Frozen yogurt chain Menchie?s tapped mobile to turn the airing of an Undercover Boss episode featuring the chain?s CEO into a new customer acquisition campaign and saw a nearly 30 percent redemption rate.

Viewers of the Oct. 25 episode were invited to text the keyword Menchies to the short code 35350 to receive a text offer for a free 5 oz. serving of yogurt. The chain?s CEO Amit Kleinberger appeared in the episode, posing as an Menchie?s new-hire and observed the inner workings of the company.

?Menchies wanted to offer Undercover Bosses viewers an opportunity to engage with Menchies as well as be rewarded for watching the episode with a complimentary frozen yogurt offer,? said Bob Girolamo, managing director of mobile CRM at ePrize, Pleasant Ridge, MI.

?The brand and ePrize agreed that mobile would be the best channel to start a dialogue with viewers, by giving them the opportunity to text to-win-during the episode airing,? he said.

?Menchies customers are active and on-the-go and it only made sense to offer them a communication channel that they could access anytime, anywhere.?

In-person experience

Undercover Boss viewers who texted in received an offer for a free yogurt during the weekend of Oct. 26.

Viewers who texted in before the show airing would get a message letting them know to text during the actual airing to get a coupon for a free yogurt.

Users showed their mobile coupon at their local Menchies to redeem the offer. It was entered in as a mobile coupon on the cashiers side for tracking purposes.

A total of 41,000 viewers texted in to receive the coupon and, of those, 14,430 ? or nearly 30 percent ? redeemed the offer that weekend. By giving viewers only two days to redeem the offer, this motivated them to experience Menchie?s in-person while the Undercover Boss episode was still fresh in their minds.

Menchie?s also promoted the offer via email and over its social media channels.

The brand?s email list and Twitter and Facebook followers were the first to receive news of the giveaway.

Extending the dialog
Menchie?s worked with ePrize to create a mobile engagement campaign that would help the brand reach beyond its usual audience and reach new customers across devices.

With Undercover Boss presenting an opportunity for the brand to get in front of new consumers nationwide, the chain tapped mobile to extend that dialogue and drive consumers into its stores.

Based on the success of the effort, Menchie?s plans to incorporate mobile engagement campaigns into its future marketing initiatives.

Menchie?s is a franchisor with more than 350 premium frozen yogurt stores in the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries.

?Mobile was at the crux of this campaign, leveraged as a way to engage with viewers during episode airing on a channel that they would have handy while watching the show,? Mr. Girolamo said. ?Social was also an integral component, using Facebook as a primary channel to deliver information on the upcoming campaign to customers and viewers.

?Although this was the first time Menchies used mobile as a channel to interact with customers, the success of this campaign demonstrates that this will be a tactic implemented more regularly to connect with and delight consumers,? he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York