This weekend while you and your neighbors are firing up your backyard grills for the obligatory Memorial Weekend BBQ,Johnsonville is celebrating Brat Fest in Madison,Wisconsin.
Based on the web site,there seems to be a large crowd,good time,and plenty of brats consumed. I received an email on Friday notifying me of Brat Fest. Too bad I didn’t know a little earlier. It is about a 428 mile hike from my backyard to theirs. In reality,I wouldn’t make the trek,but this highlights a bit of a marketing conundrum:
- Do you broadcast the party across the country,knowing most people cannot come or don’t care?
- Or, do you bring the party to them?
The former is kind of a tease,less effective,and could be misconstrued as brat-spam (for those who don’t care). The latter is the preferred method,because a convenient local Brat Fest would increase participation. However,a Brat Tour would be very expensive to activate. So,what do you do? Probably something in between –something more personal –something in everyone’s backyard. One recommendation would be to build off Johnsonville’s current campaign (“Creat your own ______ville“). The campaign is based on everyone has a Johnsonville,so what is your ____ville? Building on this premise of the personal backyard BBQ,why wouldn’t Brat Fest extend across the country on Memorial Day weekend? By scheduling Brat Fest on Memorial Day,Johnsonville can begin to own the traditional Memorial Day BBQ ,similar to Butterball,turkey and Thanksgiving. Brat Fest campaign elements could include:
- A May promotion building up to Memorial Day weekend.
- Coupons or other promotion to increase the use of brats during the traditional Memorial Day BBQ.
- A counter on the site including all brats consumed across the country.
- An interactive map of brat sales or user contributed content celebrating Brat Fest.
This recommended approach would still treat Madison as Brat Fest headquarters,but would extend the celebration around the country. So,even people who couldn’t travel 428 miles to the festival,could still travel to they backyard,fire up the grill,and be a part of the celebration.
