Latest episode · Ep 25
The Fridge Magnet Campaign: Grassroots Marketing You Can Actually Track (with Gabe Malbogat)
October 22, 2026 · 20 min
Gabe Malbogat has run Chef On Call for 18 years, feeding university students. This fall he put a 3 by 3 fridge magnet in the orientation kits at three campuses. Each magnet had a QR code that opened a landing page for that campus, with offers that change every month. About 20,000 magnets went out. They've been scanned about 13,000 times. We get into why a restaurant with a $25 average ticket should start with grassroots marketing, how the campaign is tracked from scan to redemption, why the same offer worked so differently from one market to the next, and why Gabe will judge it over four years. In this episode: Why grassroots comes before paid ads when your average ticket is $25How a 90s idea (the menu drawer) became a trackable digital campaignAbout 13,000 scans from 20,000 magnets, and what Microsoft Clarity showsWhy each market needed different offersUTM parameters, POS tracking and reminder emails: what makes the results measurableWhy a free order of fries is a customer acquisition costWhy the real result takes four years to show up Chapters00:00 Cold open00:38 Intro00:58 Why restaurants start with grassroots01:38 The fridge magnet as a case study02:45 JJ Bean and brand impressions on the counter03:35 One campaign per quarter, minimum04:08 Different markets, different customer behaviour05:12 Marketing that leads to durable outcomes06:24 How the orientation kit magnet works08:53 About 13,000 scans from 20,000 magnets10:09 Tip: order your magnets overseas10:57 Offers that rotate every month11:57 Why this takes four years to play out12:36 Inside the landing pages and UTM tracking13:49 Walk-in offers, POS tracking and reminder emails16:42 Your website is a garden17:22 Not every market needs the same offer18:44 Free fries as a customer acquisition cost19:48 Wrap up, and what's coming next episode
