On the first Monday of March I received an email from Nabisco. The email was an invitation to become a fan of Nabisco Cookies on facebook. Actually it was more than an invitation —it was a fan bribe. Nabisco is offering free cookies,sort of,if I become a fan. The email made me wonder how well bribes work. Secondly,if someone does join based on a bribe,how much of a fan of the brand are they?
Nabisco is not the first (nor last) brand to incentivize people to join their fan page. Different brand stimuli have been used by Outback,Babies’R'Us,and Sears just to name a few. Outback offered a free Bloomin’Onion,while Babies’R'Us gave fans a $5 gift card. Sears like Nabisco offers coupons to new fans.
Nabisco’s offer is not really free (note the asterisk). The deal is fans can download a coupon on the first Monday of every month (limit 500,000 coupons per month) throughout 2010. The coupon is good for a free package of Chips Ahoy when you purchase one package of Chips Ahoy and a gallon of milk.
The second question is what type of fan does a brand attract with incentives? I don’t know how many fans of the Nabisco Cookies page came for love of brand or love of free cookies. However,there is some insight by reviewing the page content. In reviewing the past 24 hours there was over 30 postings. Fan postings are primarily shout outs to their love of cookies.
- J Blair:we love cookies Yesterday at 4:57pm
- L Goodman:we are all cookie monster in this house:)Yesterday at 4:56pm
- V Coffey:MMMMMMMM COOKIES!!!! Me love cookies!!
Yesterday at 4:38pm - A Orr:Nabisco cookies and milk?! hummmmmmmm Yesterday at 3:13pm
Not every post was for the love of cookies. There was some banter about the coupon promotion. On the discussion page there seems to be a little angst around the use of the coupon.
- J. Mowen: Went to the store this morning and tried to use my coupon. I admit I should have read the date ahead,but what kind of coupon is only good for three days!!!! Leave it to a huge corporation like this to put such great limitations on the deal! (Yesterday at 10:13am)
- J. Moore:no stupid coupon nabisco you suck (March 8 at 1:21pm)
- B. Dyer: NO COUPON. WHAT IS WRONG WITH NABISCO? MUST BE RUN BY A MALE (Tue at 6:07pm)
- D. Cooley:We have two major grocery chains in St. Louis/St. Charles Missouri. They both rejected my coupon because they SAY,it is not posted in the stores,that they reject all internet coupons for free items or even cents off! I talked with the store managers and they say they were not told by Nabisco they were having a promotion,and they would not accept a free item internet coupon!!! Thanks for a good idea,but it turned out to be useless to me! (March 1 at 6:21pm)
This is a great post,I stumbled across your story while looking for music news updates. Thanks for sharing,I’ll be sure to come back.
thanks for that
More fan bribes. Chili’s has a sweepstakes for newbie fans –a 1 in 15 chance to win a $50 Chili’s Gift Card. Also,for what its worth,if you join their email list you will get a coupon free coupon for free chips and salsa.
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