Over text and through email Butterball informed me that today is National Thaw Day.
Procrastinators take notice. Butterball is giving turkey day cooks plenty of warning to ensure there bird is ready to go before the first parade begins (for reference purposes you need 1 day in the fridge for every 4 pounds of bird).
Butterball owns Thanksgiving. Every year Butterball increases their presence,and many cooks are thankful. Their assistance goes back to 1981 when six Butterballers handled 11,000 calls. According to an Ad Age article,a staff of 50 will assist about 100,000 consumers this holiday.
For many marketers having 100,000 consumers contact them would be enough. Not Butterball. In the Ad Age article (Butterball Goes Web 2.0 With Turkey Texts,Blogs) Butterball unveils additional channels of assistance including their web site and texting. If you check out the site,Butterball is having a web chat November 25 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CT;helpful calculators to determine the right amount of turkey for family,friends and leftovers;and plenty of content on how to create the perfect bird.
Butterball owns Thanksgiving like Prince Spaghetti used to own Wednesdays. My belief is a brand needs to own a physical,temporal or cognitive space from a consumer perspective. I am impressed how Butterball continues to add to their dominance of the holiday through multiple methods of assistance,plenty of PR and now a National Thaw Day.
By the way,I do find it humorous that today is the day to remind people to thaw their turkey. Only people who bought a 28 pount turkey need to begin today. My household has a beginning thaw time of Sunday at 4 PM.
