McDonald’s tests e-coupon offer in Tulsa
In April, Tulsa-area McDonald’s restaurants launched an interactive promotion targeting cell phone owners with a mobile scavenger hunt and electronic coupon offer, said Promo Xtra’s Amy Johannes.
The Mobile Whoa promotion let customers “play” with the McDonald’s brand via a mobile scavenger hunt that sent consumers to local restaurants to solve trivia questions. To play, consumers had to text the word “hunt” to 62931 or register at mobilewhoa.com. Once registered, consumers received a series of six questions, including trivia specific to McDonald’s newly designed restaurants and to Oklahoma.
The first 4,000 consumers who registered via text messaging or online and opted-in to receive McDonald’s promotions received a $5 Arch card.
The goal of the promotion was in part to promote recent design changes at Tulsa restaurants. Many of the 74-area restaurants in northeastern Oklahoma have been remodeled to include wireless Internet, cashless technology and plasma-screen TVs.
“This promotion complements the whole goal of making things easier for customers,” said Jennifer Smith, McDonald’s spokesperson for the West division. “It’s a fun way to interact with our customers.”
Dallas ad agency Moroch Partners worked with Gamut Industries, a San Francisco mobile marketing company which developed the technology that delivers mobile coupons in SMS, WAP or J2Me formats.
Consumers could also win free music ring tones and wallpapers for snapping pictures of themselves inside newly designed McDonald’s restaurants.
This isn’t the first time a McDonald’s market has offered mobile coupons. Last fall, more than 600 McDonald’s restaurants in southern California offered mobile coupons for a free McFlurry dessert.
And other markets are sure to follow. Promotion using cell phones is being considered by “a number” of other McDonald’s markets. “As a promotion, this is something that will catch on,” Smith said.
“McDonald’s Tulsa Market Goes Mobile,” Promo Xtra, April 7, 2006, http://promomagazine.com
CBS launches online outlet
As reported by Wayne Friedman of Media Daily News in May, CBS Corp. has launched innertube, an ad-supported online entertainment channel targeting much-coveted younger viewers and the advertisers desperate to reach them.
Visitors will have free access to original content, companion shows to existing CBS shows, repeats of CBS Corp. shows and material from the CBS library. “It’s an era of ideas,” said Larry Kramer, president of CBS Digital Media, about innertube. “This is a moment in history where advertisers and programmers have come together. We assume we’ll get viewers coming from [CBS] but we hope to get [new] young viewers as well.”
Innertube already has a few charter advertisers including Brinkmann Corporation, Cadbury Schweppes, Chili’s, Pier 1 Imports and Verizon SuperPages.com.
While the name innertube would seem like a spin off of the popular YouTube.com, CBS says that isn’t the case. “But we wouldn’t mind if their young viewers came over,” said Nancy Tellem, president, CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group.
New shows already on the innertube include: Animate This!, where celebrities narrate personal events with animation; BBQ Bill, a scripted sketch-comedy series. Summer shows include InTurn, in which a group of young hopefuls live together while going through “soap opera boot camp” with the ultimate goal of being cast on CBS’s As the World Turns and The Green Room, an entertainment magazine show that takes an offbeat look at CBS programming.
“CBS Caches In On Broadband Craze, Launches Innertube,” Media Daily News, May 5, 2006.
Exotic fruits and veggies transform produce departments
As detailed in the May issue of Facts, Figures & The Future (www.factsfiguresfuture.com ), an e-newsletter from the Food Marketing Institute, ACNielsen and the Lempert Report, produce - the showpiece department of many supermarkets - is taking on a more ethnic character.
The growing Hispanic and Asian populations in the United States have increased the demand for exotic fruits and vegetables from far-flung nations, in the process adding a new zest to grocery produce departments. The result is not only greater appeal to these surging subgroups but a wealth of tasty treats for adventurous general-market consumers to sample and eventually accept.
Mangoes, papayas and avocadoes once crossed this bridge and are now part of mainstream displays. Today, colorful chili peppers, beans, melons and eggplants are among varieties attempting the same feat.
They bring a welcome taste of the homeland to recently acculturated emigrants and add a colorful touch to produce displays, which are so key to where people decide to shop. “An astonishing 47 percent of general consumers have changed their entire shopping patterns from one supermarket to another based solely on the quality of the fresh fruits and vegetables one offers over the other,” said Dan Henderson, director of market research at the Produce Marketing Association (PMA).
Hispanics place an even higher priority on “fresh, high quality fruits” than U.S. shoppers overall: 97 percent rate it a “very important grocery feature” versus 87 percent among the broader population base, according to the PMA’s Hispanic and Fresh Produce report.
Hispanics are attractive customers because they cook dinner at home 5.6 times a week and spend 47 percent more on produce than the general-market consumer: $228 annually versus a national average of $157 and a non-Hispanic tally of $152, PMA figures show. “Hispanics do their produce shopping at the supermarket 72 percent of the time, and at supercenters and mass merchants 16 percent of the time, so they’re generally satisfied with product availability,” said Henderson.
To entice more trial of new items, PMA research indicates that people want more taste tests and staff on hand who can speak of nutritional value, how to store, how to cook and how to make products viable for them. Many consumers first encounter these ethnic tastes in restaurants and want to be able to replicate those positive experiences, Henderson said.