McDonald's Bungles Its Free-Smoothie Promo
McDonald's (MCD) has short-circuited a promotion of its new smoothie drinks, which could have brought the chain raving fans, by canceling its previously announced plan to offer free samples of its smoothies for several days this week. The company said the smoothies have already become an "unprecedented hit," and McDonald's feared running low on supplies if it handed out the samples.
That's funny, since at the same time the company was crying smoothie-mix shortage, McDonald's distributed 32 million coupons (like the one at right) in Parade Magazine that got bearers a free, 12-ounce smoothie or a frappe. So they don't have the supplies for little free samples in dinky paper cups, but they have enough to make America 32 million free, full-sized smoothies. Yeah, that makes sense...
A McDonald's spokeswoman told me that the coupons for 12-ounce free smoothies are still good. Just the samples have been canceled. But customers are understandably confused now.
In a typical comment today on the Huffington Post's story about the free-sample cancellation, visitor Doreen1960 wrote, "I handed my daughter the coupon yesterday, and McDonald's now doesn't want to honor them -- NOT cool!"
It's not hard to figure out what happened here. Someone planned the free samples, and perhaps someone else planned the Parade coupon. Then the competing promotions came to light, and one of them had to go to avoid product shortages. It was probably too late to pull the Parade coupon (which would have made more sense if shortages are really an issue), so the free-samples got the ax.
But canceling free handouts you've already announced just isn't a good idea. A better move would have been to cut the free-sample promotion to a single day instead of three. This would have salvaged most of the customer good will as well as creating the illusion of scarcity and likely leading to big crowds and much positive press on the remaining promotional day.
Outright canceling free stuff is, as the saying goes, overpromising and underdelivering. And that's real bad for business.
Franchisees have a worst-case scenario now: They're signed up to hand out vast quantities of free, full-sized smoothies, but many American diners have the impression that McDonald's is stingy and a poor planner. Let's hope customers who forge ahead and try the free smoothies like them and come back for more. That would help make up for the harvest of bad PR.
Photo of McDonald's Parade magazine coupon courtesy of For the Mommas Related: