DALLAS Employing a variety of social media, the 105-unit Which Wich sandwich chain earlier this month pounced on a potentially negative situation — a customer actually getting injured eating a sandwich — and turned it into a light-hearted customer contest and branding opportunity.
Jeff Sinelli, founder of Which Wich, said the steps the company took during the past few weeks were a great test of its social-media prowess. The lessons learned, from the importance of fast reaction times and the interplay between local and national marketing techniques to possible legal ramifications, have already paid dividends.
“We felt we were a little behind on the social-media landscape,” Sinelli said. “This [event] was a great opportunity to get out there and test it. We found that through our local-store Facebooks and our own Facebook and our Twitter and everything else, we can get a positive message out there from coast-to-coast in an extremely fast manner.”
The frenzy at Which Wich began on Feb. 28, when customer Chad Ettmueller and his family ordered sandwiches at a franchised unit in Cumming, Ga., and with his first bite of a “Wicked” sandwich suffered a severe case of lockjaw. He spent the rest of his Saturday visiting three hospitals and 12 hours to get his locked jaw fixed.
See the customer’s story here on YouTube.
Sinelli said, “It happened on a Saturday, we found out about it on a Wednesday. I called the gentleman, Chad, on a Thursday to make sure he was all right. We also wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything legal going to happen. It turned out he’s not the litigating type.”
Ettmueller’s wife had sent an email through the Which Wich corporate website on March 3, asking if they might get a replacement sandwich, seeing as the lock jaw sandwich was left in the family car during the hospital runs and eventually devoured by family friend Paul Addison.
In her email, Carolyn Ettmueller wrote: “…he went to bite into his Wicked sandwich and had to open his mouth SO wide, that his jaw became locked in the open position. We had to leave the restaurant, and go to the E.R. They spent four hours trying to get his jaw back in place: He had dislocated it on BOTH sides trying to eat the Wicked! Then, they had to transfer him to Emory University E.R. downtown where it took them another eight hours to get it fixed. (They had to do manipulative surgery!) All of that - from a sandwich! You guys should put a warning on that one! And, he didn't even get to eat his sandwich. Actually, none of us did. So, I wondered if you might be willing to give him a FREE one, for his troubles! Thanks.”
Sinelli traveled on March 6 to Cumming with a two-member video team and taped the lock-jaw victim and his friends. The YouTube videos and “Rename the Wicked” contest went live on March 8.
See the contest video here on YouTube.
“From the company’s perspective, we saw it as an opportunity to talk with a guest and to create a ‘Which Wich Wow’ moment and also use social media through Facebook, Twitter and also our own blogs and intranet,” said Sinelli.
He said the videos cost less than $4,000 to create, including travel and videographer time.
“We don’t know if it will get bigger or if it’s over with, but it will continue to live indefinitely on the Internet,” he said. “That’s a real value proposition. The moment of time created with film and documentation could become content for a long while.”
Sinelli said, if he could do it over again, he would have reacted faster. “When these things come up, you have to react as fast as you can,” he said. “It took us eight days to get it to market, which made it older news. The learning is: If you have something, don’t wait three days to a week to get it out there. You need to move swiftly.”
The company also had to consider legal ramifications. To appear in the Facebook and YouTube videos, the family and friends signed several releases. “The first was an affidavit that the incident was actually real, because we didn’t want to put something out there in cyberspace that might have been contrived or made up,” Sinelli said. “They also signed a release that they were OK and not going to sue. And there was also a release to use their likeliness in any shape or form we wanted. It was a basically a three-prong approach.”
Aside benefit, Sinelli said, was that the camera crew in the Cumming Which Wich store drew a large number of gawkers. “That location had its busiest Saturday ever that day,” Sinelli said.
“This will pay dividends if we have crisis management in the future,” Sinelli said. “We know how our organization can work now. We learned a lot about our organization.”
Which Wich has units in 18 states.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
