Last Tuesday, Applebee’s kicked off its Spirited Cuisine menu with a commercial featuring Christian Delpech, a world champion flair bartender who does tricks with food, pans, and knives. In addition to the linear commercial, Applebee’s will have digital versions of Spirited Cuisine commercials with calls-to-action asking fans to challenge Delpech in his next set of tricks by tweeting with the hashtag #SpiritedChef.
The promotion began with Delpech confirming that he is ready for the challenge.
To build buzz for the campaign, the Applebee’s team pre-recorded a few hundred video replies to interact with fans who watch the commercial and tweet with their own ideas for the “best video ever.” Because Delpech’s skills are so impressive, Jill McFarland of the Applebee’s digital and social team told us that they’re looking for truly great challenges—even those that involve props—to add to the mix to produce a series of online videos. As suggestions continue to come in for #SpiritedChef, Applebee’s will be recording these new challenges in early December.