T.G.I. Friday’s, Social Media and Woody
A number of years ago while working at The Richards Group, I spent some time as an Account Executive on the T.G.I. Friday’s business. It was a decent assignment, good clients who always had a willingness to rely on interesting promotional marketing to drive business.
I have casually watched their marketing efforts over the years and as our company’s focus is on integrating social media with traditional marketing, I was particularly interested to see their recent “Woody” social media effort.
It was good to see some solid integration between television and the web but I must say when looking at the pieces together, I was left a bit confused. The TV spot that can be seen here (voice over is out of sync), shows Woody and two buddies enjoying some new menu items. Woody then goes on to explain the promotion: if he gets half a million fans on Facebook by September 30, everyone gets a free burger. OK pretty straightforward with an expected offer. Let’s go to the web. Well, the URL pops up twice at the beginning of the TV spot but not when the actors are talking about the promotion (this is remarkable really since getting the creative team to list a URL once can be difficult). However, when the promotion is explained in the middle of the commercial there is no further mention or display on screen of the URL. Since I can’t remember the specific URL, I go to Friday’s corporate site.
At Fridays.com, I see two links to become a fan. I would imagine both support the same page, but they take me to two different fan pages, one to Woody’s page and the other to a corporate Friday’s page with no mention of Woody. Assuming the Woody promotion is most likely short lived, I would think Friday’s would want those 500,000 fans on a Friday’s page (I know Woody’s page is owned by Friday’s but can Friday’s market to those fans once Woody’s page goes away?)
In any event, Woody’s page is doing quite well with over 820,000 fans (Friday’s not too bad either with over 280,000). Looks like we’re all getting a free burger. But wait a minute, on Friday’s home page it says that he needs 1,000,000 fans for us to eat free. Huh? Which is it, 500,000 or 1,000,000? When I go to the media room on Fridays.com I find a video from Woody (thought he was just a regular guy not associated with Friday’s) saying that since he already passed 500,000 fans he convinced Friday’s to let him go for 1,000,000 (first 500,000 still get their burger). But really, how many consumers are going to go to the media page to figure this out? And by the way, the TV spots still say 500,000.
So where does this leave us? Think Friday’s did a decent job of cross media integration, but made a bit of a mess of the execution. Glad to see the brand trying and apparently they are getting considerable consumer response. However, in order not to confuse and alienate fans, they need to do a better job of tactical execution throughout the promotion as well.
What do you think?
« Radio Shack Becomes The Shack | Home | Is This Really The SAP Approach to Marketing? »
Comments
Two things strike me about the Woody effort:
It is forced; are they really ready to develop a social media relationship or is it a promotion that ends with the campaign?
If it ends with the campaign, that is my second issue with Woody. Social Media is ongoing and campaigns have a beginning and an end.
MediaCurves.com conducted a study on 252 viewers of a recent T.G.I. Friday’s ad which promotes its new Facebook campaign. The results found that that the majority believe the promotion will increase favorability for the T.G.I. Friday’s brand. After watching the ad, 71% of Facebook users indicated that they would become a “fan” of Friday’s Facebook spokesman, “Woody” to receive the promotional offer of a free Jack Daniel’s hamburger. More in depth results can be seen at:
http://www.mediacurves.com/Advertising/J7568-TGI/Index.cfm
Thanks,
Ben
Leave a Comment