Better Profits

Sorry Denny's But You Missed the Boat

Posted on Feb 4, 2009 in Better Profits, How We See It Blog by Jeffrey Summers 0 Comments

On the surface, giving away a free Grand Slam breakfast to anyone who comes in, might seem like good PR – but it’s not if you’re looking for long term loyalty or goodwill.

Yes they garnered massive media attention with the marketing stunt but this buzz will only last the 60 or so hours surrounding the event. Incremental sales will be up for a few days. Lots of kids skipped school to get a free breakfast and locals are complaining about it in their comments on just about every local online news blog in the country – read this one for example.

So what would have been better?

Charge for the meal and donate all of the proceeds to a great national cause. This would garner more goodwill than a momentary full belly that will go away in less than 24 hours. (See Cause Marketing)

You can’t build guest loyalty with stunts – that’s old marketing thinking. You garner goodwill and loyalty one guest at a time – one guest experience at a time. If your focus is maintained on building better experiences every guest, every table, every day, you will effectively build more loyal guests than any publicity stunt could ever hope to.

There’s no value in free if the goodwill isn’t a long term effect. Sorry, but if I was Denny’s CEO the opportunity cost would have simply been too high to pay for this stunt. Putting the money into coaching staff to deliver better experiences would have been a much better use of the money.

**********Fast Facts on Denny’s Free Grand Slam Giveaway**********

* Denny’s served approximately 2 million Grand Slams across the U.S. An average of 130 Grand Slams were served per restaurant per hour over the eight hour event

* Denny’s doesn’t disclose specific cost information, but including the cost of the food, the Super Bowl spot and other production costs, total cost is roughly $5 million.

* There were approximately 40 million hits on Denny’s website since the Super Bowl giveaway spot aired on Sunday night.

* All restaurants were at capacity during the giveaway. Average wait time for Grand Slams was approximately one hour

* Tables were turned approximately every twenty minutes