Free Chicken Goes Viral, Then Goes Away

Here’s what can happen when a great deal spreads through the blogosphere like wildfire.

Yesterday a blogger  emailed me a coupon for a FREE Rotisserie Chicken at Whole Foods, a $7.99 value.  First I printed it out (of course) Then, I added it to my list to consider for Friday Freebies.  The coupon didn’t have a unique bar code or any security features to prevent people from printing multiple copies.   To make sure it was legit, I called Whole Foods Public Relations Department.

The very nice PR representative told me the coupon had been mailed to certain customers for registering on the Whole Foods website and they hadn’t expected it to be emailed throughout the blogosphere or placed on blogs (which is had been, all over the place)    She asked me not to put it on TV or 11Alive.com and I said sure.

By afernoon, I had seen the coupon on half a dozen money saving blogs. By the end of the day, the expiration date had changed from September 15th to August 27th ( yesterday)  

I went to my local Whole Foods to try out the coupon and found about 6 other people waiting for the lastest batch of Rotisserie Chickens, coupons in hand.   I also bought some other items AND of course registered on Wholefoods.com, so kind of a win-win even though they probably gave out a lot more free chicken then they anticipated.   There was a similar situation with KFC and Free Chicken on Oprah Winfrey a few months ago but KFC was so bombarded they couldn’t honor the coupons!! 

I’ll be checking my email for the latest Freebie from Whole Foods now that I’m signed up officially!