“Who wants to be mayor when you could be President?”
Dunkin’ Donuts just launched a new promotion giving their Facebook fans a chance to become the “President of Dunkin’ Nation.” Customers compete by checking in on Foursquare or Facebook Places, and a new “President” will be named each week until September 23.
How this social media promotion works:
- customers ‘like’ Dunkin’ Donuts Facebook page
- these new fans register via their Foursquare or Facebook Places account
- checkins are allowed once per hour, up to 10 times per day
- the fan with the most checkins each week is eligible to become the ‘President of Dunkin’ Nation’ for the week (5 winners total)
- a leaderboard on the Facebook page allows participants to track their competition in realtime
Each ‘President’ will win a 50″ LCD TV, a $200 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card, a Dunkin’ Nation President t-shirt and mug. There is also a potential reward for those who are less fanatical followers of the brand – 33 ‘Daily Sweeps’ Winners will receive $25 gift cards just for checking in over the course of the promotion.
Dunkin’ Donuts shows a clear desire to raise their number of Facebook fans (currently just under 4 million); hence the choice to ‘like-gate’ this social media promotion. According to Kevin Vine, Dunkin’s brand division interactive marketing manager, the company hopes for 100,000 participants in the promotion. However, he told Mashable it’s more about brand loyalty – with the aim of “celebrating and rewarding” the company’s “dedicated fans” on social media – than it is about driving traffic to actual locations.
The ability to checkin up to ten times per day raises concerns about spam, according to Mashable, especially since Facebook Places users cannot opt out of broadcasting their checkins to friends on the social network (Foursquare users do have this option).
Will this be an advantage – the more notifications about Dunkin’ Donuts in user newsfeeds, the better? Or could the frequency of checkins become a detriment, as friends get frustrated by the number of Dunkin’ Donuts mentions on their newsfeed?
How much brand awareness is ‘too much’ on social networks? Let us know what you think.
