The freebies keep on coming this summer as Moe’s Southwest Grill, the Atlanta-based fast-casual burrito chain, prepares to give away a free six-ounce cups of queso to customers later this month.
Moe’s Free Queso Day — scheduled for July 20 — is just the latest “giveaway” promotion to be launched by operators looking to create a buzz, build sales, garner some media attention and thank customers.
Brands such as Chick-fil-A, 7-Eleven, Tropical Smoothie Café and Huddle House all have jumped on the freebie bandwagon this summer.
Last year, Moe’s held Free Queso Day — queso is melted white cheese used for dipping — to show gratitude to its customers as part of a 10-year anniversary celebration. But this year the brand has more ambitious plans. It is looking to build traffic and boost sales with the freebie after sales spiked on the day of last year’s queso event, said Brett Campbell, director of marketing for Moe’s Southwest Grill.
“Last year it started as one thing, and this year it has morphed into something else,” Campbell said. “We had a 50-percent growth in sales that day…it was such an eye-opener. It changed from a ‘thank you’ to going after new customers and inspiring them to come in.”
Moe’s also is using the promotion to showcase a product executives feel help differentiate the brand from competitors, Campbell said.
Campbell said Free Queso Day is being held in tandem with a related promotion contest with a $10,000 prize at stake called, “Dance Your Queso Off.” Moe’s customers are invited to create a dance video that’s no longer than 30 seconds and upload it to www.ilovequeso.com before July 24. Moe’s panel of judges will consider originality, video quality, dance moves and the dance-off ranking, and pick a winner for the $10,000 grand prize.
Nor is Moe’s alone in getting into the freebie act.
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On Monday 7-Eleven convenience stores gave away 5 million free Slurpees, said company spokeswoman Margaret Chabris. The Dallas-based convenience store chain held the Slurpee give-away on July 11 — or 7-Eleven day — to thank its customers.
Chabris told Nation’s Restaurant News that some 7-Eleven stores ran out of Slurpee cups, so they used coffee cups instead to hold the frozen drink.
On July 8, somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million people dressed in cow costumes or donned cow paraphernalia so they could get a free meal at Chick-fil-A, the 1,563-unit chicken sandwich chain based in Atlanta. The company does not know exactly how many free meals were doled out, but last year Chick-fil-A gave away 450,000 free meals to costume-wearing customers.
“Anecdotally, we heard stores were packed and the stores that we saw were packed,” said Mark Baldwin, a Chick-fil-A spokesman.
Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A is an annual event that is part fun but also part business, Baldwin said.
“It’s a huge marketing initiative, but we’re not looking for it to be sales builder, per se. It’s a way to connect with our customers and thank our customers in a very fun way, of course,” Baldwin said.
“It’s nothing more than having a fun way to be generous with our customers,” he said. “They’re our most passionate fans. Why not have fun with it? We have people waiting for it every year.”
In June, Tropical Smoothie Café gave away up to 500 free smoothies at each of its 300 stores around the country to customers wearing flip-flop sandals to celebrate Flip-Flop Day.
Besides giving free smoothies to celebrate the start of summer, the Destin, Fla.-based smoothie chain was hoping customers might want to donate a buck to the chain’s charity partner, Camp Sunshine in Maine.
At a Tropical Smoothie Café in St. Petersburg, the store actually gave away 600 free smoothies that day in June, said Cody Fierros, the store manager.
Fierros said sales usually increase in the few months immediately following the free smoothie promotion.
“It raises awareness,” he said.
And Huddle House, the 400-unit Atlanta-based brand, also got in the act. Huddle House offered a coupon for free waffles to anyone who became a fan of the family-dining brand on Facebook. Customers were able to redeem the coupon for the complimentary waffles on May 17 as Huddle House. The purpose of the give-away was to help build a younger customer base.
Contact Alan Snel at [email protected].
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