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Ron Ruggless
COPPELL Texas Starting Monday, it is all about cents and sensibility at CiCi’s Pizza.
The chain of nearly 650 pizza buffet restaurants has started to drop a million pennies around their units, each marked with a sticker on the back for such prizes as a free $5 buffet visit, a free drink or a buy-one-get-one-free deal. The promotion has been dubbed the Penny Picker Upper campaign.
“In tough times, every penny really does count,” said Craig Moore, president of CiCi’s Pizza. “This campaign celebrates America’s penny picker uppers and our hope is that, after this program, no one will ever look at a penny the same way again.”
As part of the campaign, every specially marked penny that is brought back to CiCi’s will be donated to the Big Brothers-Big Sisters Club of America.
The Penny Picker Upper campaign is accompanied by three national TV spots. The 30-, 15- and 10-second ads feature Penny Picker Uppers who are presenting their prized pennies on a rotating pedestal at a CiCi’s Pizza restaurant.
Eric Hirshberg, co-president and chief creative officer of Deutsch LA, the agency that developed the campaign, said, “The Penny Picker Upper campaign celebrates and honors people’s frugality and rewards their frugality with real value and fun.”
TV and radio ads direct listeners to www.BeAPennyPickerUpper.com, where visitors can locate a CiCi’s and find areas where marked pennies may be found.
Updates on the prized pennies can be found on the CiCi’s Pizza Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/CiCis-Pizza/63322161215 .
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
