Brief:

• Chick-fil-A celebrates its 14th annual Cow Appreciation Day today, July 10, with a Snapchat filter that lets guests share their experience of visiting the chicken sandwich chain on social media. Customers who visit a local restaurant dressed as a cow receive a free entree at one of Chick-fil-A's more than 2,200 restaurants nationwide, according to a press release.
• Fans can share pictures of their costumes on social media by using the hashtag #CowAppreciationDay. This year's event marks the 23rd anniversary of the award-winning "Eat Mor Chikin" campaign featuring cows on Chick-fil-A's merchandise, point-of-purchase materials, promotions and ads.
• The chicken sandwich chain launched Cow Appreciation Day in 2005, and participation has grown each year. Last year, more than 1.8 million free entrees were given to cow-dressed customers, per the release.

Insight:

This year's Cow Appreciation Day adds a mobile element to one of Chick-fil-A's biggest annual promotions, using geotargeted Snapchat filters to encourage customer engagement with the brand while at the restaurant chain's locations. The company has been successful at generating consumer word-of-mouth and social media conversations, beating out other quick-serve restaurants (QSR) in a 2017 study.

Chick-fil-A is among the restaurant brands that have incorporated Snapchat's AR features as part of their standard promotions. Bareburger has used Snapchat's Lens Studio to assemble campaigns with geotargeting and AR overlays on customer pictures. Bareburger even planned to replace its paper menus with digital versions that let customers scan a Snapcode, Snapchat's version of a QR code, with a smartphone to place a virtual dish on the table in front of them and view before ordering.

Last year, McDonald's used Snapchat in a different way: to recruit as many as 250,000 workers for the busy summer months. The burger chain debuted a hiring tool "Snaplications" that let Snapchat users view a 10-second video ad about the benefits of working at McDonald's, along with a link to a career page and the job application.