Free Burgers! Oops. Just Kidding.

Ummmmm

Is there ever such a thing as too much viral marketing?  Carl’s Jr. faced this unusual scenario recently when it gave away free Famous Star burgers.  According to wired.com the free burgers were only intended for a small group of contest winners attending a Los Angeles Lakers home game Jan. 6, who were texted a special Lakers site URL and a coupon code for a printable coupon.

In a matter of hours, the coupon code and links to the URL showed up on coupon sites across the internet.  Carl’s Jr wasn’t amused and refused to honor the coupons unless bearers could prove they were at the game.

“We’re wanting things to go viral, just not free offers,” said Beth Mansfield, a Carl’s Jr. spokeswoman. She said that was the first, and likely the last time the chain would give out free burgers that way.

Are you kidding?  No one gets to choose if they go viral–or what goes viral. That’s the point.  Didn’t someone at Carl’s Jr. or their ad agency know about coupon sites?  Carl’s is blaming a winner for “sharing” the code. The spokeswoman told wired:

“Obviously, somebody who was at the game shared it with a friend. Eventually, it was everywhere,” Mansfield said in a telephone interview.

Everybody what?

So they did what lot’s of people do–blamed the victims and discontinued the offer after 50 burgers were given away. I applaud Carl’s for trying to reach consumers where they are–in the stands at Staples Center–and using text messaging as an avenue to reach them, but I don’t understand their naivete about coupon sites.

It’s clear from Carl’s/Hardees advertising they are trying to reach a young, male demographic, but it just seems to me that someone–or maybe someone’s mom–would have known the coupon code would spread “faster than a Paris Hilton homemade porn” (sorry, no link to that).

A simple, pre-emptive move to require a ticket stub to redeem the coupon could have saved them from all the bad press. The coupon’s fine print mentions an expiration date, and few other limitations already.

Bring your ticket stub

Carl’s naivete aside, shouldn’t they have honored the coupon once it went viral? Dropping the promo is the kind of fearful move that gives companies a bad rep, especially with guys wanting the free hamburgers promised them. How much could a greasy burger really cost them to give away in exchange for gaining a few new customers–and selling some fries and soft drinks at the same time?

Maybe they ought to just put a “sorry for the inconvenience” message on their own web site, and give everyone their meat.  Carl’s web site is cool anyway with lots of interactive features that will appeal to the demographic target and get them to stay a while.

I dunno, maybe I’m wrong here. I think Carl’s learned something about viral coupon codes, but if this story spreads, they may have even more to learn about their customers.