2nd Annual Great American Shake Sale - Shake Shack and Share Our Strength
In 2012, Shake Shack was inspired by one of Share Our Strengths’ existing fundraising platforms – the Great American Bake Sale and created the Great American Shake Sale to run during the month of May. Bake Sale for No Kid Hungry is a national grassroots fundraising initiative started in 2003 that invites to people to host bake sales in their communities in support of the No Kid Hungry campaign. To reinforce the connection between the two events, Shake Shack created seven bake sale inspired custard flavors to be featured in their May Custard Calendar including such flavors as Chocolate Chip Cookie, Oatmeal Crème Pie and Banana Bread.
At the register, each guest was asked to donate a minimum of $2 to No Kid Hungry; in return, they received a coupon for a free Shake (valued at $5) on their next visit. Shake Shack’s design team created an in-store, online and social media experience including a Great American Shake Sale brand identity which included the Shake Shack burger logo along with No Kid Hungry branding, displayed on in-store signage, ceiling flags and posters and free shake coupons. All Shake Shack staff wore No Kid Hungry branded uniform items during the promotional month of May such as special baseball hats, buttons and orange sunglasses.
Shake Shack also had business objectives in mind for the Great American Shake Sale. While rapidly expanding the burger chain, the Great American Shake Sale was an important strategy to their business expansion success. The Shake Sale enabled Shake Shack to authentically preserve the community-oriented brand that has propelled Shake Shack to success among so many national burger concepts and acted as a fresh way to bring new and old customers into the store and back again.
Share Our Strength provided resources to help train Shake Shack staff through the use of fact sheets, employee training videos and real stories of hunger so that the staff could then educate guests about No Kid Hungry. Each Shack was provided with localized fact sheets created by Share Our Strength that summarized the state of hunger in the location’s state. These fact sheets were printed on the back of the May Custard Calendars that store greeters shared with guests waiting in line to order. Because of this extra layer of customer service, not only were Shake Shack staff able to speak in an easy and educated way about the issue and the partnership, but by the time a restaurant guest reached the register, the guest was well prepared for the $2 donation request.
In 2013, Shake Shack raised over $285,000 (an increase of 110% over 2012) surpassing the fundraising goal of $150,000 with 140,000 individual donations (an increase of 105% over the previous year).
Shake Shack had a redemption rate of 44% for the free shake coupons and found that when guests redeemed their bounce back vouchers they spent an average addition of $8. The Shake Sale has helped to drive more trips to all Shake Shacks –there was a 4% increase in foot traffic during the cause marketing initiative in May 2013 versus the previous month’s traffic.
