Wendy’s and McDonald’s are once again competing for customers. The most recent efforts have centered around luring customers into installing their mobile apps. Wendy’s has been giving away free burgers to help promote use of their mobile app and now they’re using giveaways to promote both the app and their new Harvest Chicken Salad (read more here). Until October 7, customers can get a coupon for a free half-size salad if they download the Wendy’s app.
Given students’ propensity for free food this may be a good discussion on a number of fronts. This can fit into promotions, new product introduction, and even a pricing discussion if you want to talk about the impact of cannibalism on a product portfolio or have students calculate the number of return trips necessary for Wendy’s to break-even on the promotion.
Over the summer one of the most talked about marketing campaigns was the IHOb campaign. The International House of Pancakes announced they were changing from IHOP to IHOb and later announced that the “b” stood for “burgers”. Shortly afterward they admitted it was all a publicity stunt to help build awareness of their line of burgers. This campaign has potential for a couple of class discussions. First, was it successful? Clearly they succeeded in getting people talking about their company but whether it drove sales is more ambiguous.