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Chipotle Mexican Grill Wants Your Spam
by Karlene Lukovitz, Friday, June 25, 2010

No, it's not some kind of masochistic thing.

It's a clever social media- and Web advertising-driven campaign designed to generate donations for a nonprofit encouraging healthier, locally sourced school meals, while simultaneously reinforcing Chipotle Mexican Grill's message that fast food needn't be "junk" food.

The QSR's "No Junk" campaign, launching June 25, is asking people to forward their own junk emails to the chain (at nojunk@chipotlejunk.com).

For every 100,000 junk emails received (up to a 500,000 maximum), Chipotle will donate $10,000 to The Lunch Box, a new initiative from the F3: Food Family Farming Foundation that will offer 100,000 schools nationwide (32 million children) recipes and other tools for implementing healthy, whole foods-based, economical meal programs. The recipes are from F3 founder/"Renegade Lunch Lady" Ann Cooper, a chef and book author who, according to her bio, has made it her life's mission to advocate for better food for all children.

The "No Junk" campaign -- which will run through August (or until the maximum donation level is reached) -- ties in with Chipotle's "Food with Integrity" brand promise, based on its commitment to using premium-quality ingredients from sources that are more sustainable than any other national restaurant company, according to the chain.

For example, the 1,000-unit, nationwide chain uses meat from animals that are raised naturally (vegetarian diets with no hormones or antibiotics) and humanely, and dairy products from cows not treated with the synthetic hormone rBGH. Chipotle also continues to increase the amounts of locally/organically grown produce used in its restaurants.

The inspiration for the campaign was to convey Chipotle's desire to "help people to get junk out of their lives," Chris Arnold, the chain's public relations director, tells Marketing Daily. "Junk email is certainly one good example and, while we can't eliminate it from people's lives, we can at least help them put this negative to productive use."

To drive participation, Chipotle will run banner ads on targeted sites, as well as leverage Facebook.

The chain has created a "No Junk" tab on its Facebook page, which currently has about 750,000 fans. In addition to posting about the cause-related campaign, Chipotle is offering fans a "How Happy Are You?" game in which players' happiness levels go up when they "catch" a healthy Chipotle menu item or ingredient with a virtual fork, and go down when the item caught is "mass-produced junk food." Links encourage players to share the game with other social media users.

The brand will also get the word out via its Twitter presence, although that's not as robust as its Facebook fan base, says Arnold. Chipotle's Web site, due to being mid-redesign, won't promote the campaign, he says.

People who forward junk emails can rest assured that the content won't be read by Chipotle, and that the chain won't add their email addresses to its promotional database unless they opt in via a reply email triggered by their forwarding of junk email. The reply email will also point interested participants to Chipotle's site to learn more about its "Food with Integrity" promise/practices, and to TheLunchBox.org.

F3's stated mission is to help change the food system in the U.S. to an ecologically sound, sustainable model. The organization educates through training programs, direct services, a Web portal and collateral channels. In addition to Cooper, its founders include Chez Panisse Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Orfalea Foundations, the Colorado Health Foundation, the Compton Foundation and Whole Foods Market Inc.

For more information visit www.mediapost.com

Denny's Pumps Up Social Media Efforts Amid Troubles
by Karlene Lukovitz, Thursday June 1, 2010

Social media is likely not the #1 priority these days at Denny's, what with searches for both a new CEO and a new CMO now underway and heavy investor pressure to rejuvenate the brand and jump-start its sales.

(On June 8, Denny's announced that chairman/CEO, Nelson Marchioli, who had survived an ouster attempt by an investor group in May, is now being replaced on an interim basis by board chair Debra Smithart-Oglesby. The chain's former CMO, Mark Chmiel, resigned at the end of last year.)

Still, from a marketing standpoint, it's interesting to note that the company is pushing forward with efforts to enhance its social media outreach, even as a new top-level strategic team tackles the job of reassessing the business's fundamentals.

In the last six months, in particular, the chain has been accelerating social media efforts intended to go beyond pushing out basic promotional/coupon offers -- efforts more focused on engaging fans and prospects with one another and with the brand, confirms Alan Miller, co-founder/co-owner of L.A.-based Filter Creative Group, the agency handling Denny's social media programs.

The latest effort, launched on June 8 and running through June 27, is a Father's Day "card maker" application being promoted through the chain's main brand and "Allnighter" Facebook fan pages and Twitter presences, as well as its email database.

Users register and create a card to email or print out for dad, and the card comes with a coupon for a free ice cream float for dad ... well, free with any purchase from the chain's new "$2 $4 $6 $8 Value Menu" or an entrée from its general menu. (The free-with-purchase nature of the offer is perhaps notable, given that disgruntled investors' criticisms have included charges that outright food giveaways, such as Denny's annual Free Grand Slam Breakfast day, have not succeeded in winning new, regular customers.)

As of June 10, more than 7,000 consumers had already created Father's Day cards, according to the chain. This follows a similar card-maker effort for Mother's Day, in which more than 13,000 users created cards in less than a week, reports Miller.

Denny's main brand Facebook page has attracted about 49,000 fans since its launch (along with an associated Twitter presence) in February 2009. But these general-brand Facebook/Twitter presences actually emerged from the success of the launch, nearly a year earlier, of a Facebook page and Twitter account that were created specifically in support of Denny's "Allnighter" initiative -- its effort to attract a young crowd with a hipper environment and special menu featured between 10 a.m. and 5 a.m.

The Allnighter Facebook page (which now has about 72,000 fans) has offered a variety of engagement devices, including mobile apps like virtual dancing video games and Webisodes featuring live-action puppet characters enjoying the Allnighter vibe. Allnighter fans have also been able to access personalized profile pages created by the animated characters, appearing on MySpace, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Denny's two Facebook fan pages regularly cross-promote engagement and promotional opportunities, and Webisodes/videos, along with Denny's TV spots, are readily available on YouTube.

Earlier this year, Denny's' main Facebook page hosted eight video episodes featuring its popular chicken characters -- a follow-up to the chain's three Super Bowl commercials promoting its Free Grand Slam Breakfast day and Free Grand Slam birthday offer. One of those Bowl spots ("Chicken Warning") showed its chicken characters fleeing town as they were warned about the volume of eggs they'd have to lay to meet the demand for the free breakfast promotion. The video episodes offered humorous updates on the chickens' plight.

Denny's subsequently created "The Chicken Show," a series of monthly Webisodes on a "chickens" tab of the brand's main Facebook site that feature the chickens and their humorous interactions with a clueless fictional character, "Brian the Intern." A current episode, for instance, has the chickens begging for Denny's fans to volunteer as reviewers of the new Value Menu, because "Brian" has fallen gravely short as a reviewer (Allnighter Facebook fans are also being urged to become reviewers).

In April, Denny's also teamed with ESPN on both branded content sponsorship segments within the network's "Wednesday Night Baseball" programming and a weekly, online "Denny's Kruk Report," in which ESPN baseball analyst John Kruk blogs on baseball, food and fans and answers questions submitted by Denny's Facebook fans. Participation in the Kruk Report is heavily promoted on both Denny's Allnighter and overall-brand Facebook pages.

What's next? Miller says a July Fourth social media campaign/ promotion is soon to be announced.

Denny's sales declined from $939.4 million in 2007, to $760.5 million in 2008, to $608.1 million in 2009. During fiscal year 2009, its same-store sales decreased 3.7% in company-owned units and 5.2% in franchised units. However, 2009 fiscal net income was $41.6 million, up from $12.7 million in fiscal 2008.

In first-quarter fiscal 2010, net income was $4.6 million, versus $4.3 million in Q1 fiscal 2009.

For more information visit www.mediapost.com

The good news: A coupon promotion offering a free burrito with the purchase of a regular-size drink on July 22 generated more than 50,000 takers and a 75% lift in traffic for Baja Fresh Mexican Grill, according to the quick-casual chain.

The hitch: The chain had expected to redeem coupons only from fans signed up on its official Facebook page, who stood at 1,800 at the time of the offer.

While fulfilling on 50,000 seems a valiant performance given the expectation gap, would-be redeemers beyond that crowd were out of luck when some Baja Fresh locations were unable or unwilling to meet the demand.

Part of the demand resulted simply because the offer caused a surge of fan sign-ups: Fans shot from 1,800 to more than 3,000 in less than 24 hours, according to the chain's postings on its Facebook page. In addition, as consumer postings on the page make clear, users quickly discovered that they could print out the identical coupon even if they did not sign on as fans.

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