Spring is officially here which means summer is around the corner which means it's almost free-food-for-downloads season.
Dairy Queen is kicking off this year's sure-to-come chain of promotions with a discount.
In honor of the debut of the Blizzard in 1985, Dairy Queen is offering a Blizzard (its ice cream) for $0.85 to app users starting next week until the 23rd of April.
Considering most other promotions we've seen in the last few years involved getting food for free, this is an interesting approach. Can almost free food get Dairy Queen serious downloads?
Well...
According to our estimates, even though the promotion hasn't kicked off yet, the mobile app is already seeing a significant increase in downloads. Last week, downloads rose from about 4K/day to nearly 60K, the day DQ announced the upcoming campaign.
To answer my own question - yes!
Downloads have dipped a bit since, to 35K, which makes perfect sense since the campaign hasn't really started, but are still adding nearly 10x the users they would without the announcement. I expect downloads to return to at least last week's level once the campaign actually begins next Monday, and more likely grow beyond that sending DQ to the top of the App Store.
We'll see next week.
By the way, DQ ran a free campaign last month, giving a free ice cream cone to celebrate the beginning of Spring (March 20th).
The result of the campaign, which didn't require having the mobile app, were pretty unexciting. Downloads rose to 13K on the 20th, about 3x what they usually are, and dipped right back.
Given how early this is starting, I expect we'll be seeing many more campaigns this summer.
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