- A weblog by InetSolution
Clever Marketing Tactic Worked On Me
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Jul 27, 2007
For the past eight years, at least one person every year approaches me with what he (or she) thinks is a surefire way to market his website. Today it happened again, and his pitch was nearly identical to the previous 8 to 10 that I've heard. The basic pitch goes like this, "I've got a great idea to drive traffic to our website. We're going to [put up a huge billboard OR send out a postcard OR create a banner ad] with just our website address [insert www.SomeBoringDomain.com here]. People will go to the website just to see what's there. It'll be great!"
The problem is that 99% of the time, the domain name is as memorable as your lunch on June 13th (can't remember what you ate, can you?) and as unique as a white pair of socks. That marketing idea just doesn't work without the right ingredients.
But with the right ingredients, mysterious marketing can work, as evidenced by the brilliant ploy that Frito Lay's marketing group used to make me part with $3.29 that I wasn't planning to spend.
It's Monday, July 2nd, and I'm shopping at the grocery store. I stop in the snack aisle to buy a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos (my favorite flavor). Surrounding the Cool Ranch were these flavors:
- Nacho Cheese (a classic, mmmmm)
- Taco (eh, nothing special)
- Ranchero (my wife likes these)
- X-13D
"X-13D...what the heck is this?", I thought.
What loyal Doritos customer could refuse?
The bag contains no flavor description; the only clue on the package is a note on the bottom that says All-American Classic. Hmmmm, a mystery flavor.
I've been a Doritos eater for 25+ years and I've enjoyed nearly every bag I've eaten. I've tried every new flavor they've introduced, but I've always known what my taste buds could expect even before I opened the bag. But how can I not accept this challenge? Certainly it's worth $3.29 to find out what is inside this black bag? Indeed, it is worth $3.29, so I buy a bag.
Frito Lay has the perfect ingredients in this markeitng mix to make me buy this "mystery product":
- The Doritos brand is familiar to me
- I'm already a customer who buys other flavors of the product
- I, like most Americans, love to try something new, especially if it's mysterious
- X-13D! C'mon, who doesn't love a good code name?
- I'm in the store, ready to make a purchase (as opposed to driving down the road seeing an ad on a billboard)
If you have an established brand, a loyal, adventurous customer base, and an intriguing URL, then you may have success with the "URL On A Billboard" marketing campaign. If not, then you're better off to spend your advertising dollars elsewhere.
