Famous Dave's Plays the Name Game

Calling All Daves
On August 1st, 2010, barbecue restaurant Famous Dave's ran a great promotion in which it offered a free entrée to people whose first name is Dave, David or Davy. Anyone with the middle name of Dave, David or Davy received a half price entrée. I love this promotion because it's buzz-worthy, fun, and promotes the Famous Dave's brand very well. And doesn't everyone know someone named Dave that they could tell about this?

Since learning about Famous Dave's promotion, I've been thinking about other stores, restaurants, and products that could run a similar promotion. Join in the fun—what would you add to this list?!
  • Ann Taylor — Free necklace to anybody named Ann or Annie
  • Ashley's Furniture — 15% discount to anybody named Ashley
  • Carl's Jr — Free burger if your name is Carl
  • Claire's Boutique — Free pair of earrings for anyone named Claire
  • Dick's Sporting Goods — Buy one, get one free to anyone named Richard or Dick
  • Eddie Bauer — 30% off if your name is Ed, Edward, or Eddie
  • Jersey Mike's — Free sub if your name is Mike
  • Jimmy Johns — Free sandwich if your name is Jim, Jimmy, or John
  • Papa Johns — Free bread sticks for anyone named John or all dads
  • Sam's Club — $20 gift card to anyone named Sam, Samuel, or Samantha
  • Victoria's Secret — 50% off if your name is Victoria
Add This To Your To-Do List
If you work in a business that's named after someone, have some fun with it and run a promotion for people with the same name. Or, if you sell a product like Mike's Hard Lemonade, distribute coupons for freebies for people with the same name as your product. And as I learned while thinking up the above list and more, if your name is Mike, there are a lot of products named after you!

There's never a lack of ideas.

Speaking of Mikes, thanks to Mike Labowicz for the inspiration for this post and to the lovely Monica Scarpino for thinking up some great examples with me.

Comments

  1. StephAugust 10, 2010

    at Go Roma we did a promotion on Saint Joseph's day (patron saint of Italy) offering a free meal to anyone named Joe, Josephine, Jodie, etc. Customers named something else were also offered a discount if they wore red to the restaurant that day. Customers on our email list were emailed about the promotion in advance, and the emails sent to people with Joe names included a personal invitation to receive the free meal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nick SAugust 11, 2010

    Awesome example, Stephanie. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dominican Republic Real EstateJuly 08, 2011

    What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.
    I have bookmarked, Dugg, and I joined the RSS subscription. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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