Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and Zatarain’s are two brands rooted in the culture of New Orleans. Their partnership on the best-selling Zatarain’s Butterfly Shrimp at Popeyes locations nationwide is a natural fit, and customers responded with great interest. 2012 was the first year these two brands merged their unique flavors, and this year the limited edition item was accompanied by a contest hosted on Twitter. The contest further showcased the companies’ roots in New Orleans and leveraged the social fan base of both brands.
Tweet Your Way to Mardi Gras was a monthlong campaign developed to raise awareness of the return of the popular menu item, but it was also a vehicle to connect with Popeyes and Zatarain’s core audience of New Orleans fans. Twitter was the chosen platform for the contest due to each brand’s desire to grow its fanbase on the platform.
The contest was just the beginning. Zatarain’s kept its followers engaged by creating original Vine videos. Nine videos were produced, each cleverly incorporating the butterfly shrimp into interesting scenarios that reinforced both brands’ New Orleans positioning. The Vine videos were viewed 920 times over 30 days. While there are other video services available for creating unique social media content, Vine was the perfect fit since the contest focused on Twitter and Vine is its native platform.
“Our brands tap into the unique flavors of New Orleans in a way that really resonates with our customers,” said Hector Munoz, Vice President of Marketing for Popeyes. “Through social media, we’re able to carry that sentiment beyond the dinner table. This contest allowed us to reinforce that sentiment with a real-world example of New Orleans culture.”
The contest encouraged Twitter followers to Tweet Your Way to Mardi Gras by tweeting or retweeting using the hashtag #ZatsAtPopeyes. Tweets sent between June 24 and July 28 were entered to win Popeyes/Zatarain’s weekly prize packs and a grand prize trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The lure of a free Mardi Gras experience resulted in 11,265 sweepstakes entries and 63,570 clicks to the sweepstakes landing page. Because winners also had to follow @popeyeschicken AND @myzatarains on Twitter to win, Zatarain’s Twitter follower base grew by 50%, or 3,286 followers.
“Tweet Your Way to Mardi Gras and the Vine videos produced to support the contest allow us to start a conversation with people who are preconditioned to enjoy what we serve,” said Michael Morse, General Manager of Zatarain’s. “We’re excited to connect with people who may be just learning about us and reward our loyal fan base.”
“We knew the contest would drive our follower count up, but we needed to follow up with truly engaging content in order to keep those followers interested in what we have to say; the Vine videos do just that,” said Jennifer Young, Senior Marketing Manager of Zatarain’s.
The Tweet Your Way to Mardi Gras contest and Vine videos were developed by Zatarain’s agency of record, Peter Mayer, which is based in New Orleans.
To watch the Vine videos, click below:
Pac-Man: Pac in the Zatarain’s Butterfly Shrimp at Popeyes!
Checkers: King Me!
Box March: Walkin’ to New Orleans.
July 4th: Happy Independence Day!
Flowers: Float like a butterfly. Dip like a shrimp.
Shrimp Parade: All hail King Shrimp!
Shrimp Tree: Just add water.
Mardi Gras Transformation: You are what you eat.
Magic Box: Little box. Big flavor.