I'm looking for some great "Happy Hour" promotions that could be used
by a Blue Collar Sports Bar & Grill across the street from a large
industrial park and where 75% of the customers are men ages 21-40. The
bar is also next to a freeway on-ramp and 2 miles from ASU, a major
university. Stories (and/or your original ideas) are wanted about bars creating
strong "Happy Hour" business  Monday-Friday from 3pm-7pm in creative
ways. Good/Great answers would save money on marketing or help build great
(profitable would be nice) business volume. Fantastic answers do both!

Good story = $ 10
Great story = $ 15
Fantastic story = $ 35

Good luck, Kim

P.S. I have had a chance to see the brillant way lindstrom-ga uses the
power of GA to get multiple useful answers from the many GA
researchers and I think his clever approach is worth trying on this
question.

Hi Kim!

Here are two ideas.

Champions Sports Bar Creates Internet Happy Tour
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/6/prweb133546.htm

-----------------------------------------------

Happy Hungry Hour Promotion

?Rawlins worked with Patrick Henry Creative Promotions to develop the
Happy Hungry Hour postcard mail-outs and posters featuring a
pudgy-faced chef holding a gigantic pizza with the caption, "This is
NOT our chef ... and this is NOT your pizza!"
    
As a result, curious customers are checking out Sunsets' and taking
advantage of the $2 stone oven pizzas, $2 draft beers and $2 house
wines offered during happy hour. The lounge sells an average of 60 to
75 pizzas per night during the two-hour promotion.?
http://www.nightclub.com/magazine/December99/promotions.html

Best regards,
Bobbie7

Kim, 

Here?s some interesting information from a previous question.

Blue Collar Promotions

 ?Miss Public Bar? promotions - You could have a bikini contest every
Thursday night (or pick your slowest night) for 8 weeks. The weekly
winner receives a collection of prizes donated by your various
suppliers. The 8-week winner receives a grand prize you offer from the
increased proceeds. This format should attract a good audience if a
large part of your audience is single males. 

Blue Collar Clients:

?Blue collar clients are more interested in girls, having a wild
party, girls, cheap prices, and sex. Your marketing promotions need to
focus on giving the impression of cheap prices, and a great party.
Remember that this may change a bit depending on exactly what your
blue collar client is like.?

Source: Google Answers
Subject: promotion management 
Answered By: prof-ga on 17 Jan 2003
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=144133

--Bobbie7

An "Internet Happy Hour" -- what a cool concept to play with, even if
the implementation in the example was not inspiring. This bar is
building a solid list of email addresses from their customers, so some
play off that idea may be very possible. Any ideas on how to use their
list of email addresses to create a fun, cool and profitable "Internet
Happy Hour" would be appreciated...

The "Miss Public Bar" stuff is right on target.

Kim,

Here is an interesting Case Study:

"The Austin Grill is a Tex-Mex restaurant chain based in the
Washington, D.C., area. Last year, the chain decided to offer its own
"refund" to customers.

Fishbowl, a company that provides email marketing services to
restaurants, helped send the offer to the restaurant chain's opt-in
database of 1,966 customers, who had registered via various methods,
including sign-up cards in the restaurants. The offer was called "The
Austin Grill's 1040 Refund," playing on the name of the tax form many
Americans file with the government each spring.

Shipped out on the Thursday before the big day, the offer encouraged
customers to print the email message and bring it to any Austin Grill
the following Monday, April 17, to receive a $10.40 deduction off any
check of $20 or more. "Bring your dependents, drown your sorrows, and
forget about taxes for another 364 days," the email read.

And customers did. On that Monday, 205 people came into the restaurant
and displayed their coupons."
http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/case_studies/article.php/834791


Another case study:

"After e-mail address collection, mailings began. The team put
together an eye-catching HTML e-mail. The e-mail featured a Kingfisher
beer and the words "If F1 is your religion... get baptized!" at the
top. Below were details on Team F1, becoming a member, and membership
benefits. For example, the average cost of a mug of beer is INR 50
(about $1), and members were entitled to two free mugs of beer.

Overall, the first mailing had a 73 percent open rate and 40 percent
conversion rate. Conversion in this case means the recipient joined
Team F1.

A second mailing was sent to those who opened the first but didn't
convert. The bold headline read "BEER AND RACING BENEFITS." The
message focused on all the benefits of joining the club, such as free
beer on race days in select pubs and a Team F1 cap and car stickers.

Thirty-three percent of these recipients opened the second e-mail. The
conversion rate was a whopping 87 percent."
Read the complete article here:
http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/case_studies/article.php/3372191

Do these ideas meet your needs?

Bobbie7

Kim,

Here's a creative idea.

"To boost traffic to the restaurants, Optiem recommended using a
monthly HTML newsletter powered by ExactTarget that would drive online
traffic to the Max & Erma's website (http://www.maxandermas.com) and
also would encourage foot traffic to the restaurants.

To do this, the newsletter contained an imbedded survey known as "The
History Mystery," in which Optiem posed a question about Max & Erma's
history, promising a gift certificate for the correct answer. An
animated GIF in the promotional area of the newsletter flashed to
provide a link to the Max & Erma's website where the visitor could
find a clue to the correct answer.

Survey response rates reached nearly 20 percent, and due to coding on
each coupon, Max and Erma's will be able to track the revenue
generated by The History Mystery campaign."
http://website.exacttarget.com/pressrelease_7_20_04.asp

Bobbie7: thanks for your research on Happy Hours! I'd say you've hit
the "fantastic" level by providing various useful ideas. If you find
any more, toss them way but I'm very happy already. I'll be following
lindstrom's example and posting a "private $35 question" to you in the
next hour or so.

Any other researchers out there with a "Happy Hour" concept for me? I
want to pay out more money...

Kim

Thanks Kim!

I'll be looking out for my question. :)

--Bobbie7

Borrowing from 6 sigma theory:

Find out where "good customers" are during the time when it is slow
(intended happy hour). Most likely they are either just leaving the
factory/shop/work yard/etc or there is high traffic at the local mall.
Ask people a simple question and give them a cheap gift for helping
(sticker/coaster/pin with your pub's name on it 7 address).

Sample question:
"Would you come out to a pub between the hours of X & Y?"
"What would make you want to go to a pub at that time?"
"Does this poster/add make you want to come to our happy hour?"
 -- With this you could test out a variety of ideas. Make up 3 or 4
posters with the best ideas or most feasible and test run them on the
people who would see them and potentially react to them.

This doesn't give you any ideas, but I hope it helps you to manage the
ideas that you get.

-RR