Fast Company Magazine ran an article on their site entitled Ten Outrageous Marketing Stunts. The following one about Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs caught my eye:The company claimed that Nathan’s famous hot dogs were Doctor-Approved
One of the best known hot-dogs in America is Nathan’s Famous originating from a single restaurant in New York’s Coney Island.
The founder, Nathan Handwerker, was an employee at the very successful Coney Island fast food eatery Feltman’s when he decided to go out on his own and open his own Hot Dog Stand. But things were not easy for the start-up. Nathan tried to compete on price, tried to hire folks to stand around and look like they were customers and all sorts of black-hat marketing that can go awry if/when the public finds out. The story goes that he would give free food to doctors and nurses in uniform. Nathan capitalized on the fact that they ate there by putting up a sign that read “If doctors eat our hot dogs, you know they’re good!” This lead to customers and prospects believing that if hospital workers ate at Nathans’ it must be Good and good for you.
Obviously that worked because Nathans is still standing and selling about a million hot dogs a year and the competition… well let’s just say they are LONG GONE!
So who could you enlist to “sample” or use your product to garner attention of your target audience? And could you get them to offer you testimonials about the product to get media attention?
(source: Fast Company)
Other “hot dog” news: CNN Falls For 140-Year-Old Hot Dog Hoax in this article you can read about how Coney Island “tricked” the public with a FAKE 140 year-old hot dog found underground. The amazing thing is they and several million other people fell for it until the “truth came out.”
Other events on this date:
In 1939 The King and Queen of England taste their first “hot dogs” at FDR’s party
In 1975 the first oil was pumped from North Sea oilfield
In 1977 The Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disney
In 1978 Christa Tybus of London set the world-record of 24 hours of hula-hoop
In 1990 the U.N. appointed Olivia Newton-John as environmental ambassador
While you are thinking about ways to promote your business, check out Quirky Marketing Calendar ~ How to Use Zany and Non-traditional Holidays to Promote Your Business 365 Days a Year for More great marketing ideas.
*NEW
Love your fun facts.
How can we JV and help each other?
Here’s a fact you might what to share with your friends.
No marketing plan or marketing calendar should be set in stone!
No matter how effective your plan may be, chances are, it will have to be altered at a given time; due to what your competitor(s) is doing.
We have all been in a situation in which, we feel heavy frustration from the fact that we have to change the plan – that we once considered our ‘baby’ – in order to counter what it was that another company was coming to battle with.
Even the actions of your clients, future clients or suppliers can take you by surprise – to the point of startling you – and force you to change the way in which you had set out to do things. In other words, you must be ready for anything. You must have flexibility. You must expect the unexpected!
Now, don’t feel as if you have to be a psychic. Don’t feel overwhelmed at the thought of needing a business and marketing plan so flexible that it takes away from the overall aim and goals that made you ‘hungry’ to run your particular business in the first place!
There is an easy way to be sure that you can continue to have success in the future – if you just start off with flexibility in mind! The best way to do so is to have a marketing calendar that is flexible and built to adjust itself when the time comes to do so.
Sandy Barris
VP Marketing
Fast Marketing Plan.com
http://www.FastMarketingPlan.com
Thanks, Sandy!
JV opps are great! What did you have in mind?
Heidi