Ingenuity is key to marketing success. There are a lot of ways to market products. The problem is that 90% of them are so boring that they can’t compete with all the other marketing noise that we see and hear every day. If you don’t consciously realize it you can probably guess that you’ve already experienced about 300-1000 marketing messages in the last 24 hours. Not surprisingly, you’ve likely ignored almost all of them.
I’ve found that the only time I cue in on television commercials any more is when they are describing all the horrible side effects of prescription medicines. Last week I saw a commercial for a psoriasis drug who’s side effects included the possibility of permanent brain damage. Does that even qualify as a side-effect?! To me that’s like advertising a hammer that’s sometimes a bomb.
The harmful side-effect of this constant marketing deluge is that we are now almost completely impervious to ad messages. But, if an ad doesn’t stick in the mind of a consumer then a marketer is just wasting money. It’s an unjustifiable expense. Marketers know this, but don’t always subscribe to it.
Instead most marketers rely on repetition instead of creativity. Its the easiest (but most expensive) solution. Marketing is only worth the cost it if it performs two goals. Getting into people’s heads, and hanging around inside people’s heads. In marketing, there are two proven ways to dig in to a customer’s brain; repetition, and ingenuity. Bot flies might suggest that there is one more way, but their point is irrelevant here.
The McDonald’s and Burger King marketing plans are great examples of both kinds of marketing. McDonald’s is endlessly repetitive (therefore effective), and Burger King has become ingenious, if mildly unnerving, on a national level in the last few years (also effective). But there is a group at a huge disadvantage in the marketing kingdom. These are private franchisees and small business owners. They have so little capital to invest in their marketing message that repetition is unaffordable and blandness is just wasted effort.
Survived by the men's urinal and a wash sink.
This is where Toilet Funeral Marketing kicks in. Cheap Ingenuity. This week a Carl’s Jr hamburger franchisee in Utah suffered a serious loss. One of his toilets was shot and destroyed by a patron dropping his handgun while using the facilities. Obviously, this is an unusual occurance. The ingenious franchisee adroitly used the odd circumstance to its fullest advantage. He contacted the media to announce that he would be holding a toungue-in-cheek funeral for his shot toilet! Giving away 50 bottles of Toilet Blast cleaner to the funeral’s attendees was a perfect accompaniment. It’s people like this man who make successful small businesses. Small business owners should have only one marketing goal; be heard above the marketing din by always taking advantage of your ingenuity. It’s your cheapest and most memorable marketing asset. And you shouldn’t be afraid to use your dead toilet to get the word out.
