During the height of the Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent vaccine rollout, numerous businesses initiated promotional campaigns to support consumers, essential workers, and vaccinated individuals. These initiatives ranged from free food and beverages to discounted services and digital resources. The following analysis details these offers based on verified reports, highlighting the types of freebies available, eligibility requirements, and the specific businesses involved.
Vaccine Incentive Programs
Following the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, a significant number of businesses introduced incentive programs to encourage vaccination. These offers generally required customers to present a valid vaccination card as proof of inoculation.
Food and Beverage Freebies
The most prominent category of vaccine incentives involved food and beverages. Krispy Kreme launched one of the most widely publicized offers, providing a free original glazed doughnut to customers who showed their vaccination cards. This promotion was valid for the remainder of 2021, allowing customers to redeem the offer once per day.
Other food and beverage companies offered similar incentives: * White Castle: During a specific window from April 22 to May 31, the chain offered free dessert-on-a-stick to anyone providing proof of vaccination. * Super Duper Burgers: This San Francisco Bay Area business provided free fries to vaccinated customers.
Free Software and Digital Tools
Numerous technology companies offered free access to their platforms and services to facilitate remote work, education, and business continuity during the pandemic.
Video Conferencing and Collaboration
- StarLeaf: Offered a free version of its video conferencing service available worldwide and across all devices, allowing users to meet with anyone on video. They also provided free trials of their fully featured service.
- Vectera: Made their advanced video meeting room scheduling platform free and public to everyone until June 1. New users received the full package for free, and existing paying users were automatically upgraded.
Business and Productivity Software
- Cloudflare: Provided Cloudflare for Teams seats at no cost for small businesses through September 1, along with a free 30-minute onboarding session with a technical expert.
- TechSmith: Offered free access and expanded usage of TechSmith Snagit (screen recording tool) and TechSmith Video Review (asynchronous collaboration platform) to organisations and academic institutions preparing for prolonged absences or campus closures. These temporary versions were available through the end of June 2020.
- Tealbook: An enterprise software company connecting buyers and suppliers, offered free trials and supplier reports to help combat COVID-19 shortages.
- ThoughtExchange: Made its enterprise-grade features for crowdsourcing technology available to small businesses at no cost during the Coronavirus outbreak.
- UTM.io: Provided a free year of its Enterprise Plan (valued at $588) for new customers with less than $5M in funding raised, using the coupon code
singlegrain2020. The tool is designed for remote team campaign management to track UTM links. - Ubersuggest: The SEO tool's free version was expanded to include more features, such as viewing graphs on historical data, a historical backlink graph, access to more keywords, and a more generous content ideas report.
Educational and Support Services
- Codecademy: Offered 10,000 scholarships to Codecademy Pro for free to high school and college students across the world for the rest of the school year. This provided access to roadmaps, thousands of hours of courses and projects, and a community of peers.
- Support.com: Offered free tech support to help people working or studying remotely. Their remote tech support was available via phone, chat, or video-based “virtual house” call at no cost.
Free Internet and Connectivity
To support remote work and education, some internet service providers expanded their free offerings.
- Comcast: Made its Xfinity WiFi network free to everyone, including non-Xfinity Internet customers. They also provided all customers with unlimited data for free for the next 60 days and suspended disconnections and late fees for customers who contacted them about payment difficulties. For their Internet Essentials program, which serves low-income families, new customers were granted access for free for 60 days.
General Freebies and Deals
During the pandemic, a wide array of companies offered free resources, products, services, subscriptions, and memberships, or heavily discounted items (50% or more). A curated list from September 2020 noted 318 such deals. These initiatives were aimed at helping businesses, organisations, and individuals dealing with the effects of COVID-19.
Conclusion
The Coronavirus pandemic prompted a significant wave of corporate philanthropy and promotional activity. Businesses across various sectors—from food and beverage to technology and internet services—launched initiatives to provide tangible support. These included free food for vaccinated individuals, complimentary software for remote collaboration, expanded internet access, and a broad range of discounted or free services. The offers were often time-bound, with specific eligibility criteria such as proof of vaccination, business size, or customer status. The collective effort highlighted a period where corporate promotions were directly aligned with public health and societal needs.