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Mexican Restaurant. Hawaiian Vacation.

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From the restaurant that brought you "Self Promotional Overkill",  here's "Extremely Ambitious Tactics to get Customers to Come in More."

I found this box sitting on my doorstep one day. Supposedly not everyone received this box. I was surprised it to see it was put together better than their above-mentioned mailer.


Upon opening the lid you're met with a folded card inviting you to "solve the puzzle" and win a trip for 4 to Hawaii. Another folded card explains the rules and shows a "treasure map" to this local Mexican restaurant in my town.



After removing the two cards there are 4 puzzle pieces nestled within a folded insert. It's an incomplete puzzle, of course. The rules of the game state that whenever you eat at the restaurant, you will be given a new puzzle piece, and when you finally complete your 9-piece puzzle is when you'll actually win.



If I had received this puzzle first before that crazy mailer I think I would have been more impressed. Considering what it's being used for, it's a well made piece and much like that mailer, they spared no expense in putting it all together. It's also a lot less complicated — simple folds, puzzle pieces and that simply folded insert to hold those pieces. 

My only complaint would be in their strategy. To require someone to come into the restaurant to collect 5 or 6 other pieces that may or may not lead to winning can get a little expensive. This is not a fast food place, but a nice sit-down restaurant. Promotions such as this make me think of McDonald's when they launch their Monopoly game. It works in that case. With McDonald's the food is much cheaper — for the price of one meal at this sit-down place, you would be able to buy several Monopoly game pieces at Ronald's house. There's no expiration date listed on this promo, so I'm assuming this will all last until someone wins. So overall, a decent piece. Hopefully for them it compels their customers to come in more often to play. It is after all, a pretty decent restaurant with some fairly good reviews, so they have that going for them.

And if you're wondering about my "INSTANT WINNER" puzzle piece, I won a free entrée of Tacos Al Pastore. SCORE!



- Joel Penos 





Comments

Steph Han said…
I was amazed when I saw that mailer--so elaborate! I'm convinced someone in that family works for a printer, lol :)
December 6, 2013 at 8:36 AM
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