Junie Chow's Blog

I just love seeing companies come up with promotions that actively involve consumers. This week I stumbled upon an article about one such promotion from Dairy Queen. The company is promoting its new “Mini Blizzard” dessert through a contest on Facebook. This contest requires contestants to upload a video of them doing good deeds forsomeone else, as they say, in a “Big Mini Blizzard” way.  I’m not really sure what DQ means by in a “Big Mini Blizzard” way, but it will be interesting and fun to watch how contestants interpret this meaning in their videos. In the end, only the top six videos will win and their prize will be a brand new 2011 Mini Cooper Countryman! Wow, they are actually giving away six cars!

Along with this announcement of the contest, there were multiple videos uploaded showing the Blizzard spokesman, Chad, promoting the new Mini Blizzard. The videos show Chad and his team of “Treatsmen” surprising people on the street with free gifts. In one particular video, Chad appears behind the counter in a Dairy Queen store giving away free Mini Blizzards, as well as tiaras, teddy bears, baseball caps, and flowers to unsuspecting customers. For a few lucky customers Chad even hands over keys to the brand new Mini Cooper Countrymen. The videos, although it could have been staged, felt real and natural to me, and this realness helped to achieve what I thought was an effective promotion tactic. It felt as if that could happen to you too if you randomly

walked into a Dairy Queen store. Not only is Chad delivering great customer service with his energetic and friendly personality, he is also aiding DQ in generating a good brand image in the eyes of customers that will hopefully last in the long term.

Images from dairyqueenwest.com and http://ksrubyredslippers.blogspot.com

Have you ever Jinxed anyone before? Well according to an article from Adfreak Kraft Macaroni and Cheese has cleverly incorporated this “Jinx-ing” game and calling it “Mac & Jinx” into their current promotions on Twitter. So basically how it works is whenever a person on twitter sends a message with the words “mac and cheese” the system matches that person with another twitter-er who recently tweeted out a message with those same words as well. After being matched by the system, this lucky pair is sent a message containing a link offering free Mac and Cheese, but there’s a catch as this offer is only for the person who responds first!

This is an example of one company adapting to the new technological environment as it is tapping into the world of social networking. What a smart move this is, since a huge chunk of their current and potential customers are online using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I find this promotion tactic to be such a fun way to engage people and to spread the word about their Mac and Cheese product. The “Mac & Jinx” game might be that little pick-me-up gesture at the end of a tedious workday, schoolday, or any kind of day that’s filled with stress. This is also one of those Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) that I talked about in my last blog post, and consequently will boost Krafts’ image in the minds of their consumers.

image from lunch.com

Sometimes I notice that people nowadays are more closed in than before. In the Fifties it seems like people were very close with their neighbours. It was a time when you would say “Hi, Mr. Johnson” while taking a stroll around the block, or greet your local deli person on a first name basis, or even welcome a new neighbour into the area with a warmly baked cinnamon apple pie. What happened to that? It seems society today, at least the North American one, has shifted from that kind and open neighbourhood image to a “keep to yourself” one. Today I believe people have become more sceptical and have a belief that it’s hard to find real “Random Acts of Kindness” or (RAK) in society.

This sceptic view that many people have leads to an opportunity for businesses to incorporate a strategy that involves these RAKs  that will hopefully impact a person in a positive way. I think people need and want to be proven wrong that there are real random acts of kindness out there and that people actually care about one another, specifically, that companies care about others. I was inspired to talk about this topic after reading  an article from Trendwatching.com about this potential opportunity for companies. The article spotlights several companies on board with this strategy. For example, when someone in the UK tweeted on their twitter that they were tired, “Biotherm” replied to her message acknowledging the person’s fatigue and that it was going to send the person free samples of their “Skin.Ergetic” product. Another instance was when Spain based airline “Spanair” surprised its passengers with a personalized present delivered out on the luggage carousel on the eve of Christmas. In the end, many companies now are using this strategy as consumers are finding more value linked to the company’s products. Also, with more companies taking this approach consumers view companies and society in general being more kind and caring, and that’s how we can start to go back to those good ol’ days.

Image from http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

This week I crossed by the path of a Coca-Cola video on www.brandchannel.com, promoting their new “Happiness” theme. A red Coca-Cola truck filled with many of its drink products drove through the streets of Brazil and the Philippines serving the people outside. Although how it serves people is the interesting part of the story. The bright red truck would occasionally park itself on a side street, and from there it awaits its first customer. This was not your typical “ice-cream truck” style of service, but more of a “large vending machine” kind of style. On the backside of the mysterious truck is a round protruding button with the word “Push” written on it, and below this button, to the left, is a small rectangle opening. The most remarkable thing though, is that this vending machine truck charges its customers nothing for its products! Once the first customers, led by their curiosity, discover this incredible service, crowds of people start lining up for the free bottles of coke. After a while, the truck even starts spitting out random items not related to Coke products, such as teddy bears, fishing rods, foldable chairs, and also a surfboard! The truck, after fulfilling many customer orders, drives away while a message on the top of the truck can be seen saying “Where will happiness strike next?”

I thought this was an ingenious strategy for coke to pursue. Giving out your product for free to consumers enables them to try the product and to hopefully become loyal to the company. In response to Coke giving out other products along with their own products, well, all I can say is who doesn’t like free things? In the end, Coke hopes that whenever a consumer thinks of Coke they will associate the brand with “Happiness”.

Article can be found here http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/02/24/Viral-Video-Watch-Coca-Cola-Happiness-Truck.aspx#continue