Restaurants Archives - Bob Cargill

03Nov 2022 by Bob Cargill

Treating Your Customers to Something Free

Advertising, Boston, Business, Marketing, Public Relations, Restaurants

Boloco, a chain of restaurants founded in Boston, offered free small bowls to its customers in three of its locations in the area the other day. I saw the long line of people waiting to take advantage of this ridiculously awesome offer in front of its Longwood Avenue store. Good for those happy customers, getting such a great deal on such great food. And good for Boloco, too, for being so kind and generous to those folks. From a marketing perspective, why would Boloco do such a crazy thing? There are plenty of reasons, actually. Besides just being a nice thing to do for others, in doing so, the business may see a lot of those seeking freebies buying additional menu items at the same time. They may have the…

08Oct 2020 by Bob Cargill

A Great Ad for a Great Cause

Advertising, Communications, Fundraising, Marketing, Restaurants

It’s a great ad for a great cause. But it’s much more than just an ad. It’s a fundraising campaign for small businesses and nonprofit organizations. It’s about the closing of Coogan's Restaurant in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City after some 35 years in business. Facebook put this ad together, pledging to match up to $100,000 of the funds raised as a result of this campaign. What particularly stands out to me about this spot is the riveting version of Gloria Gaynor's classic, mega-hit song, “I Will Survive,” sung by Swedish artist, Lykee Li, that accompanies it. See – and listen – for yourself here.

14Aug 2020 by Bob Cargill

Domino’s Homemade Film Festival

Branding, Marketing, Restaurants

Free pizza for a year. Sounds good to me. What about you? Free pizza for a year. That’s the grand prize in the Domino’s Homemade Film Festival contest. To enter, all you need to do is submit a video of 60 seconds or less by August 21 at 3 PM ET at https://www.dominosfilmfest.com/. Between September 7-11, people can vote for their favorite homemade films about Domino's, and on September 18, the winners will be announced with $1,560 in Domino’s gift cards going to the grand prize winner, $500 in gift cards to the second place winner and $200 in gift cards to the third place winner. What a great idea! What a great contest! This is a win-win campaign if ever there was one. Domino’s is getting its fans to…

22Jul 2020 by Bob Cargill

Panera’s Free Coffee Offer

Marketing, Restaurants

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such a thing as free coffee. Panera Bread has been offering free, unlimited coffee through Labor Day for a while now. All you need to do is sign up for it on the bakery-café’s website or app. Have you taken advantage of this ridiculously awesome offer yet? The consumer in me says it’s such a great deal! The marketer in me says it’s such a great campaign! In the infancy of the initiative, they were using Twitter to say they needed 500,000 votes for #FREECOFFEE4SUMMER to make the offer a reality. That got their audience’s attention - and the necessary votes. This subscription offer is classic direct marketing, signing up constituents for free, hoping to up-sell them,…

26Aug 2017 by Bob Cargill

10 Boston Restaurants Crushing it on Twitter

Boston, Branding, Business, Marketing, Restaurants, Social Media

It’s one thing to be able to serve great food. It’s quite another to be able to show off those dishes in words and pictures on Twitter so well that your followers like your tweets almost as much as your eats. That’s the irony of marketing a restaurant in this day and age. As if it’s not enough to be considered one of the best places to go for a bite to eat in town. Now they have to have the popularity on social media to prove it. Okay. Maybe that’s a stretch, but the importance of displaying their menus everywhere people are congregating online today cannot be underestimated. More and more potential customers are stalking their every move not just on the grapevine, but on a bevy of newfangled…

08Feb 2014 by Bob Cargill

How Over 100 Boston-Area Restaurants Use Twitter

Boston, Restaurants, Social Media, Twitter

You've probably heard of them. You may even have been to them. But do you follow them on Twitter? They are the over 100 different restaurants in the Boston area that you will find tweeting about eating that are included in a list I created recently on Twitter. From a great gastropub like Deep Ellum to a classic steakhouse like Abe & Louie's, a legendary sports bar like the Cask 'n Flagon to a highly acclaimed Italian bistro like Figs, they’re some of the most popular restaurants around, places you can count on for good food and good times. In this Twitter list, you can read what these restaurants are up to in 140 characters or less. You can learn more about their menus, their specials, their personalities and their…

11Mar 2013 by Bob Cargill

WAAF’s Greg Hill Talks about His New Restaurant in Sudbury, Twitter and More

Business, Marketing, Restaurants, Social Media, Sudbury, Twitter

I was excited to hear recently that a new restaurant was coming to Sudbury, the town where I live. And given that it was going to be located in Sudbury Town Square, a new complex of shops and business offices that everyone around here has been talking about, I was particularly curious. But I honestly didn’t give this news much thought until I noticed this restaurant happened to be following me on Twitter. How cool was that? What really got my attention, though, was when I got a tweet from this restaurant thanking me for following them and making a reference to my plans to run the Boston Marathon, which they only could have known by doing a little research on me. Of course, I was flattered. Everyone likes to…