In what has become something of a classic, The Simpsons’ episode entitled “Lisa’s First Word” (Season 4, Episode 10) features a clown bed that Homer builds for Bart because Lisa needs the crib and Bart loves Krusty the Clown. Unfortunately, Homer’s creation is more Pennywise than Bozo. What follows is Bart spending the night in the creepy clown bed envisioning the evil clown coming to life. The next day we find young Bart in the living room holding himself in the fetal position and repeating, “Can’t sleep; clown’ll eat me.”
It turns out that such a response isn’t all that far from the truth. Scientific research has actually concluded that kids don’t like clowns. Some suggest that the era we live in with televisions and Elmo-on-demand has made clowns outdated as an entertainment source. From my own childhood experience, I didn’t particularly dislike clowns (though I didn’t like them either), but scariest movie was Poltergeist. And it was known around my house as “the clowny movie.” If you don’t remember the scene, I’ve got it for you here.
So what happens when you find out the beloved corporate image you’ve spent years building scares the very people you’re trying to target? If you haven’t paid attention in the past few decades, one of the largest restaurant—and I use that term loosely—chains uses a clown as its mascot. Ronald McDonald is a legend. And yet, he’s a clown. Should McDonalds lose the clown? Should they ignore the masses, including adults, who don’t like clowns? Mickey D’s doesn’t have clown wallpaper and I haven’t seen a new commercial featuring Ronald in a very long time. Has upper management decided to put Ronald in the closet? With locations all across this great country and beyond, does the use of a clown in corporate image hurt McDonalds at all? I’ve got to guess that’s probably not the case. Most people wouldn’t want to find a mouse in their home, but Chuck E. Cheese is also a corporate icon.
Not too many people are afraid of Romans, so Little Cesar is safe. Colonel Sanders and Wendy are people, so no worries there. Chick-fil-a uses a cow and I’m pretty sure in the history of man no one’s been afraid of an unprovoked cow. The King is pretty creepy and I know of people (myself included) that eat at Burger King less or not at all now that BK has decided to use the creepy king to hock its burgers. Subway has Jared, who isn’t even fictional; Arby’s has recently used an oven mitt, which is pretty harmless; White Castle, Hardees, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and plenty of others have no personified animal or object in their current use.
I have no doubts kids will want to go someplace based on the character at the door, but are kids (or adults) avoiding altogether some places based on a creepy character? What’s your personal experience?
On occasion, I get a visitor to Marketer Synergy that comes through a search engine with a question. Yesterday I had someone ask,
“What time does Chick-fil-a stop serving breakfast?”
I probably can’t help that searcher any more, but I’m sure someone else wants to know so I’m providing the answer:
Chick-fil-a stops serving breakfast at 10:30.
In my experience the following is also true:
McDonald’s stops serving breakfast at 10:30.
Burger King stops serving breakfast at 10:30.
Subway stops serving breakfast at 10:30.
Dunkin’ Donuts never stops serving breakfast.
I’ve never tried White Castle (Krystal) or Carl’s Jr (Hardees) breakfast. If anyone knows when they stop serving breakfast, please feel free to comment.
If you’ve checked out my blog roll, hopefully you’ve already come across Übereye Marketing’s Seinfeld on Marketing series which runs on Fridays. Two Fridays ago, just before the Super Bowl, Übereye brought up an excellent Seinfeld moment when Jerry tries to give away Super Bowl tickets to George. Read the entire dialogue on Übereye and come back; I’ll wait.
The idea of giving away something for very little or nothing at all is not new. Obviously, by signing up for a new two-year agreement Verizon can afford to give you a phone for free. You’re probably going to be spending $60 a month with them for 24 months before you try to jump ship to get your next free phone from T-mobile. Using loss leaders is known as the “razor and blades business model” because it’s the model the Gillette company’s founder used. Ever gotten a free razor in the mail? If Gillette spends $5 sending you a razor and a blade cartridge (and you love the product) you’ll buy the high margin blades and Gillette makes more money.
Like George, I would see free Super Bowl tickets as a bill for $1500. Sure I’d save a few hundred, but that doesn’t mean I have $1500 in disposable income. So, when visiting Chick-fil-a for breakfast this morning I had to love their current promotion. To fully set the stage, I have to go back a few weeks. I was on my way to work and for some reason saw a Chick-fil-a cow standing on the side of the road in his pajamas holding a sign. I assumed it was something like “eat mor chickin” and looked over as I drove past. The sign said, “free breakfast“.
Too bad for me I already drove past the cow; maybe next time he should stand before the turn into Chick-fil-a, not after it. Somehow I ended up finding out that this wasn’t an isolated incident. Apparently every Wednesday for a few weeks (at least here in Indianapolis), each vehicle that stops at Chick-fil-a during normal breakfast hours gets one free breakfast entrée. They say, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and that’s what Chick-fil-a is counting on. Every Wednesday more and more people are lined up in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-a to save maybe 3 bucks and get some delicious Chick-fil-a breakfast. How many people do you think just get the free entrée and move on? Not many, I’m sure.
Maybe someone buys a drink; maybe they get a drink and hash browns to complete the meal; maybe they stop with a car full of kids and feed them all. So Chik-fil-a is giving away all this breakfast, but they’re also doing two things, 1) they’re creating a buzz between people telling others where to get free breakfast and by people seeing the crazy line at Chick-fil-a which means they must be doing something right, and 2) they’re racking up sales that add on top of the free entrée: sides, drinks, and additional entrées.
When doing a marketing campaign, don’t just give away a promotional product or coupon. Give people something of value.Give it to them without strings, but have more to offer them if they like the freebie. In another instance of Chick-fil-a marketing, just last night I got a coupon for free breakfast from submitting my info online. They’re always happy to send me coupons and I’m always happy to get them… but who can argue with across the board free breakfast? Black, white, rich, poor, smart, stupid, healthy, or sick just show up and chow down
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I'm Michael Lombardi. I live in Indianapolis and have a Biology degree. What does my degree in biology have to do with marketing? Read my About page to find out...
In what has become something of a classic, The Simpsons’ episode entitled “Lisa’s First Word” (Season 4, Episode 10) features a clown bed that Homer builds for Bart because Lisa needs the crib and Bart loves Krusty the Clown. Unfortunately, Homer’s creation is more Pennywise than Bozo. What follows is Bart spending the night in the creepy clown bed envisioning the evil clown coming to life. The next day we find young Bart in the living room holding himself in the fetal position and repeating, “Can’t sleep; clown’ll eat me.”
