Wendy’s is attempting to aggressively advertise its Right Price Right Size (RPRS) menu by discounting $1.50, the same cost as many of its value items, off the purchase price of some baseball and concert tickets $30 or under from eBay-owned StubHub. The campaign is an example of how Wendy’s is renewing its focus on value-conscious consumers after acknowledging it had lost ground with these consumers by not promoting its value menu items last year.

“Using a coupon as a thank you is a great way to create excitement and change consumer behavior,” said Mark Tack, vice president of marketing at Vibes, Chicago.

“There is a natural synergy between those two companies to come together and deliver memorable experiences for their mutual fans,” he said.

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To provide value across all transactional channels, Wendy’s is granting users who purchase low-cost tickets via StubHub’s mobile browser, an offer for $1.50 off their immediate events purchase through July 6. This promotion models though gratitude how using a one point in time transaction to start a relationship versus ending one is compelling and adds a level of surprise and delight to the live event experience.

StubHub customers will receive the Wendy’s offer directly to their smartphones which saves them the cost of the new, RPRS limited-time Steakhouse Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe, priced at $1.49.

The partnership with StubHub is effective marketing and will heighten competitive pressure from rivals focused on value.

Post-click experience
The promotion does well in offering a discount in-browser, especially considering that mobile ads are becoming the most important channel and competitor to television.

The implementation of traditional click-to-site banner ads continues to decline as brand advertisers embrace more compelling and richer ad formats designed for touch to deliver new experience opportunities to device-specific users. Concurrently, a shift in measurements to engagement driven performance metrics is evolving as these formats rise.

Recently, a considerable amount of buzz has been generated surrounding mobile wallet applications such as Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet as effective solutions to entice consumer loyalty via rewards and savings.

Retailers can take promotion to the next stage by using these features, which come default with hardware and are present on all Apple and Android devices. This allows for preparation of engagement beyond just simply the delivery of a coupon, offer or loyalty card and sets a brand apart while differentiating the campaign and may be deemed as cooler as or better than hundreds of other daily campaigns.

Google Wallet and Passbook present a win-win situation for brands and their customers as they provide benefits to customers such as ease of use and convenience, as they will no longer be burdened with remembering to manually clip or redeem coupons at the point of sale.

In addition, they will always have their coupons and loyalty cards on hand and ready to use with helpful reminders of expiration dates.

Kmart relies on its SMS database to push out mobile coupons and offers to not only drive sales, but also to encourage application downloads that build a stronger one-on-one relationship with shoppers.

Last summer, Kmart sent out an SMS message that encouraged its opted-in users to click a link in exchange for receiving $5 off of a $50 or more purchase. Additionally, the retailer tied the coupons to a time-sensitive component through Apple’s Passbook app.

Although Wendy’s has not enacted connection of its mobile rewards to Passbook or Google Wallet, it still presents an interesting tie in to the habits of fandom and loyalty.

“StubHub is excited and thrilled to work with Wendy’s,” said Smita Saran, corporate communications, StubHub.”

“This partnership is an out of the box campaign that intends to improve the game day experience and aims to deliver a more fun experience to fans across the board.”