Never a Lack of Ideas

After its great "Customer Appreciation Day" promotion in which Chicagoland Jimmy John's offered sub sandwiches for just $1, I wrote to Jimmy John's and asked them to answer five questions about the promotion. The company graciously responded with the following answers: What were your goals for the promotion and was it a success? Can you give any specifics? The goal of our customer appreciation day was exactly that, to show appreciation to our customers. It¹s sharing the love and thanking our loyal JJ fans for keeping us in business for the past 27 years. Hell yea it was a success, did you see those lines? What type of preparation did you do ahead of time to run the promotion? (Staffing, food preparation, research about other food giveaway promotions, etc.). With last year's disastrous KFC free grilled chicken promotion , I'm highly impressed that you guys pulled off such an awesome food promotion across Chicagoland. You didn't run out of food and your lin...

Subs So Inexpensive You'll Freak On June 10, 2010, Jimmy John's restaurants in the Chicagoland area and Northwest Indiana offered $1 sandwiches from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. as part of Customer Appreciation Day. Unlike the KFC free grilled chicken promotion disaster that occurred last summer (I wrote about it here and here ), this promotion was a huge success. I visited two Jimmy John's in Chicago to check up on the promotion. I visited the one at 28 N. Clark at 11:45 a.m. (view the video above to see the line out the door at that time) and 2:45 p.m. and the one at 216 W. Washington at noon. Both restaurants had massive lines out the door during each of my visits, but the Jimmy John's staff handled the situation beautifully: Neither store ran out of food. My co-worker, who waited in line for 35 minutes to get a $1 sub, reported that employees at the restaurant on Clark were constantly replenishing the supply of fresh vegetables and bread in order to keep customers mov...