How do you revive a dying brand? Give away a Million dollars worth of stock, apparently.

Krispy Kreme has got Australians talking about its brand for the first time in a long while, and better yet, people are devouring their product. The only problem is theyre not paying for it.

After being placed into administration merely months ago, the doughnut shop has leaped out of the cage with a bold giveaway. The ‘Free Krispy Kreme’ promotion was launched on Monday last week, and offered a free six-pack of Krispy Kremes to people who visited a dedicated website to download a voucher, which could be redeemed over the course of the week. 

Many stores sold out not just of the original glaze, which were given away, but all of the flavoured doughnuts as well.

The offer was promoted via selected radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Boxes of doughnuts were also sent to key media.

“This promotion had a phenomenal response. We had a huge influx of traffic to our website, with more than 200,000 hits and more than 100,000 vouchers downloaded,” Krispy Kreme CEO Nigel Glasby says.

“We’ve given away more than 600,000 delicious Krispy Kremes and the queues outside of our stores have been even bigger than when we initially opened in Australia in 2002. There’s been a massive amount of buzz.

The question for Krispy Kreme now will be if these great festive vibes are enough to get people to the shop front on a regular basis and actually pay for the product.

What do you think? Can Krispy Kreme come back from the brink? Comment below or connect with us on Twitter via @Marketingmag