Buffalo Wild Wings knows customers are champing at the bit to go out once again. To direct that pent-up demand toward its doors, the brand is launching Blazin’ Trivia, a new weekly trivia night with $50,000 and a trip to Las Vegas on the line.
The game will be hosted every Wednesday night, with teams not only competing against each other inside the location, but against other players nationwide. Customers can play on their own devices on the Buffalo Wild Wings app or at play.buffalowildings.com, and can follow along on the TV screens in the sports bar.
Players earn 10 rewards points each just for playing. Teams that place first in their individual sports bar will receive six free boneless wings for each member. The team with the most points in the state will get 1,000 rewards points for each player, and the one with the most points in the country will grab 5,000 rewards points per member.
The contest began June 2 and runs through August 25. The team with the most points at the end of the period will earn the $50,000 prize and a trip to Las Vegas. The trivia night is one of the first major promotions to come under new CMO Rita Patel, who started her role in September after serving as vice president at Target.
The trivia night is yet another marketing initiative Buffalo Wild Wings is utilizing to attract dine-in customers as COVID restrictions wane and consumer confidence increases. In April, the chain announced that it was offering a new Blazin’ Challenge featuring its Blazin’ Carolina Reaper sauce. The sauce is measured at more than 2 million Scoville units—the hottest level on the scale—and features the Carolina Reaper pepper, hot red pepper sauce, and roasted garlic. The Blazin’ Challenge Bundle includes 10 Blazin’ Carolina Reaper Wings, a headband, and a scoop of ice cream.
In March, Buffalo Wild Wings brought back its classic NCAA Tournament overtime promotion in which the brand offers free boneless wings every time a game goes into overtime. Additionally, the chain is leveraging its partnership with BetMGM to offer curated boosted odds and promotions specifically for customers playing inside stores in New Jersey, Indiana, Colorado, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Iowa. It also launched in-store channel OT Odds Powered by BetMGM, which delivers a plethora of sports betting content like live game odds and fantasy and betting advice. Even in September Buffalo Wild Wings attracted guests by offerings Browns fans a chance to watch games from a custom-designed Dawg Pound section inside the sports bar.
The marketing strategy not only serves to bring customers back to dine-in, but also to shift traffic to weekdays and relieve capacity restraints on the weekends. Fellow casual-dining brands have instituted similar measures. For example, Melting Pot is running a Thursdate promotion for Thursdays and Best Fondue Friends Forever promotion on Wednesdays to give customers a reason to visit in the middle of the week. Although it’s not for weekdays, STK and Kona Grill recently introduced weekend brunch to reduce the backed-up traffic during the dinner daypart on weekends.
Buffalo Wild Wings finished 2020 with $1.8 billion in total revenue, compared to $2.1 billion in 2019. It also swung a net loss of $181 million versus net income of $91 million the previous year. The brand began the year with 1,206 units after closing a net of just two units in 2020.
