Bet The Jugs

Word Cup Germany 2006

Wow…honestly, I didn’t quite expect the quality of some of the answers submitted as seen in my last post on World Cup Hits And Opportunities.

You showed lots of creativity and I’ve had lots of fun reading them all.

Before I get to the winners - here’s what that piece of paper said:

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Congratulations on winning your bet against us!

This coupon entitles you to redeem one jug of beer. Please fill up the form below with your details, tear this coupon out for safekeeping and return the other part to us.

Redemption of your jug of beer can be done after July 10th between 6pm - 8pm every day.

This coupon expires on August 31st.

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If the winner wins 4 jugs, he gets 4 coupons, and fills up the form only once. Each coupon can be redeemed on separate days as long as they’re redeemed between July 10th and August 31st.

Here’s what this can accomplish:

1. It brings the winners back to the restaurant after the World Cup is over
And therefore filling it up in the aftermath of it - which is the objective of the restaurant.

2. There’s a deadline for redemption
Deadlines are important for them to act on redeeming what they’ve won. The restaurant WANT the winners to redeem the beer because by doing so, it will make more money even though the beer is free (see No.3 below).

It can’t make more money if the winners forget to redeem the beer. This is likely to happen when it doesn’t impose a deadline.

The deadline also ensures that the winners redeem their beer after the World Cup and before the football season in the various countries start again, so that it can fill up its seats during the slower months.

3. They have to redeem it between 6pm - 8pm
This is dinner time for most people. Unless you don’t eat during dinner, this will result in food orders AT THE FULL PRICE (no discounts offered) because, well, they’re already in the restaurant drinking their free beer, so what’s missing is just the food that they should be hungry for at that time.

Quite a number of you are offering discounts on food when the winners return to the restaurant.

While this can be a good tactic in bringing the winners back, the discount in this case has already been given to them in the form of the free jugs of beer won by them.

Thus offering even more discounts to bring back a Customer who’s already coming back anyway at a time when he’s most likely to order dinner at the same time is simply going to eat up the restaurant owner’s profits, with little additional gain.

The goodwill has been created by the restaurant earlier with the “No-Risk Bet Your Jugs” concept, and by turning up to redeem the beer, the winner is still experiencing this goodwill.

Thus ordering food at the full price isn’t likely to be an issue at all in this case.

Discounts can be a good marketing tactic, but being too keen to offer it can hurt the restaurant’s bottom line more.

Having said the above, however, there is no right or wrong “answer” on using discounts as circumstances will dictate how best to use them.

Ok - what of the form asking for the winner’s details?

This is probably even more important than the redemption coupon itself. The restaurant owner is building up its mailing list that it can contact again and again in the future with other special offers like a great party for 20 people on the winners’ birthday, arranged for them at no extra cost. Just pay for the food. The “discount” is in the free birthday organization.

Even better, the restaurant can modify its approach by having this form filled in by everybody before they bet their jugs of beer, so that it can compile a mailing list of not just the eventual winners.

What’s most important to collect are an e-mail address and a cellphone no. Whenever the restaurant wants to fill up its slow days, an e-mail blast or even better, an SMS Broadcast to its list with special offers at the right time of the day will likely bring a number of them back, with very little extra marketing cost.

This contest has been great fun.