It's all about the PR

No, not PageRank, I mean public relations!

Yesterday was Free Hamburger Day at Harvey's, where they were giving out one free hamburger per person at participating Harvey's locations across Ontario. At the Harvey's location I went to, the line stretched back to the door, with probably 50 people lining up for their free hamburger. After I lined up, the line immediately started getting much larger, reaching probably another 50 feet out the door, into the parking lot, too!

The point is Harvey's burgers taste great. I think it's safe to say that they have the best tasting burgers in the whole fast food market, trumping competitors like McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King easily. And I also think that yesterday was a great marketing idea for those top officials at Harvey's HQ... I'm sure they've attracted a lot more new customers as many undoubtedly got hooked on that great Harvey's taste.
Aside from that, I must applaud this corporation greatly. When we deconstruct the financial aspect of this free hamburger promotion, we can see the massive amount of money they must have lost through this promotion. Think about this; how many burgers, cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets does a typical Harvey's location sell in one day (most people would have decided to go with a free hamburger than pay an extra 4.59 for a slice of cheese)? This effect of losing sales is even further compounded by the fact that many people would forgo their preferred cheeseburger or double hamburger, instead choosing the free hamburger. The point here is that each Harvey's location lost a huge amount of money that day. Multiply this large (theoretical) sum in dollars by the amount of Harvey's locations in Ontario, and you see the fortune in sales that they lost yesterday.

That said, one day of free burgers is a HUGE hit for Harvey's, or any other fast food company that would decide to do this. True, they are probably making millions per day across Ontario, Canada and the rest of the world, but one day of lost sales on this scale can have a massive effect on the financial state of this company... it may seem that these companies can roll with the punches but you must also realize that their annual revenue does not include the salaries it must pay it's thousands of employees, or the cost of purchasing the raw materials for their famous burgers, or leasing the land their restaurants are on, and so on and so forth for all things that concern maintaining a huge fast-food chain; you can see that the overhead is truly enormous.

In this, like I said before, I truly applaud Harvey's for taking that big gamble and giving us all free burgers for a day... I'm sure this act of goodwill (and improving PR) will pay off for them in the future! It's simply karma (or more people buying Harvey's burgers!).

kamster