People will try anything to get attention.
From publicity stunts, to false advertising, to straight-up lying, no stone is left unturned in the world of “how can I get people to pay attention to me?”
I know from experience.
When I was in high school, I played in a band. Our main way to drive attendance at our shows was through guilt-tripping friends and family members. Clearly, this was not the road to performing for a sellout crowd at Shea Stadium.
We needed something more. We needed something exciting. We needed…marketing.
So, like many inexperienced, overzealous marketers before us, we came up with an ingenious plan that centered around lying:
“We’ll name our band Free Beer! That way, all the fliers we hand out will say “Free Beer” on them and people will come to see us play because they think they’ll get free beer and then we’ll have a captive audience who will appreciate our cleverness and become instant fans!”
The owner of the first bar we pitched this to was not in agreement. His reasoning?
“If you tell people you’re going to give them free beer and there’s no free beer, you’re going to have some pissed-off people. And they’re not going to like you very much.”
Needless to say, he did not celebrate our idea. And despite his logic falling on deaf ears at the time, it’s turned out to be a valuable lesson that I’ve applied to the day job I swore I’d never have.
In marketing, it’s easy to get tempted into being deceptive.
We want people to open our email so we write a misleading subject line.
We want people to respond to our advertising so we make false claims.
We want our search engine rankings to be good so we manipulate our page titles and meta descriptions.
We want our resumes to look good so we inflate our experience and abilities.
We want people to “Like” us on Facebook so we devise a plan to confuse them into liking us.
We want people to come to our events so we advertise free beer.
In the end, all we end up with is bad brand equity and a bunch of disappointed, annoyed people.
Instead, maybe we should just focus on making a really good product–whether it’s an email, an article, or even original music–and labeling it accordingly.
At least then we’ll know that the people who show up are an audience, and not just a crowd.
And they’ll be glad they’re there.
Editor's note: The "free beer" trick doesn't work most of the time, but like any rule, there are exceptions. In 1997, a group of friends in Nebraska started "The Free Beer and Hot Wings Morning Show," which is still running strong to this day. They used the exact same logic:
“Instead of calling the show, The Gregg & Chris Show, which by all estimations would have been the most boring sounding radio show in the world, the decision was made to call it The Free Beer & Hot Wings Show, which seemed far more attention grabbing. It was admittedly nothing more than a cheap ploy to get people to listen under the false pretense that they may actually have a chance to win beer and/or hot wings.”
I guess if you can’t give them free beer, the next best thing is laughter.
[image: eatmeatnow]
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Very, very disappointed.
Clever but quite a letdown.
It probably would have worked a lot better if the band was called free beer to the first 30 people, then you bought a 30-pack of natty lite and gave them each one. They’d be… happier?
Almost as bad as the free porn campaign CP+B designed for Virgin Airlines.
You got to play in bars as a high schooler?
@Tom and B.K.: We just ran out before you got here.
@Sucktackular: In your scenario, I think the first 30 would be even less happy, and the rest of people who showed up would be happy they dodged the bullet.
@Josh Healan: I’d ask you to drop a link to that for context, but something tells me I probably shouldn’t click on it.
@Tim: Certain ones allowed it, certain ones did not. It probably had something to do with how much they valued their liquor licenses.
You know what, this was clever. No beer but I’m not disappointed like the others.
@Ben: Thanks! For a minute there, I thought a riot was going to break out.
People just want to see a benefit in as few words as possible– whether that be something tangible or just feeling like they’re being trendy. While “Free Beer” is catchy, it probably doesn’t speak to what you all were about in terms of your music. Nice point with this article.
No beer… last time I read one of your blog posts
But I was going to buy drinks for everyone who read the next one!
I actually did an experiment around this concept at one point on my own blog. I titled “How Twitter Helped Me Survive a Bear Attack.” The idea was to see if people RT titles instead of content. However, I did get some pissed off people in the comments when they found the post wasn’t about tweeting your way out of a bear attack.
That’s brilliant, Drew. Hilarious. Hopefully no one had Googled it and found your post hoping to get out of a current bear attack.
“Googled it and found your post hoping to get out of a current bear attack”…
That’s funny because obviously no one would ever do that. OR WOULD THEY?
I’m reminded of the incident where four women were riding in a car late at night, the car went off the road into a lake, and as the car was sinking, all four got out their cellphones to ask their girlfriends what they should do next.
(The unfunny denouement is that they all drowned.)
Anyway, I’m thinking FREE SEX might be a better come-on. Not everyone likes beer.
You’re right, Charleen. But that might raise the suspicions of any IT team tracking at work browsing behavior
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