Mart, CVS and others I spotted an ad that made me stop. It was for Arby’s and it was an announcement for two new products; Roastburgers and Iced FruiTea. The ad seemed at the time to be a reinforcement of the TV ads that had began running a couple weeks prior.
The FSI allows the consumer to get two coupons, one for each new product, and it’s easy to redeem. Just show your phone to the cashier. It’s also easy for non-tech savvy employees to redeem as all they have to do is look at your phone and see the code. They don’t have to take down your number, as the persons in the Marketing/IT department or third-party tracking organization already have it. This cellular coupon option makes it easy for Arby’s to evaluate the success of this ad (via measurement of anticipated reach via metro-market and responses) and they also have an automatic opt-in for future marketing. For instance, I assumed that after sending the coupon via text that a second message came up asking the recipient if they want future deals and information to come through via text. The party may have to reply ‘NO” or just not reply at all if they are opting out. (I had to do this with Sprint a couple months ago.) In fact this was the case; “Participants were then asked to double opt-in for future marketing messages from Arby’s. This message read, ‘Reply YES 2 get more exclusive offers from Arbys + Charter! Mx4msgs/mo. std text rates apply. Reply YES Now!’Consumers who opted in were added to a database of names, which Arby’s will use for future promotions,” (Tsirulnik, 2009). The numbers can be tracked, more messages can be sent and those who don’t want to receive them can let the company know so.
Peter Schultz, vice president of business development at Ping Mobile in New Jersey had this to say about the campaign;
“The strategy for Arby’s campaign was to find a fun, exciting and original way to promote their new burger to their target demographic. In addition to uniqueness, Arby’s also wanted to try a medium that was easily trackable, unlike traditional marketing methods, mobile enabled Arby’s to achieve a level of trackability,” (Tsirulnik, 2009). The article referred to was on the campaign in the Alabama market and it is stated that coupons were redeemed in 250 locations with a total of more than 850 respondents, (Tsirulnik, 2009).
The technology that made this ad campaign possible was created by Ping Mobile. Shira Simmonds, president of Ping Mobile stated that “Mobile enabled Arby’s to reach out to their desired demographic and offer their customers a promotion that was targeted and relevant, while at the same time being convenient and instantly available,” (Tsirulnik, 2009).
That’s all for now…this is Rachel reporting from the SIN…OVER & OUT!
References:
Arby’s Ad. (2009). Scanned from FSI in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
Funny Arby’s Commercial. (2009). Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1rRxxMfLpY&feature=related
Tsirulnik, G. (2009). “Arby’s Uses Mobile Coupons to Generate Buzz for New Roastburger.” Mobile Marketer. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/commerce/3198.html
