"Your toll is on the House" - on Maxwell House (+FOLLOWUP)

"Your toll is on the House" said the signs, being a teaser for the toll being on Maxwell House. Toll takers in eight metro areas were recruited as temporary salesmen for the Kraft Foods coffee brand. They were under instructions to repeat the slogan "The toll is on the house" while offering coupons and free 50g (1.7oz) vaccuum packed coffee samples to motorists at the toll booth.

Who says tolling isn't a business?

It was all part of a larger promotion of new coffee that involved Kraft picking up the cost of free transit fares also. At five New York subway stations the throwaway paper magstripe Metrocards were being handed out to pay one fare. There are also displays and giveaways at shopping malls. And to show their benevolence, under the slogan "Brew some good" there are donations to food banks.

Celebrating the optimists

There's a definitely political theme in some of the associated TV and radio ads, an explicit appeal to middle American optimism:

"Let's celebrate the optimists—the ones who always see the cup half full." The ads end with the line: "The naysayers, the second-guessers—let them sleep in. It's a new morning. Let's brew some good."

The left hates it. Some of their commentators are reacting with stuff like "Maxwell House whoring themselves at the toll booth."

The promotions and coupons and samples are for a new Maxwell House coffee of 100% Arabica beans. There is mention of a special website www.brewsomegood.com though when we punched that in we just got the normal Maxwell House site. Coming? Gone?

The promotion on tollroads was for about two morning hours in the morning Wednesday Nov 21, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, and it was staged at a smattering of the thousand or so toll plazas around the country. Eight metro areas were being targeted by the promotion which was devised by the Ogilvy & Mather ad agency for Kraft.

The eight tollroads participating were:
- Atlanta (GA400)
- Boston (Alston Brighton plaza, Mass Pike)
- Chicago (Westpoint ITR, Indiana) (CORRECTION posted 2007-11-23)
- Dallas (NTTA's Coit Rd plaza Pres Geo Bush Tpk)
- Denver (E470's Parker Rd plaza)
- Miami (MDX's big east tolling FL836 plaza)
- Philadelphia (Valley Forge, Penn Pike)
- Pittsburgh (Monroeville, Penn Pike)

They have been pretty secretive about details, though they have said they aimed to hit 100k tollroad users - perhaps one percent of the US total.

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike the marketing stunt was at the Monroeville side plaza east of Pittsburgh and at the Valley Forge plaza in the northern part of Philadelphia area, both the major entry/exit points for traffic in and out of those metro areas.

FOLLOWUP:

First a correction. The "Chicago" promotion, so described by Maxwell House was on the Indiana Toll Road at the Westpoint toll plaza, not on the Illinois Tollway as we first reported.

The Illinois Tollway was approached to participate but "We declined to participate," a spokesman Joelle McGinnis says.

Some more detail. And some more pics.

The free tolls were for cash payers and transponder payers alike. Maxwell House agreed to pay the toll bills for the period of the promotion at the plazas affected from 7am to 9am Nov 21 in all eight sites.

Coffee samples were given out at booths until they were exhausted. Maxwell House also paid for signs to be put in toll booth windows. It paid fees of several thousand dollars to each toller participating. Some of this was said to be compensation for the extra expenses involved in gearing up for the event.

They also said they were making a contribution to a charity called America's Second Harvest based on vehicle passes: "for each vehicle the company will make a donation (to the charity of) up to $100,000..."

(ADDITION: Kraft spokesman McConnell says they contributed a flat $100k gift to the charity. 2007-11-26)

Surprise in some places

Press releases were put out via PR Newswire in the eight markets at 6am Nov 21, an hour before the free tolls started. Some toll agencies were concerned not to attract a lot of extra traffic to the tollroad on account of the free ride and free coffee. Others didn't see this as a problem and publicized it ahead of time.

Some were rather passive, more or less just letting Maxwell House do their thing at the plaza. Others were were enthusiastic and portrayed it as a major treat for their customers and did extra publicity.

The Massachusetts Turnpike spokesman Mac Daniel says there was no announcement beforehand to "avoid an onslaught" of motorists. The Mass Pike charged Maxwell House $5,000 but he says the Authority gained about $12k in non-toll revenue.

Georgia Tollway Authority (GSRTA) embraced the promotion with more enthusiasm and advertised it on the radio 48 hours ahead and got a story in the Atlanta Journal newspaper the day before. They also mailed out a postcard notice of the event to their list of transponder account holders (brand Cruise Card).

They were paid $2,500 by Maxwell House which they say more or less covered extra IT costs and some overtime for staff.

Spokesman Lisa Thompson says: "The benefit to (G)SRTA and our customers was the ability to offer them a free ride for the first time ever in the history of the road and a free sample of coffee as a thank you for their loyal patronage. We had approximately 16,000 cars travel through all the lanes. The toll was paid for everyone including those in the Cruise Card lanes. We received an incredibly positive response from all our customers."

Jo Snell of E470 in Denver did a bunch of TV spots for the promotion saying for camera it was a "wonderful treat" for customers to get "a free ride and free coffee from Maxwell House."

The publicity focussed on this being the heaviest traffic day of the year and specially stressful on that account, and the giveaways were a "break" for that.

ASSESSMENT: This appears to have been well handled by Maxwell House and by the tollers. So far as we can discover there weren't any big problems arising from the thing, and on the positive side it seems to have generated lots of goodwill. Customers seem to have liked it.

This kind of marketing has to be approached cautiously. Every time the toll collectors are representing some other business and being the salesman for another they are detracting a little from their own 'brand'. Or muddying it a little. Not a reason to avoid it entirely, but to only do it when there's a tangible benefit to the toll brand.

This kind of promotion has to be carefully crafted and managed, or it can disrupt operations, and generate a backlash. That appears to have been avoided in this case. TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-23

Kraft comment

A Kraft representative, Brigitte McConnell says they regard the campaign as a success. It generated a lot of attention and, they think, goodwill. Toll collectors enjoyed the experience, according some reports they got. Biggest difference was the signage they were allowed to place at the toll plazas.

Transponder users weren't able to get the coffee samples being handed out at toll booths, but Kraft hopes the tollers will mail out coffee coupons to account holders in their mailings.

She says the nuts and bolts were handled by Ogilvie, their ad agency, and "they did a terrific job."

ADDITION 2007-11-26