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McAlister's adds contest to tea giveaway

McAlister's adds contest to tea giveaway

After pulling off its biggest giveaway ever last year to rave reviews, McAlister’s Deli is looking to make this year's Free Tea Day a farther-reaching, longer event with a contest seeking a city that rightfully could be called Tea Town USA.

“Last year, it was good, but it was one day,” vice president of marketing Annica Kreider said of giving away more than 150,000 servings of McAlister’s Famous Sweet Tea. “How could we make the dialogue go a little longer?”

The answer is to get the chain’s self-described “Tea Freaks” talking — by bragging about their hometowns across McAlister’s social-media profiles to earn their cities points toward Tea Town USA’s grand prize, a $5,000 grant to their town’s parks department. Guests can vote for their town on McAlister’s Facebook page and automatically forward a call to do the same to every person in their social networks, as well as answer tea trivia on McAlister’s Twitter page.

The idea for the contest grew out of comments that the 296-unit McAlister’s noticed on its Facebook page, the majority of which were from Tea Freaks claiming that the McAlister’s in their towns made the best sweet tea.

Voting-based promotions have popped up at several restaurant brands this summer, including at Taco Del Mar, which on Friday concluded a contest on Facebook to name the 200-unit chain’s next seasonal menu item for the fall. Taco Del Mar will award $100 in gift certificates to the individual suggesting the winning name.

Pizza Hut announced last month that it would extend its $10 Any Pizza deal after 98 percent of participants during a Facebook campaign in May and June voted to see the promotion return rather than expire. The polls closed Sunday for Beef ‘O’ Brady’s “You Can Love Both” election, in which guests were asked to pick their favorite between the chain’s wings or its burgers and submit their ballots for a chance to win tickets to next year’s Super Bowl.

McAlister’s qualified last year’s first Free Tea Day a “huge success,” given the 17-percent same-store sales increase rung up systemwide that day, Kreider said. In addition, 15 percent of guests that day were lapsed users and 6 percent were new users. Of all the chain’s visitors that day, 85 percent made a purchase after getting their free sweet teas.

This year’s Free Tea Day takes place July 29 at all McAlister’s Deli locations in 22 states, and the winning city for Tea Town USA will have a weeklong celebration beginning Aug. 16. McAlister’s will use this time of heavy exposure to promote two limited-time offerings as well: Key Lime Pie and Harvest Chicken Salad.

“One thing we’ve done last year and this year is to try and have a compelling LTO,” Kreider said. “Even for our regular loyal guests there’s something new to talk about in the restaurant. We do a lot of grab-and-go desserts and sampling in line as people wait to get their tea. If we get the food to the guests, they usually make a purchase.”

Another benefit of expanding the promotion to a more social-media-heavy format like Free Tea Day is the relative ease with which McAlister’s can measure impressions and marketing return on investment, Kreider said.

“The back-end analytics are so amazing in terms of where the chatter comes from,” she said. “We use monitoring software to see where we get picked up in the media as well.”

Stipulating that the $5,000 prize go to the winning town’s parks and recreation department would simplify the end of the contest, she added.

“We settled on wanting the money to go to the parks department because we thought it was natural to enjoy a sweet tea in a city park,” Kreider said. “We didn’t want to open up to all these entities campaigning for the money.”

Many of Ridgeland, Miss.-based McAlister’s franchisees have committed to matching the prize money if their restaurants win the contest.

Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
 

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