Eat 10 Fire Wings in 10 Minutes. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

By Sean Goldsmith

Thousands took on the RocoMamas Fire Wings Challenge. Then some reactions stopped being funny.

RocoMamas challenged customers to finish 10 extremely hot wings, Fire Fries and a Sprite in 10 minutes. Thousands gave it a go, but reports of people becoming ill soon raised an awkward question for the restaurant chain. Sean Goldsmith looks at what happens when a promotion gets exactly the attention it was designed to attract.

RocoMamas had an offer that was always going to get people talking. Eat 10 Fire Wings, finish a portion of Fire Fries and drink a 500ml Sprite within 10 minutes and the restaurant would pick up the R199 bill. If you failed, you paid for the meal.

The Fire Wings Challenge returned in April and people quickly started filming themselves having a go. Friends came along to watch, phones appeared around the table and the videos started travelling. One student told Wits Vuvuzela that a video of her attempt reached 1.1 million views.

At first, the reactions were part of the fun. People sweated, cried, reached for their drinks and admitted defeat. Then reports began appearing of vomiting and stomach pain, while one participant said he needed medical attention after what appeared to be an allergic reaction. RocoMamas had certainly got people talking about its food, although some of that conversation was now about whether the challenge had gone too far.

Customers Were Doing the Advertising

It is easy to see why the promotion worked. RocoMamas did not need to spend much time telling people how hot the wings were when customers were posting videos that showed exactly what happened when they ate them.

Those videos also had something a conventional restaurant advert rarely has. People wanted to send them to their friends. Watching somebody struggle through 10 fiery wings naturally leads to somebody else being challenged to try it, giving the restaurant another potential customer without having to persuade them with a conventional advert.

Running the challenge on Wednesdays made sense for franchisees too. Friday and Saturday nights tend to look after themselves at busy restaurants, while the middle of the week can need more help. A customer attempting the challenge might also arrive with several friends who want to watch, and those friends are likely to order something while they are there.

RocoMamas said thousands of people took part across South Africa. The campaign eventually finished with a final at its Pineslopes restaurant in Johannesburg, where 10 leading participants and a wildcard entrant competed. Katleho “Parkies” Tshepe walked away with R10,000.

Then It Stopped Looking Quite So Funny

Eating extremely hot food against a clock was always going to produce some dramatic reactions. That was part of the attraction and probably part of the reason so many attempts ended up online.

The mood changed when reports appeared of customers vomiting or suffering stomach pain. One customer complained publicly after seeing somebody being sick during an attempt, and questions followed about whether a restaurant should be encouraging people to eat food that hot, that quickly.

RocoMamas defended the challenge, saying people took part voluntarily and were warned about its intensity beforehand. Participants also reported signing waivers, while the company said terms, conditions and indemnity requirements were communicated at restaurant level.

For the operator, however, paperwork only deals with part of the problem. A signed waiver does little for the restaurant's reputation when somebody has filmed a customer being sick and uploaded it before the manager has had time to work out what happened. The restaurant then has a customer to look after and a video travelling around social media at the same time.

Head Office Has the Idea. The Restaurant Has to Deal With It.

This is where an entertaining marketing campaign becomes a franchise operations issue. Somebody at brand level can come up with a challenge that looks terrific on social media, but it is the people working inside individual restaurants who have to run it.

Employees need to explain what the customer is about to eat, deal with the paperwork, prepare the same challenge correctly every time, watch the clock and recognise when somebody is no longer simply struggling with the heat. If a customer does become ill, the staff on that shift have to deal with it.

RocoMamas pointed out during the controversy that its restaurants are independently owned and operated. That distinction matters inside the franchise system, but it is unlikely to mean very much to the person sitting at the table. They have walked into a RocoMamas, ordered the RocoMamas Fire Wings Challenge and are dealing with people working inside a restaurant carrying the brand's name.

That is why a promotion like this needs more preparation than an ordinary Wednesday special. Every participating restaurant needs to know exactly what it is expected to do before, during and after an attempt.

There Is a Reason Brands Love This Stuff

For all the criticism, RocoMamas managed something plenty of restaurant brands spend a fortune trying to achieve. People voluntarily came into its restaurants, bought its food, filmed themselves eating it and then showed the experience to everybody following them online.

The challenge also suited RocoMamas. The chain has built much of its identity around burgers, wings and a cheeky style, so asking customers to take on something ridiculous did not feel completely out of character.

The trouble is that food challenges rely on people struggling. Nobody is going to share a video of someone calmly eating 10 wings and going home. The sweating, tears and panic are what make the clips entertaining, and there is a fairly narrow gap between a customer looking hilariously uncomfortable and a customer who genuinely needs help.

That is the part other franchise brands should think about before copying the idea. RocoMamas got thousands of people to take part and plenty more to watch. It also had to defend the promotion when some of those reactions became more serious than the joke was supposed to be.

A promotion like this can bring customers through the door remarkably quickly. Once they are sitting at the table, however, it is the franchisee and restaurant staff who have to deal with whatever happens next.

What We Can Learn From This

Franchisors considering extreme food challenges should work through what will happen inside the restaurant before launching the social-media campaign. Franchisees need clear rules on warnings, participation, food preparation and what employees should do if somebody becomes ill. RocoMamas showed how much attention customers can generate when they are given something entertaining to attempt and film. It also showed why head office needs to prepare franchisees for the less entertaining videos that may follow.

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