After a long conversation with a friend of mine Friday night (after the IMC Dinner in Morgantown) and over many glasses of wine (it was her birthday and she is moving to Portland, OR this week), we got into a big discussion about social media and Twitter. She is on tweets for her dad’s business (Pet Flora), her own natural line of cosmeceuticals (naturallylela.com) and for the bartendingbliss (random notes from a bartender-she’s been one for about 11 years or so: Me-I’m going on 17 years.) So I broke down and did it…I am a twitterer! I see how it is all consuming. I see how you just get into it. I can understand, as the messages are short and fun and people can follow you. (Follow me on http://twitter.com/shorty1973!)
Then someone I do not know found me, after only about 1.5 days. And his posts are relevant to social media. And low and behold I found some very interesting articles via his tweet.
LetsEat.at
This is a free website builder made specifically for smaller family owned restaurants that can’t afford professional web design services, (Parr, 2009).
This service allows any small restaurant to post menu items, (with prices and descriptions), logos, integrates with OpenTable (mentioned in a previous post), and you can make it mobile-friendly. All the better for the people (like me) who look for restaurants on their phone while travelling…whether that travel is 5 hours away or 20 minutes.
Carl’s Jr. teams up with Stars from YouTube
Casual eatery Car’s Jr. is marketing their latest product, the Portobello Mushroom Six-Dollar burger and needs the help of YouTube Stars, in fact 9 of them. Do you all remember when they made a controversial splash with an ad featuring Paris Hilton?
“Carl’s Jr. is hoping that the YouTube celebs hold enough influence over their respective online communities of fans that the Portobello Mushroom Burger message not only gets wide distribution, but also engaged viewers who respond with their wallets and their own YouTube videos. Additionally, since these are paid endorsements, not unlike controversial sponsored blog posts, they do come at a small risk for the social media stars who have opted to participate,” (Van Grove, 2009).
So, what’s the worst that could happen? Carl’s Jr. gets into some trouble over paying for endorsements. Or they create some ads that throw a whole variety of people up in arms. It is pretty clear that this chain is not afraid of bad publicity. In fact, it seems they believe in the old adage ‘all publicity is good publicity.’ Back in 2005, the restaurant chain showed no remorse for the above mentioned Paris Hilton commercial. In fact, they seemed to love the attention garnered from protests by the PTC, Parents Television Council.
Carl’s Jr.’s message to the PTC: The group needs to “get a life,” said Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl’s Jr., [stated] “This isn’t Janet Jackson — there is no nipple in this. There is no nudity, there is no sex acts — it’s a beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car,” (Silver, 2005).
Puzder went on to comment that he had shown the ad to all three of his kids (aged 12, 9 and 7 at the time) and they showed “no signs of being corrupted,” (Silver, 2005). Either this guy is just outlandish and obnoxious…or he loves the attention the ad is garnering. It seems that the commercial, and the later added ‘extended ad’ featuring the hotel billionairess and reality star on her own mini-site was a big hit with hungry young men because the mini-site they created, www.spicyparis.com, crashed hours after new ads the ads were shown and took several hours to get back up, (Carl’s Jr. Press Release, 2005).
I know we just commented last week about marketing in good taste, and especially when children are involved. But these ads were shown in certain time slots and during shows where kids are not the target audience, (such as Desperate Housewives and The Apprentice). I think its ok for a company to make a racy ad that pushes the envelope and doesn’t cross it, as long as it’s placed appropriately. Shock value still holds a great deal of draw for consumers.
That’s all I got for Now! This is Rachel, reporting from the SIN…OVER & OUT!
References:
Carl’s Jr. Press Release. (2005). “Explosive Response to Paris Hilton Ad Crashes Carl’s Jr. Web Site.” Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www.carlsjr.com/company/releases/explosive-response-to-paris-hilton-ad-crashes-carls-jr-web-site/
Parr, B. (2009). “LetsEat.at Helps Local Restaurants Build Targeted Websites.” Mashable: The Social Media Guide. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/letseatat/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter
Silver, C. (2005). “No Apologies for Sexy Paris Hilton Ad.” CNN Money. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/24/news/newsmakers/carls_ad/
Van Grove, J. (2009). “YouTube Stars to Endorse Carl’s Jr. Burgers.” Mashable: The Social Media Guide. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/youtube-stars-in-carls-jr-ads/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter
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
