WILBRAHAM Mass. Friendly’s, a family-dining chain of more than 500 restaurants, said it would launch its Menu Madness promotion Monday and give kids a chance to “take over” its ice cream factory.
The promotion, which coincides with a meal deal offering $1.99 kids’ meals and $3.99 “big kids’ meals,” will let guests search each restaurant’s printed materials for secret codes using “Sprinkle-Vision” 3-D glasses. Kids can write down the codes and enter them online at www.IWannaGoToFriendlys.com to win prizes and operate Friendly’s virtual ice cream factory.
Skip Weldon, Friendly’s vice president of marketing, said the chain wanted to create an event and pair it with the kids’ meal deals to create the maximum amount of awareness for the chain’s new kids’ menu.
“It’s fairly big news each year when we launch a new kids’ menu,” Weldon said. “We were very successful in creating excitement for it last year, and we created a kind of kids’ sub-brand.”
The kids’ meals include a beverage, an entree and ice cream. New items introduced this time around are popcorn chicken, apple slices and the Vol-Cone-O Sundae.
The chain announced additions to its kids’ menu last year with a similar “kids-in-charge” theme, running a promotion that let guests take over a virtual Friendly’s restaurant.
Weldon credited last year’s promotion with significant growth in the children’s segment of Friendly’s business. Sales of kids’ entrees rose 11 percent last year after the promotion, Weldon said, accounting for an additional 46 servings per week per restaurant.
“Overall, the approach is about putting kids in charge,” he said. “We had a lot of success last year with that. They felt like it’s their restaurant. This year, we’re going one step further, and kids are now in charge of the whole ice cream factory. As part of that, the winner of this game will appear in one of our kids’ commercials, and other prize winners will be flown out to tour the actual ice cream factory in Wilbraham.”
Friendly’s will track the contest website’s traffic, as well as sales of kids’ meals and guest counts, to gauge the offer’s effectiveness, but Weldon sees Menu Madness as part of an ongoing effort to shore up business with the chain’s core demographic.
“It’s a promotion, but it’s a promotion to replenish this next generation of our Friendly’s kids’ brand,” he said. “They’re not our consumers for just 10 weeks, they’re our ongoing guests.”
The chain is promoting Menu Madness through kid-focused TV spots and outdoor advertising, as well as traditional public relations and a social-networking component. Weldon said Friendly’s already has “tremendous pickup” on blogs written by and for mothers.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
