Historically, Denny’s has always been known for great, delicious value offerings!

But over the past couple years, Denny’s had lost much of its leadership position in customer value perceptions. To retake this value position in the minds of our guests, Denny’s was introducing a newly revamped national value menu featuring the $5.99 Everyday Value Slam (two buttermilk pancakes, two strips of bacon, two eggs).

But while $5.99 is a very aggressive starting price point (especially in a time with rising food and energy costs), competing for the value-seeking customer has become a broad “starting at” cluster of non-distinctive deals aiming to drive short-term customer traffic.

So, how would Denny’s communicate our unique value proposition in a way that will stand out?

The conceptual answer was as simple as the oldest traffic-driving trick in the book: a coupon.

But a coupon done in a way that has never been done before.

Introducing the first-ever wearable coupon.

A simple but differentiated idea. A fashionably designed T-shirt with limited availability, each with a unique QR code that gives the wearer a FREE Denny’s Everyday Value Slam every day for a whole year – sold for only $5.99.

Equating to a $2,186 value!

But...only 150 shirts would be made available on the day when value traditionally means the most: Black Friday. And while Black Friday is a difficult time to hijack conversation and attention, we knew no one would expect a restaurant to offer the hottest deal of the year.

With traditional media tasked with building general awareness of the new value menu, Denny’s sought ideas for a headline-driving and buzz-building Brand Act that would build cultural relevance and desire with a younger multi-cultural audience. The primary focus would be the most desirable item on the new value menu: the $5.99 Everyday Value Slam.

Specifically, the “brief in brief” stated:

* GET value-seeking consumers,

* WHO may not consider Denny’s as their go-to value destination,

* TO choose the $5.99 “Everyday Value Slam” as their best money-saving breakfast solution,

* BY creating a buzzworthy campaign around the biggest deal in breakfast.

It was imperative that not only the unique QR codes functionally worked within the Denny’s in-store POS systems and scan readers, but the t-shirt had to be desirable from an overall design standpoint.

The design was achieved through a graphic illustrative style inspired by current high fashion trends.

The shirt also included a mantra on the back that aligned the Denny’s product with a “living your best life” philosophy. The back of the shirt read: “Everyday is a new chance to go after what you crave, to satisfy your appetite while staying hungry for more. Everyday you are free to live and eat deliciously.”

The promotion of this T-shirt campaign was primarily driven through Denny's owned digital channels, specifically via social media platforms, loyalty e-blasts, main website and merch store (DinerDrip.com). Additionally, earned media headlines were an important program element with dining, business and lifestyle writers.

* Public Relations - 360 placements totaling more than 150 million earned media impressions – equal to 3 weeks of paid TV media. Higher-profile stories appeared in Yahoo, CNN, Forbes, Thrillist, among others.

* Social Media - a 293% increase in organic impressions compared to the month prior to the campaign’s launch, as well as 86% positive sentiment.

* Merch Web Traffic - over 410,000 total visitors to DinerDrip.com in the three days surrounding the midnight launch with over 80,000 visitors on the site when the sale went live at midnight (official kick off of Black Friday). This equated to an 18,411% increase in site visitation versus average amount of daily users. Not surprisingly, the T-Shirt sold out in less than 2 minutes.

* Dennys.com Web Traffic - while dennys.com was not the URL destination publicized, there were residual benefits with a 23% increase in visitors vs average daily users.