GrubHub is finishing off its first-ever week-long Snapchat scavenger hunt in which it randomly gave away free grub while engaging with consumers on the increasingly popular channel.

Every day this week GrubHub posted a new story on Snapchat that invited consumers to take part in a daily challenge for a chance at winning $50 of free food from GrubHub. Consumers were asked to send a Snapchat back to GrubHub with the daily challenge, and ten winners were randomly selected each day.

“Snapchat is one of our newest platforms, and we’re finding ways to use it to connect with diners in the way it’s intended,” said Allie Mack, a spokeswoman for GrubHub, Chicago. “For us, that means constantly looking for new and organic ways to surprise and delight.

“This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a brand has done a scavenger hunt or anything this interactive/engagement driven on the Snapchat platform.”

SnapHunt
To enter the GrubHub SnapHunt, consumers have to first follow GrubHub on Snapchat. Then GrubHub posts a story each morning with the daily challenge.

Consumers then have to snap back their entry, and GrubHub selects ten random winners to receive $50 free grub. Consumers can enter between 10 a.m. CT and noon every day between March 3 and today.

Consumers must be 13 years or older and United States residents to enter the scavenger hunt.

Each morning’s story begins with congratulating the previous day’s winners and going through their winning snaps. Then it introduces that day’s #SnapHunt challenge.

The third day’s challenge was to take a screenshot of an image showing a man with a sign that reads, “For a good time, add ‘GrubHub’ on Snapchat.” Then consumers had to share it on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #SnapHunt.

Now that GrubHub has accumulated more followers on Snapchat, it can also leverage the platform for future promotions and messaging campaigns.

Snap savvy
According to Ms. Mack, GrubHub is leveraging Snapchat to reach a younger demographic of diners. One of GrubHub’s core audiences is college students, and they tend to be active on Snapchat, so the move made a lot of sense.

Additionally, more than 40 percent of GrubHub and Seamless orders are placed through mobile devices, so mobile plays a huge role for the company.

Snapchat is becoming more popular with marketers as they realize that it provides a great opportunity for connecting with consumers on a one-to-one basis (see story).

Wet Seal, Taco Bell, Karmaloop and Acura are some other brands that have been early Snapchat adopters.

“Snapchat is all about cultivating relationships through ongoing engagement, so we utilize the platform by making our brand accessible and finding new ways to surprise and delight our followers, and we’ve grown close to our Snapchat followers by responding personally to each and every snap we receive,” Ms. Mack said.

“GrubHub was one of the earliest brand users of Snapchat’s Story product, joining in August 2013,” she said. “We’re constantly experimenting with the platform’s possibilities and love giving our followers something totally new to look forward to.

“Snapchat is perfect for these types of campaigns because it allows us to evolve the way we interact with our followers and lets us push the boundaries for what is expected on the platform. This specific campaign is a great example of that.”

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York