News

Rita's Italian Ice introduces mobile loyalty app

March 13, 2013

In celebration of its 21st Annual First Day of Spring Free Ice Giveaway, set for March 20, Rita's Italian Ice has unveiled a new mobile loyalty application, Rita's Rewards.

Rita's Rewards allows guests to earn rewards for their purchases, write reviews and share their experience on social networks. Guests can download the app on their smartphone and earn a free regular Italian Ice on their 8th visit.

In addition, guests can also find the nearest Rita's store, sign up for other Rita's marketing programs including Cool Alerts and Birthday Club, download the Rita's ringtone, learn about offers and play a Rita's game.

"Our guests asked us to develop a fun Rita's App so we built Rita's Rewards for smartphone users and plan to continue enhancing it to include a Rita's Italian Ice Factory game coming this spring," said CEO Jonathan Fornaci. "Our new Rita's Rewards loyalty program provides guests the ability to share their happiness with their friends through social channels."

Guests can join Rita's Rewards by scanning the QR code located on their first day of spring cup or by downloading the Rita's Ice app via the App Store or Google Play. Once the app is installed, guests are asked to login and join Rita's Rewards. Rita's Guests can earn a free punch by utilizing their Facebook login when signing up. Additionally, all members of Rita's Rewards will receive a free punch on the first day of spring.

Rita's Rewards smartphone application uses Punchh patent-pending technology and is available at all Rita's Italian Ice outlets. In summer 2012, Fornaci forged a partnership to deploy the Punchh Marketing Automation Platform.

The Punchh marketing automation platform

California-based Punchh delivers branded mobile apps and a cloud-based platform that restaurants can use to engage customers and automatically reward them for repeat visits, spreading word of mouth and referring friends. With Punchh's web-based dashboard, operators can gather real-time insights about customers including visit frequency, spend, reviews and referrals, measure and increase the ROI of marketing campaigns.

Punchh's cloud-based platform integrates with POS systems and provides an open framework for integrating with third-party apps such as email marketing, ordering, payments, reservations, wait-list management and analytics.

In addition to Rita's, other brands such as Church's Chicken, Earl of Sandwich, Hungry Howie's, Max's Restaurant and Pacific Catch are using Punchh. Since their deployment of the platform, operators from these concepts have reported 10 percent increases in same-store sales, three to four-times higher participation rates, 25 percent-plus higher redemption rates for marketing campaigns and 10-to-15-times more customer reviews than Yelp.

First Day of Spring campaign

Rita's will run its annual First Day of Spring campaign on March 20. On that day, Rita's customers will be given a cup for free ice. A QR code directing customers to download the loyalty app will be imprinted on the cup, giving more than 1 million customers access to the rewards program.

Rita's has hosted its annual Free Ice day since 1992.

"Back in 1992 there were only a few Rita's open on the first day of spring," Fornaci said. "This year more than 600 outlets will be celebrating."

Guests can choose from more than 60 flavors of Rita's famous Italian Ice, including the most popular Mango, Cherry, Alex's Lemonade, Swedish Fish and Cotton Candy.

Read more about mobile initiatives.