New Chick-fil-A Billboard Misses Chance to Connect

Chick-fil-A has a lock down on cows in marketing. The chicken-only fast food chain started using cows to promote its brand back in 1995, when the company put up a billboard with cows painting the now-famous misspelled phrase: “EAT MOR CHIKIN.” Since then the billboard cows have turned 3-D and they continue to paint a variety of catchy, anti-chicken messages alongside roadways in America.

In North Carolina’s Triangle area, the billboards appear to be updated with some regularity, often changing to reflect different seasons or trends. The latest billboard we spotted is at I-440 and Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, and it may be the most clever yet. The billboard features a real toll-free phone number (1-866-613-COWS) and when you call it you get a light-hearted recording that features ringing phones, mooing cows and this message:

Chick-fil-A Billboard Recording from This Is Beautiful on Vimeo.

“You have reached the bovine chicken chat line, where you can chat with tons and tons of cows about chicken. All our cows are busy. While you’re waiting, why not get to know some of these fuzzy fans of chicken. Hefer 9672 is a twelve hundred pounder from Kentucky who likes long walks in the pastor, watching cars go by from poastor and eathing the pastor. She’s also an aspiring author, writing a book called “The Burgers of Wrath.”

Bull 5541 is a bull from Chicago, with a pierced nose and a nasty temper, but he loves people who eat chikcen and the good folks at Chick-fil-A who make the chicken. Bull 5541’s pet peeves are cow tipping and the color red — espcially when it’s meat.

All our cows are still busy please try calilng the bovine chat line later. The cows thank you for calling and for not eating burgers. This call made possible by Chick-fil-A. You may hang up and grab some chicken now.”

We think it’s cool that Chick-fil-A is trying to find a new way to reach potential customers. We’re sure a lot of curious drivers have dialed the number while cruising down the road (which raises the issue of safety … but we’ll leave that one untouched today), and they probably chuckled like we did when we heard the cute message. But the recording leaves you wanting more.

We wonder why Chick-fil-A didn’t use the recording as a way to generate fun feedback from its customers. Maybe the message could have ended by encouraging callers to leave a message of their own about Chick-fil-A. Sure, they probably would have to sift through a lot of fratboy humor to get to the few good nuggets (wokka, wokka!) that were recorded, but wouldn’t that be fun? Perhaps, Chick-fil-A could have encouraged callers to do their best cow impression and posted the variety of “moos” people recorded while driving down the road.

The toll-free number, while clever, is also a missed opportunity for Chick-fil-A to build its community and receive feedback from its fans. The restaurant already has a huge fan base, otherwise folks wouldn’t dress up like cows for free food or camp out overnight at new restaurant openings to win free Chick-fil-A for a year.

Chick-fil-A had a chance to engage its community. The chain was almost there. They posted a funny message that sticks to its cow-boasting brand. It may have been better, however, if they took it one step further and let its audience have a voice.

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Just because the Chicago Tribune is publicizing its Twitter efforts doesn’t mean you should!

I’ve been impressed with the Chicago Tribune’s use of Twitter since I stumbled upon its newsroom twitter account, @ColonelTribune, in summer 2008. The Colonel is the Trib’s “web ambassador,” serving as the face of the newsroom on the Internet. With more than 7,400 followers, the @ColonelTribune twitter account is an awesome example of how big media should use Twitter. The Colonel does more than provide obligatory news updates. Instead, @ColonelTribune engages “his” audience through thoughtful replies. He also posts breaking news (even if it means linking to competing media outlet like @Suntimes), retweets followers and posts witty observations, all without overly compromising the Tribune’s objectivity.

Last week, the Tribune took another major step forward in the Twitterverse. On Thursday, The Tribune published the Twitter names of its editors in the masthead (the graphic on the editorial page that tells you who all the big wigs at a newspaper are). Change of any sort to a newspaper’s masthead is a big deal — years can go by without a single design change, other than swapping out an editor’s name.  So the fact that the Tribune decided to acknowledge its social media presence in its print edition deserves applause.

But closer inspection of the publisher and five editors whose Twitter names appear in the masthead reveals that they may have rushed to press. As of this writing, five of them have fewer than 100 updates on Twitter, which means their accounts are either spanking new or rarely used. The publisher’s account, @twhunter, features only one update. The editorial page editor’s account, @BruceDold, features the brown avatar, a classic sign of a newbie. The most prolific tweeter listed in the masthead is @Bill80, the paper’s digital editor who has posted 469 updates and was quoted on CNET last week as saying:

“I’ve been on Twitter a couple of years, since it first emerged from South by Southwest, and so I’ve been on it for awhile, as you would hope that the digital editor of the Tribune” would be, said Bill Adee, the paper’s digital editor. “And in the last month or so, we’ve really tried to get our reporters and editors on (Twitter) to show them how it could make them better reporters and editors.”

So if he’s been on Twitter a couple of years (say 365 days x 2) and has only posted 469 tweets, I’ve got to question how actively he engages his audience.

If you’re using Twitter for business, it’s important that you become comfortable using the medium before you publicly advertise that you can be found there. There’s a learning curve to Twitter. Twitter is about much more than answering the question “what are you doing?”. It’s about sharing information, engaging in conversations and displaying your (or your brand’s) personality.

It takes a while to learn how to use Twitter (both for pleasure or for business), and there’s nothing wrong with committing a few faux pas along the way. But it’s best to experiment and get them out of the way before you publicize your company’s emergence in Twitterville.

Once you’re comfortable using Twitter and you’re ready to engage the online community you plan to build through your tweets, then you should take the steps that make sense to let your audience know where they can find you @.