Photo: Chick-fil-A
Forget Prime Day – It’s Cow Appreciation Day
What else should a person who has spent hours shopping online do today other than dress up like a cow and head to their local Chick-fil-A?
As anyone who has ever watched a Chick-fil-A commercial knows, anthropomorphized cows are very supportive of the restaurant chain’s position when it comes to poultry as a food source. The good folks of Chick-fil-A very much welcome this support and, in turn, are showing how much it means to them with the launch of Cow Appreciation Day starting today at participating restaurants.
So, what exactly is Cow Appreciation Day? It is a promotion run by the restaurant to drum up publicity and drive traffic to its locations, of course. It is also a celebration of a marketing campaign begun in 1995 with cows urging people to ‘Eat Mor Chikin’ at Chick-fil-A.
Adults who enter a Chick-fil-A wearing spots or other cow-like fashions this week will be eligible for a free entrée of their choice. Children whose outfits are bovine-inspired will receive a free Kid’s Meal for their efforts. Daily event hours are between 6:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
“Cow Appreciation Day is the one day where it’s okay to dress ‘udderly’ crazy and get rewarded for it,” said Jon Bridges, Chick-fil-A’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a statement.
The chain has invited its fans to visit www.CowAppreciationDay.com to help them prepare for and celebrate the special event.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What is your analysis of Chick-fil-A’s “Eat More Chikin” campaign and Cow Appreciation Day event? Do you think Cow Appreciation Day will be successful in attracting large numbers of new people to Chick-fil-A restaurants or is it intended almost entirely to connect with the chain’s most enthusiastic fans?
Poll
BrainTrust
Ben Ball
Senior Vice President, Dechert-Hampe (retired)
Mel Kleiman
President, Humetrics
Well, I don’t know about dressing up like a cow. But as a native of the Southeast U.S. I am a fan of the ubiquitous Chik-fil-A billboards. They truly are iconic in a way that rivals the “See Rock City” barn signs of the 1950s and ’60s. What will be really interesting is to see where this promo garners more participation. Will it be in the traditional Southeast markets? Or will the relative newcomers of the Midwest be more likely to put on something bovine to get a free sandwich?
Chick-fil-A’s Cow Appreciation Day has already reached half of its goals. It has created a lot of publicity. I have seen several articles on it over the past few days.
The second goal of driving traffic to its sites and hopefully gaining new customers can only be determined at the end of the promotion. However, my expectation is that they will report traffic increases. Will this result in longer term increased sales? That I am less sure of.
Chick-fil-A’s “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign was brilliant. And Cow Appreciation Day will draw more people into their restaurants. It’s a great way to reward loyal customers. That said, there are a number of people, myself included, who will not patronize Chick-fil-A due to the company’s political stances.
An International Business Times article recently wrote about Chick-fil-A: “The company’s often controversial religious and social stances actually help business.” It details how the company sticks to its beliefs while doing surprising things like opening a store on Sunday near the Orlando shootings, and employees donating blood.
With this POV on the company, and Chipotle’s problems of late, I would expect there to be measurable new customers attracted to the stores.
It is interesting how Chick-fil-A weathered the storm of controversies of the CEO’s statements of his beliefs. To his credit he kept the company to its belief and operating model but acknowledged that his statements were a distraction to the company’s operations. For the Sunday opening at Orlando, I believe it was an employee-driven initiative locally and the company was smart enough neither to object nor try to make too much hay out of it.
You know Chick-fil-A is broadening its customer base when McDonald’s latest chicken sandwich is intended as a direct knockoff of Chick-fil-A’s best seller. What’s remarkable to me is the longevity of the “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign, which probably wasn’t on our radar screens here in the Upper Midwest 20 years ago. The campaign (and its latest twist) is a testament to the power of humor in advertising, when you have a good product to sell.
After some great cow analysis I have determined that this is somehow discriminates against the Angus breed of cow and pigs, but is still a great program. We are having one of the local cows over for dinner to show our respect.
“Moo-ve” over all you slick big data crunchers, I wouldn’t steer you wrong here. Chick-fil-A has already milked this idea for everything it’s worth, and that’s no bull.
I don’t know if this will roundup any more customers but — when it comes to gaining maximum publicity with a minimum investment — this is hardly the firm’s first rodeo.
While other marketers might be cowed by the idea of asking customers to makes asses … er … sorry … cattle out of themselves … Chick-fil-A is clearly spot-on in terms of getting the herd in line.
Who cares if anyone actually does it? The company can’t beef about all the free ink.
I’m going to Chik-fil-A today. I already have my stickers on. The promotion must be working. Let’s see how they handle the crowd.
Only a handful of brands are capable of succeeding with a promotion of this nature. Those brands must have the capacity to engender “Cult Loyalty.” This a term coined by Barry Kirk at Maritz Motivation. You can find a copy of his “4 Dimensions” white paper at their website for a full take on his views.
Chick-fil-A is one of those brands. Their store opening celebrations are legendary in generating large audiences of passionate fans. In a world of selfie-crazed consumers, I can see lots of people filling up their Snapchat and Instagram streams with pictures of their visits on “Cow” day.
My only concern is the execution of the promotion. I trust that Chick-fil-A allowed sufficient time for promotion. The greatest value of the promotion might be from the lead-up time to the event. Consumers preparing, sharing and publishing photos of their planned activity might generate as much value for Chick-fil-A as what takes place on the day of the event.
Just take a look at how well their recent app launch went. If that is any indication, Cow Appreciation Day will be a success.
For my 2 cents.
What a great idea and marketing plan! Congratulations to Chick-fil-A and their marketing team. No I am not going to order anything from Amazon or Walmart. Yes, I am going to Chick-fil-A and eat mor chickn even though I had not planned on it. Moo!