Saturday, February 17, 2018

Gold Medal Worthy Advertising by P.F. Changs

Stop into your local P.F. Chang's for your favorite Chinese dish, and you might even get to watch an Olympic event. According to a Chicago TV broadcast graphic blunder, the 2018 Winter Olympics are being held at P.F. Chang's rather than Pyeongchang, South Korea. Scottsdale, Ariz- based P.F. Chang's used the error to the company's advantage. The company tweeted Sunday afternoon, "Contrary to this broadcast, we're not hosting the games."


P.F. Chang's handled the social media in house. Darryl Carr, P.F. Chang's spokesperson attributed, "We saw this on Sunday, and after seeing the reaction it was getting, we decided we had to respond and have some fun with it."

The Chicago Tribune reported Jayme Nicholas, WLS spokesperson, apologized for the graphic mix up. WLS stated the graphic was created to be used by a weekend anchor in a satirical sports-news segment for his Saturday report.

A blunder for WLS formed a prime advertising opportunity for P.F. Chang's. The response tweet has been liked more then 5,700 times, and the tweets did not stop there. Instead, in addition, the company tweeted, "The P. F Chang's Games 2018 have officially begun. What event would you dominate?"


The company even tweeted a video reading, "#PFChangs2018 Games Idea: Cocktail Curling" The playing space is lined with chopsticks, and customers wet the surface with limes, while a teammate slides a cocktail down the bar. Check out the game below on P.F. Chang's twitter account.


The company also renamed their famous P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps to Pyeongchang Lettuce wraps. The restaurant informed customers they could score a free wrap with the purchase of an entree February 15th, dine in only.


P.F. Chang's has had a good sense of humor about the entire situation, and utilized the mess up as an amazing advertising opportunity for their company.

1 comment:

  1. I hadn't heard about this until I read your post, so I'm glad you decided to write about it. This is honestly hilarious. I like the fact that they took the mistake and ran with it, and that PF Chang's itself got involved. It's definitely a clever way of spreading brand awareness.

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