Grills and Gridirons

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

Drive-thru restaurant chains Checkers and Rally’s, Clearwater, FL, broke their largest-ever marketing campaign last month with a national effort utilizing their new licensing deal with NFL Alumni.

The campaign includes a sweepstakes offered at all 1,000 restaurants via peel-off gamepieces on fries and beverage cups. Instant-win prizes include five TV/satellite systems complete with a one-year football programming package, NFL Alumni paraphernalia, and free food. Consumers also collect gamepieces for a shot at a grand-prize trip for two to the Super Bowl in Atlanta. The effort runs through Dec. 31.

The chains, which merged in August, specifically target kids eight through 13 with an essay contest asking them why they should be named Kid of the Year. The winner gets a trip for four to the Super Bowl and will be lauded at the NFL Alumni Player of the Year Awards dinner that weekend.

Elsewhere, a calendar featuring player photos and food coupons is being sold for 99 cents, with proceeds going to NFL Alumni-aligned charities. TV, radio, print, and outdoor ads and in-store displays support. International Sports Marketing, Pittsburgh, brokered the licensing deal. Foxboro, MA-based GeigerDonnelly handles the promotion, with GFX International, Grayslake, IL, producing the P-O-P and other materials.

Chi-Chi’s, Inc. went mobile for the first time this quarter with a pair of Sombrero-topped Volkswagen Beetles hitting office parks, malls, train stations, college campuses, and movie-theater lots in the vicinities of 15 restaurants in the Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia markets.

The chain went beyond its traditional broadcast and FSI marketing plan because “we wanted something that was a little unconventional, with an attitude. We wanted to move in a little bit different direction,” says senior vp-marketing Laurie Katapski.

The smaller, more concentrated New Jersey and larger, broader Philadelphia footprints were chosen “to see how the program worked in very different markets. We’re getting our feelers out,” says Katapski.

Images on the Beetles reinforce the chain’s new Get Salsified ad campaign, although the mobile effort won’t receive any direct broadcast support. Road staffers tout both dine-in and carryout menus and pass out entry forms for a sweeps that will give away the Beetles on Dec. 16. Chancellor Marketing Group, Richmond, VA, handles.

Heinz USA, Pittsburgh, has introduced “talking labels” for its flagship ketchup and plans a series of promotions targeting teens as part of a ground-breaking global campaign designed to impart an edgy, contemporary attitude for the top-selling condiment.

Heinz starting shipping bottles with labels carrying wryly humorous messages in October, replacing traditional labels on 24- and 36-ounce plastic squeeze bottles. Instead of the famous keystone design, the containers sport quips in bold capital letters below the Heinz name, including such comments as “Are Your French Fries Lonely?,” “Your Hot Dogs Will Thank You,” “Put Hamburgers On It,” and “More Fun To Squeeze Than Toothpaste.” Retailers got in-store signage with reinforcing messages such as “More Value Per Squirt,” and “Food’s Best Friend.”

A TV, radio, and print campaign by Leo Burnett, Chicago, looks to cover consumers with the theme, Ketchup With Attitude, underscoring the classic “thick and rich” attributes of the sauce and playing up its versatility.

Heinz homes in on teens with talking-label book covers, funky postcards at malls, clubs and restaurants, and irreverent ads on popular teen Web sites. The off-beat theme supports the message that Heinz Ketchup is “a vehicle for [teens’] self-expression, says Heinz North America ceo Joseph Jimenez. “It customizes food to reflect their personalities.”

Canada Dry Ginger Ale teamed with Eddie Bauer to inject a brisk whiff of the outdoors into its holiday marketing. The Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. brand is hosting an instant-win sweeps with a top prize of a $1,000 Eddie Bauer shopping spree through December.

Consumers can also win $50 and $100 gift certificates for the clothing and home furnishings chain through an under-the-cap sweeps on two-liter and 20-ounce bottles and scratch-off games in 12- and 24-pack cartons. The program was developed in-house.

Bayer Consumer Care Division’s Aleve cold medicine teamed up with Colgate-Palmolive’s Total Fresh Stripe toothpaste to highlight each product’s claim of 12-hour effectiveness in a first-of-its-kind bonus pack. In the September-through-November offer, a .75-oz tube of toothpaste was packaged with bottles of Aleve caplets, tablets, and gelcaps.

Consumer and corporate visitors to giftpoint.com this season are winning gift certificates ranging from $10 to $1,000 if they’re nice, not naughty.

The Omaha, NE-based Gift Certificate Store, which has been purveying certificates online for about 18 months, is offering an instant-win game with 8,000 prizes including $25,000 in certificates and discount offers. Giftpoint.com boasts more than 250 retail partners, including Sharper Image, Blockbuster Entertainment, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Certificates are sent with a free greeting card via e-mail or snail-mail.

Visitors to the site who enter their names and e-mail addresses and are tagged as being “nice” by a jack-in-the-box figure that pops up on-screen win a prize. To earn more chances, visitors must take another action on the site such as becoming a new member, sending an e-card, or inviting friends to play. The effort is being banner-advertised at 10 other sites including askjeeves.com, monster.com, mail.com, and yahoo.com.

Procter & Gamble’s push for its Millstone coffee didn’t end with the brand’s first national TV ad campaign in October. Denny’s Inc. will introduce Millstone in restaurants nationwide through a partnership that will include co-branded ad and promo efforts.

“As the biggest player in the family-style category, Denny’s is a terrific partner to work with strategically,” says Charles Pierce, vp of P&G’s Commercial Products Group.

Spartanburg, SC-based Denny’s is repositioning its image and overhauling its stores and menu to attract more families and younger demos. The chain serves 415 million cups of coffee a year.

Warner Bros. Home Video flew 20 men named Jack Frost to Santa Monica, CA, last month to promote the Nov. 2 home video release of – you guessed it – Jack Frost.

The platoon of Jacks were enlisted to build snowmen on the beach in a competition that sent the creator of the coolest-looking Frosty to Hawaii. Film co-star Joseph Cross emceed the event.

Pittsford, NY-based Seneca Foods Corp. is rolling out a cross-promotion between its Apple Chips snack line and Zoom, the recently revived PBS kids’ TV series produced by WGBH, Boston. The January-through-March in-store effort includes a customer loyalty program through which kids redeem “Znack Points” on packaging for Zoom merchandise such as T-shirts, baseball caps, books, and strobe lights. More than six million bags of six Apple Chips varieties will carry the offer.

A contest overlay asks consumers to submit the “Most Unique Way to Use Apples and Apple Chips” for a chance to win a trip for two to Boston to view a taping of the show and have lunch with the cast. A 24-case display module includes product pamphlets outlining the program and an offer for a Zoom video. (Callers to a toll-free number get $1 off the video if they say “apples.”)

Zoom airs five days a week to more than 90 percent of U.S. households. Since its January relaunch (the program first aired in the ’70s), it has been the No. 1 rated show for kids five to 12.

One year’s riot-producing fad is another year’s giveaway: Toys R Us, Paramus, NJ, offered an original Tickle Me Elmo doll free with any purchase of $100 or more last month as part of a big promotional push the struggling toy chain made to jump-start holiday sales.

A tie-in with Walt Disney Co.’s Toy Story II (which hit theaters at Thanksgiving surrounded by a massive tie-in campaign) offered the Buzz and Woody Toy Round-Up sweepstakes with a $1 million grand prize, and an ongoing partnership with cable TV network Nickelodeon this year dangled a grand-prize trip to Hawaii and a five-minute toy run.

The promotions, along with $1,800 in price discounts and coupons, were advertised in the chain’s annual Big Toy Book circular delivered via newspapers.

Consumers apparently like $99 videogame consoles: Sony Corp. reported that it has sold more than one million Playstation units since it joined rival Nintendo last summer in slashing prices to combat the launch of Sega’s Dreamcast (October promo). Although Sony says the robust sales could cause shortages, the company is going ahead with a massive holiday marketing effort that will distribute five million demonstration CDs through Pizza Hut restaurants.

Plan your Hyatt Hotels trip now. The Chicago-based chain reprised its popular Nights After Nights promo, voted Best Hotel Promotion by Inside Flyer readers. Guests who stay at least four nights at any Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide between Nov. 15 and Feb. 29, 2000 earn awards redeemable for free weekend nights at select Hyatts or bonus miles through one of 21 airline frequent-flier programs. The catch: Guests must be members of Hyatt’s Gold Passport frequency program to be eligible. Membership enrollment is made easy with telephone, Internet, and on-site registration available.

Looking to provide a suitable welcome for Yang Yang and Lun Lun, a pair of giant pandas who made the trek from China last month, Zoo Atlanta commissioned Painesville, OH-based Avery Dennison Graphics to design a red carpet of sorts. Specialized banners, fake paw prints, and boundary cones greeted the arrival of the panda’s plane. The animals were placed in custom-built crates with high-gloss paint and “Panda Express” logos, then transported to the zoo in a motorcade featuring customized UPS vans. The pandas are on 10-year loan from the Chengdu Research Base in China. Zoo Atlanta spent $7 million to build them a home.

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