How Chick-fil-A, the Philadelphia 76ers and the fans succeeded with the Chicken Nuggets promotion

Philadelphia 76ers fans were already in a good mood on Sunday. Their team led the Boston Celtics by 13 points when 76ers forward Georges Niang fouled Robert Williams and sent him to the line with 4:03 left in the third quarter.

When Williams missed his first shot, the Wells Fargo Center crowd got even more rowdy. The scoreboard read Get Loud, Louder and Next Miss Is For 5 Nuggets, a reminder of the popular Chick-fil-A promotion. When Williams made another free throw, a disappointed Ah spread into the arena.

There was a similar reaction twice more in the game, when Celtics star Jayson Tatum missed his first free throws with 8:57 and 3:21 left in the game. Both times, Tatum made another shot and denied the fans their free pieces of chicken.

At the end of the evening, they celebrate again. The 76ers won 116-115 in overtime to sweep the Eastern Conference semifinal series in two games and guarantee at least one more home game this season. With that comes another opportunity for free food.

Ever since Chick-fil-A introduced the Bricken for Chicken campaign at the start of the season, it’s been a hit with everyone involved: local restaurant franchise owners for the marketing exposure and increased traffic to their stores, for the 76ers sponsorship. revenue and guest experience and fans from the free nuggets themselves.

Detail? At any 76ers home game, if the opponent misses two consecutive free throws in the second half, the fans will receive five chicken nuggets. If it happens again, fans will get eight nuggets. And if it happens three times in a game, fans get 12 nuggets.

This season, the campaign has been launched in 10 games, resulting in more than 600,000 free nuggets being distributed by restaurants in the region. Owen Morin, the 76ers’ director of corporate partnerships, said that this is just a phenomenal number, adding that the success is much better than we originally expected. The goal is now to distribute more than a million nuggets during the season.

It’s not just limited to the people participating in the game. If an opponent misses two free throws, anyone in the Philadelphia area can open their Chick-fil-A app and claim the offer by 10:30 a.m. the next weekday. They then have three days to redeem the offer at any restaurant.

It’s been an incredible campaign, said Sam Class, who owns and operates two Chick-fil-A stores in suburban Philadelphia.

Class, who heads the Chick-fil-As Sports Partnerships Committee in the region, has known the 76ers brass for years because Chick-fil-A is a longtime advertiser at games. Still, Class looked with envy at the Wendys promotion that started in 2017-18, where fans got a free small Frosty drink if an opposing player missed two free throws in the second half of any 76ers home game.

When the Wendys deal expired before this season, Class reiterated to the 76ers that Chick-fil-A would be happy to step in. In the 2022 NFL season, Wendys sponsored promotion at Philadelphia Eagles games where fans could win a free little Frosty if the Eagles stopped an opponent from scoring a touchdown in the first quarter.

We had always told the Sixers that if there was ever an opportunity, we wanted to jump at it, Class said. We felt that our brand with the Sixers could really multiply the impact of this promotional campaign.

When the two sides agreed to the contract, the 76ers’ marketing staff came up with the name Bricken for Chicken.

We spent a lot of time internally thinking about names, Morin said. Our fans will ultimately bring this to life, but I think part of the magic is in the name.

The campaign started in an enviable way. In Philadelphia’s first home game on October 20, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo missed two free throws with 2:07 left in the game, giving Philadelphia fans free nuggets.

This is kind of a dream scenario for us, Morin said. It’s always nice when it happens right away.

Said the class: It really sparked the promotion from day one. It was just, Wow, what just happened?

Next month Antetokounmpo missed out made two consecutive free throws three times in the second half of the Philadelphia game. And Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons, a former 76ers player who is not popular in the area, missed out made two consecutive second-half free throws in his first game at the Wells Fargo Center since being traded by the franchise last February. Those moments went viral online and drew attention to the campaign.

It just went from there,” Class said. Even the Chick-fil-A company was coming to us and asking, What do you do? This is amazing. They were just amazed at how many views we got and earned media for this. It just fell off the list.

Other NBA franchises such as the Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic, and Washington Wizards have had similar Chick-fil-A promotions, as have several colleges, including Fordham and Maryland.

For the 76ers campaign, the owners and operators of 76 Chick-fil-A restaurants in the Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey area are working together to offset the cost of giving out free nuggets. They each have to put money into what Class calls a marketing pool, which is a centralized account used to pay for marketing efforts across the region. This way, the costs are distributed among all the restaurants, not just among the busiest restaurants.

It didn’t hit the restaurant directly, Class said. This is how we’ve made it more affordable for owner-operators to say I want to participate in this. There is labor (cost) to do and implement all of this, but as for the price of the item to be handed over, it is paid for from this bucket.

In 2019, area restaurants ran similar promotions that gave away free chicken sandwiches whenever a Philadelphia Phillies pitcher made a save in a home game and whenever the Philadelphia Union scored three or more goals in a Major League Soccer home game.

At the time, fans rushed to claim the offer because it wasn’t available until the next business day.

Dealing with that was incredibly challenging for restaurants, especially restaurants closer to the city, Class said. You literally gave away thousands of sandwiches a day. We saw this huge influx of people. It was unbelievable, to be honest with you.

After signing with the 76ers last year, Class decided to extend the redemption period to three days. That way the restaurants wouldn’t be as overwhelmed, and it worked.

The lessons learned from pre-Covid 2019 helped us figure out how we can do this in a way that restaurant management is sustainable, Class said. This is not a pressure on restaurants.

According to Class, the owners have also seen financial benefits, as people have bought additional products beyond just the free nuggets and used the app and visited restaurants more often than before redeeming the offer. Before the pandemic, about 5% of restaurant customers in the Philadelphia area used the app. Today, Class said, 35-38% use the app, which helps create loyal customers and more revenue.

It’s a win-win for us in that, yes, we’re giving out a lot of free nuggets, Class said. That’s a good thing for the visitors and Sixers fans. But reality is also a good thing for us as a company because it brings people to this digital platform, our app. And once they get there, every single restaurant can leverage that for marketing purposes, which is great.

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