Everybody enjoys getting something for nothing. So these days fine-dining and fast-food operators alike are luring cash-strapped guests with free samples.
“It is important to let our customers taste new products,” says Thomas John, executive chef and senior vice president of food and beverage for Boston-based Au Bon Pain. “We do have companywide and local sampling programs, particularly for new menu items.”
Among the new dishes available as samples at some of the bakery-cafe chain’s B&I locations is quinoa, a grain popular in South America that is served as a warm breakfast cereal similar to oatmeal and accompanied with honey, toasted walnuts and cinnamon. Many guests also needed an incentive to taste ABP’s unusual sounding wasabi-spiked smoked wild salmon breakfast sandwich with Neufchatel cheese on a dill-onion bagel, so managers offered free tastes.
“There’s nothing like a recession to keep people at home, so it takes something as drastic as the promise of free things to get those same people in their cars and out to eat,” says Tonya Hamilton, founder of Hamilton Strategic Marketing in Madison, Wis.
Throughout 2008 many quick-service restaurants served up complimentary samples of less daring dishes than ABP’s and reported better results than they believed they would have earned from discounting and couponing.
McDonald’s offered a one-day giveaway of its Southern-style Chicken Biscuit and Sandwich, which followed an earlier two-day giveaway of its McSkillet Burrito.
Meanwhile, Dunkin’ Donuts declared May 15 Free Iced Coffee Day. A month earlier, on April 15, Dunkin’ Donuts also gave away donuts with coffee purchases. And when Star-bucks reintroduced its Pike Place Roast, guests were not required to make any purchase to get a free cup of the joe.
Last spring McDonald’s also handed out on-the-house coffee when it introduced its premium-roast brew. About the same time Jamba Juice offered free smoothies, and A&W All American Food restaurants gave out free root beer floats in a one-day promotion.
Zaxby’s, a chain specializing in chicken fingers and Buffalo wings, saw a notable increase in sales when they offered the Nibbler snack sandwich for free on July 7. Sales rose 5 percent compared to that same year-earlier day.
“The goal was to drive new interest,” says Jenifer Harmon, vice president and account group director for St. John & Partners, Zaxby’s ad agency, which created the giveaway promotion. “What in fact happened was we increased traffic across the board. The buzz for one little, tiny sandwich drove so much incremental sales and interest in the brand.”
Sit-down restaurants also benefit from freebies.
“Our hot handmade breadsticks are our signature item, and it is our policy to greet every guest that walks in our door with a free breadstick,” says Nicole Abraham, director of brand management at San Diego-based Pat & Oscar’s, who says the free breadstick has been offered since the chain was founded in 1991. “We offer this at every restaurant, and it has become a tradition that our guests have come to know and love. We consider the cost of giving these away as part of our marketing budget and consider the return on investment well worth all the dough.”
Beginning Jan. 1, Whist, a restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif., offered free lump crab fritters for nine days and listed the promotion on Facebook, the social-networking website.
“This specific promotion is to test how our Facebook is working and if it can drive short-term sales,” says Whist’s food and beverage director Gerhard Tratter. “You have a way to communicate in real time.”
Tratter says he was pleased with the results. After the first day, 33 people linked to Whist’s Facebook account and 25 guests came in for the free crab, which cost $3.25.
“It shows you that there is great potential, and it literally cost us nothing” to promote, Tratter adds. “It is definitely worth it.”