Only 428 Miles to Bratfest

Eric Bowe — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:36:33 +0000

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.

It’s National Thaw Day

Eric Bowe — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:22:32 +0000

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.

Bowe's Blog » Holiday

Only 428 Miles to Bratfest

It’s National Thaw Day