Reluctant.

My inspiration this week is a Route 44 Vanilla Diet Coke from Sonic.

On the side of the Styrofoam cup there is a “create your own flavor” how-to guide. There are three steps to adding flavors to your ordinary drink in order to create almost 400,000 combinations. There is also a list of the flavors available on the other side of the cup.

Nowhere on the cup is anything about Sonic. No website, Facebook page, Twitter account or even phone number. This got me to thinking. Professor Bufkins always says to promote all parts of a campaign (including social media) on all other parts.

Sonic could have easily printed a website or Facebook page on these cups, so why didn’t they? At first I thought it was because the cups were printed before social media became a big player, but then the copyright information says 2011 so it ruled out that theory.

Sonic had my attention. I don’t normally pay this much attention to my cups, and I can easily Google Sonic- Americas Drive-In but why should I have to? In this day in age isn’t it faux pas for a company not to at least put their website on promotional items?

I took this thought one step further (at this point my boyfriend was getting tired of my rant so I decided to blog instead). Sonic has thousands of combinations and directions, as previously stated, on their cups with similar information on their bags for food. Why not turn it into a contest? Visitors to the Sonic Facebook or Twitter pages could write their favorite combinations for a week, then based on likes the “favorite” could become a special for a month or two.

After ranting about Sonics’ lack of motivation to use social media I had another idea for them. Between the hours of 2-4 in the afternoon Sonic is famous for its half price drinks. Why not incorporate Four Square into that equation. During happy hour checking in to sonic could lead to a free small tater tot or upgrade in drink size, and if it is not during that time frame, give the happy hour prices.

As an avid Sonic soda drinker ( I swear by Diet Vanilla Coke) I would defiantly take part in the social media part of Sonic, and the people I know who use Four Square, and some that don’t, wish more businesses would use it.

I know I am not the only one with these ideas, and I wonder if Sonic has something in the works. I hope that companies do not think that they are above social media, or that they cannot apply it to their everyday business plan. Sonic could have printed a website, or gone above and beyond and created a contest on social media with their cups, but instead- I am left Googling “Sonic America’s Drive-In website.”