Wilbraham Seven-Year Old Appears in Friendly’s Commercial

WILBRAHAM, Mass. (Grassroots Newswire) February 16, 2010 – Many people would love the chance to appear on TV. And, one seven-year old got that chance after he won the grand prize in Friendly’s Factory Takeover Sweepstakes, a fully integrated web and in-store game for kids.

Patrick T. Wilkinson, 7, of Wilbraham, Mass. joined other kids in the program that offered them the chance to win prizes and to appear in a Friendly’s commercial. As part of the promotion – which took place March 13, 2009 – December 31, 2009 – kids were challenged to participate in a secret message system that could only be decoded by using special Sprinkle Vision glasses or monocles. The messages were found at Friendly’s restaurants, on TV commercials and on ice cream packages.

“We are so happy to announce Patrick as the grand prize winner! We invited kids to voice their opinions about their favorite meals at Friendly’s; Sprinkle Vision allowed them to communicate what they love about Friendly’s even more,” said Eileen Mastrio, senior director of brand marketing for Friendly’s Restaurants. “We especially loved the Sprinkle Vision campaign because it created a virtual world on our kid’s Web site which challenged kids to takeover our ice cream factory by unlocking the codes from the secret messages and playing six different factory games that were interesting and fun.”

During the game, kids were asked to sign up and create an avatar. They then had to enter codes to unlock certain game rooms and game-play enhancing features. Some codes made games easier to play, and yet others gave the avatars special features.

Various prizes were given to the players through a random drawing sweepstakes. While twenty-seven of the players were chosen to win free Friendly’s ice cream for one year. And, three of the players received a tour of the Friendly’s Ice Cream Factory in Wilbraham, Mass. The grand prize, however, was only given to one participant, Patrick Wilkinson.

“I was so excited to win! I love Friendly’s,” he said. “Sprinkle Vision was such a fun game and it was really cool learning how to unlock different games with the different codes. I told all of my friends how fun it was to appear in a Friendly’s commercial. I’ve never been on television before so it was a lot of fun!”

Wilkinson is a second-grader at Soule Road School in Wilbraham, Mass. who says his favorite Kids meal at Friendly’s is the Chicken Fingers and his favorite sundae is a Build Your Own Sundae made of Cookie Dough ice cream, hot fudge, M&Ms and rainbow sprinkles. He visits Friendly’s often.

The commercial will air later this year. Although the prizes have already been distributed, children can still play the games until March 28, 2010 by visiting http://iwannagotofriendlys.com.

About Friendly Ice Cream Corporation
Friendly Ice Cream Corporation is a vertically-integrated restaurant and ice cream company serving signature sandwiches, entrees, and ice cream desserts in a friendly family environment in over 500 company and franchised restaurants throughout the eastern United States. Friendly’s manufactures and distributes its own ice cream through its restaurants and more than 4,000 supermarkets and other retail locations. Friendly’s opened its first unit of a fast-casual concept, Friendly’s Express, in August 2009.