Jack and Wendy may want to do more interviews. As fellow quick-service mascot Juan Maker, spokesman for The Taco Maker, has shown, new-media marketing can benefit from a complementary push in traditional advertising methods.
The Taco Maker put Juan to work in a hybrid marketing campaign, which combined irreverent spots on talk radio with a text message coupon program that yielded redemption rates of about 50 percent and contributed to a 21-percent increase in first-quarter same-store sales, officials said.
The campaign was built around the launch of The Taco Maker’s new flagship product, a 1-pound burrito called “The Maker,” and was crucial to expanding the brand’s base of young customers, said Carlos Budet, president and chief executive of parent company FransGlobal Corp., based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“We realize how important it is to tap into a younger, tech-savvy segment of the market for growing our brand,” Budet said. “We’ve seen in just a few months, in fact, the impact this strategy can have on our total revenue gains. In the first quarter alone, over 2,200 customers have responded positively via their mobile phones for our free-burrito promotion.”
This new-media strategy depended on a more traditional advertising method: talk radio. For instance, on the “Obie & Lil Shawn Morning Show” on Orlando, Fla., station WPYO-FM, an actor playing Juan Maker does an unscripted interview with one of the hosts. In a Cheech Marin-style caricature, the Taco Maker spokesman talks up The Maker, throws in a double entendre and implores listeners to text a code to a certain number to receive their coupons.
Gary Bentz, chief creative officer of BxP Marketing, the agency that created the campaign, said market testing showed that radio would be the best way to aggressively roll out the text coupon campaign.
“When we decided what vehicle to use, we knew it was going to be focused on how effectively the medium would get people to text back to us,” Bentz said. “We’re pushing The Maker, but the most important part is the call to action to text. That was the point of the radio buy.
“Once we generated thousands of texts and had people come in and try the product, they saw we were for real. The training of our cashiers and employees in trying to upsell was phenomenal, and the repeat visitors loved our offering.”
The 50-percent redemption rate would have been “unheard of” for old direct-mail offers, Bentz said, which had redemption percentages in the single digits.
The mobile-coupon campaign’s next phase will promote the Juan Peso Value Menu, Budet said. Offers for the value menu will be sent to customers who redeemed coupons for burritos.
“This medium has been cost-effective,” Bentz said. “When people text in, it’s because they’ve listened to our message. But when they come in and come back, that’s the golden ticket right there.”
The Taco Maker has more than 185 stores in the United States, Latin America and Asia.— [email protected]