Client: A&W Restaurants

A&W Restaurants, famous for its root beer, burgers and floats since 1919, had recently been spun off from giant YUM! Brands when, in 2013, Guthrie/Mayes was engaged to help the company gain publicity for its 1,100 restaurants through National Root Beer Float Day, August 6th. Guthrie/Mayes handled all aspects of the media promotion:

• Formulated a strategy of pairing free root beer floats with donations to a national charity (Wounded Warrior Project)
• Developed a media “tool kit” for franchisees to promote National Root Beer Float Day in their home markets
• Developed and distributed a national press release
• Handled online, national print, and national broadcast media rollout

Campaign Results

Since 2013, the campaign results ensured that A&W “owns” this holiday.

• Live appearances on national “Good Morning America” and “Fox & Friends” morning shows
• Online Google search pairing A&W and the holiday produces over 15,000 online hits
• A&W Facebook “likes” have surpassed 254,000
• A&W Twitter account has grown to over 26K followers
• A&W Instagram has over 2,300 followers
• Hundreds of regional media hits among newspapers, community bulletin boards and radio stations

In only 2 years of the promotion, National Root Beer Float Day has raised more than $300,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project.