Tales from the US
“Bring back the fun.” George Naddaff, Boston Chicken
Back in the days of Boston Chicken, we had a very effective promotion for slow
periods. We had a chicken suit designed. Boy, that thing was chickenlike. One of
the employees would slide into it. And then we would “put the chicken on the
street”.
The chicken, armed with coupons, would chase women with strollers, flapping
its wings. And the street would suddenly pick up. People would start honking
their horns at the chicken. Giving the chicken the thumbs-up. It just made
everyone more upbeat.
So I was thinking, What can I do to get more people into my new business,
UFood Grill?
I went to the guy who designed that chicken suit. And I said: “Bob, I want you
to design us some French fries” – we call them UnFries – “in a box. And I’ll put a
person in the box. And I want you to design a cup that looks like my UBerry
yogurt. And I’ll put a person in that. And we’ll put them on the street. We’ll
create some action.”
I put these things in front of our store in downtown Boston. People walking by,
wanting to shake hands. Drivers raising their hands, calling out: “Hey, fries!”
You create something where people are laughing. People don’t laugh today.
They’re walking around worrying about their 401(k) retirement savings plans.
The suits cost only $2,500 each. We are getting a real bang for the buck, as
they say in the trade. It has produced a good 8% increase across the stores. We
are using the characters in front of all six of our stores in Boston, and we are going to ship them out to our franchises. We have five franchisees opening a
total of 16 units. So we have three fries suits and three yogurt suits, and each
unit gets to use one set for a week, and then they pass it on. We like to keep
the fries and yogurt together because they get along so well.
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