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Hipcricket Inc.

Agencies: Hipcricket, Doner, Media Kitchen, Bailey, Fletcher, others

Brand:Arby's RoastBurger

Executives Involved in The Campaign: Ivan Braiker, Chief Executive Officer
Eric Harber, President and Chief Operating Officer
Jeff Hasen, Chief Marketing Officer

Campaign Brief: Integrating mobile into overall marketing initiatives remains a challenge for many brands. While mobile marketing has made significant gains over the last couple years, many initiatives are still billed as “experimental” and don’t tie directly into a brand’s overall strategy and business goals. Quick service restaurant Arby’s, however, is far ahead when it comes to cross-media integration and overall mobile marketing strategy. Among their unmatched results: as of July 2010, 329,000 consumers have opted-in to Arby’s unique database (one of - if not THE - largest ever created by a brand); over 475,000 consumers have interacted with Arby’s’ through more than 3.7 million total interactions.

In April 2009, Arby’s had the foresight to partner with mobile marketing and advertising leader Hipcricket to add a mobile element to the launch of its Roastburger sandwich. For the launch, Arby’s had Jimmy Kimmel create, eat and promote (through mobile marketing) a Roastburger sandwich on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Viewers of the nationally broadcast live TV segment were urged to text the word ROASTBURGER to 27297 to receive a free sandwich with the purchase of any drink. After texting, customers were asked to respond with their zip code to be entered into a local database and receive additional offers from Arby’s. By doing this, the restaurant gained a valuable re-marketable database.

As a result of the ONE segment:
• Arby’s received 177,745 total entries from 152,280 unique participants
• 65,000 people opted-in to join the mobile loyalty club
• The restaurant created 172 local databases to cater to the opted-in customers on a hyper-local level

The Kimmel segment was just the beginning for Arby’s. Since then, the restaurant has integrated mobile into many of its TV and radio commercials (both national and regional) as well as print ads, Sunday coupon circulars, and is promoting vanity short codes at live events (Cavaliers games in Cleveland, Jonas Brothers concert in Tulsa, etc.) and on in-store signage. By using different short codes for each channel, Arby’s has been able to track the success of each medium.

Specifically:
• In-store signage has resulted in over 41,000 people beginning text interaction, of those customers; over 89% have opted-in to join a local database
• TV promotions resulted in over 35,000 people beginning text interaction, of those over 90% have opted-in to join a local database

Based on the success of the Kimmel spot, Arby’s launched a second national TV campaign to promote the restaurant’s Fruitea products. Customers were prompted to text the word FRUITEA to 27297 to receive a free Fruitea beverage with the purchase of any sandwich. This campaign resulted in 16,266 total entries from 15,307 unique participants.

The prominence of Arby’s SMS-based calls to action across all advertising channels is an industry first for mobile marketing. Prior to these campaigns, mobile calls to action had been hidden at the bottom of the screen or page or added as an afterthought. By making mobile the center of its campaigns, Arby’s has achieved spectacular, even UNMATCHED results.

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