Marketing Can Be So Easy

by Brian Reich | 8 Jul 2009, 5:31am

I was asked the other day to define marketing.  Here is what I said:

“Marketing is understanding how people get and share information, experience things, and consume stuff — and responding accordingly.”

In other words, marketing doesn’t have to be complicated.  To be successful, you simply have to pay attention to what your audience/customer wants and need.  Armed with that information you can reach out and demonstrate how your product or service will meet their needs or satisfy their expectations.  And if your product or service actually does meet their needs or satisfy their expectations, the rest will pretty much take care of itself.

Want proof?

The weather in New England (I live in Cambridge, MA) has been pretty poor lately.  It has rained 8 of the last 10 days here and many believe that we simply won’t have a summer this year (which I realize is a pretty silly though, but it helps to understand how people are thinking).  Needless to say, if/when the sun comes out and the temperatures warm up, people get excited.

Enter Boloco, a burrito chain with roots in Boston (in fact the name is short for ‘Boston Local Company’).  When the sun finally emerged and the thermometer read 80+ degrees for the first time in weeks, the company sent out an email that read:

You saw it.  We saw it.  It was beautiful.  Some would even say it smelled good.  It was all over New England.

Yes, you guessed it…it was the Sun.  And with that Sun we all knew Summer had arrived! Finally…and yet only briefly.

Even though we all felt a slight chill in the air after the Sox lost…and even though most of us are now under some form of cloud cover and in most cases even taking cover from rain, we were all there and we caught a glimpse of the season we yearn for.  Summer.

So, in order to celebrate the sighting of that beautiful orb, and since Planet Earth looked and felt so darn lovely yesterday, we’re doing something special.

Simply visit your nearest Boloco, TODAY or TOMORROW, with a piece of trash off the street (yeah, seriously), throw it out in front of us, and get a regular-sized Summer Burrito for $3 (large $4).  There will be a bottle of Purell at each of our restaurants should you get aggressive on how much filth you choose to take off our streets, but by the end of tomorrow, the streets throughout some of New England’s most picturesque cities and towns will be cleaner.  And with a little natural rinsing from the powers above , we’ll see a new kind of beauty that even the sun can’t beat.

Happy Summer

*VALID ONLY Tuesday 7/8 and Wednesday 7/9, 2009.  Gotta have a piece of trash.  And don’t you dare complaint that this is late notice… it is, and we were inspired, so we just did it.  Enjoy it

No celebrity endorsement. No massive ad campaign or crazy interactive experience.  And the deal isn’t even that good — after all, I am the one who has to pick up a piece of trash and bring it to the store, and all I get in return is a small discount on a burrito.  But it worked.

How do I know it worked?  I am not on the Boloco email list or Twitter feed.  My wife sent me the email with a note that read “Cool marketing. Doing good. Simple.”  She isn’t on their list either - she had been forwarded the email from someone in her office.  But now we are both aware of the campaign and making plans to go pick up a piece of trash and buy a burrito.

Why did it work? The message was simple and related to our current life.  The ask wasn’t significant.  I felt as if I was doing something good for the world by participating.  And, I got something out of the deal. And the company didn’t have to spend millions of dollars for that to happen.

You see, marketing can be so easy.

TAGS : Boloco burrito cause marketing Marketing