🤲 Market WITH Your Customers, Not AT Them
It was 10 years ago, and it wasn't easy, but I did it.
I ate the BIG UGLY burger at Bub's Burgers and Shakes here in Bloomington, Indiana.
The BIG UGLY is 22 ounces of ground beef + a buttered bun the size of a catcher's mitt. Eat it all, and get your picture on the wall.
More than 100,000 carnivores have successfully tamed the BIG UGLY, and doing so creates a company >><< customer bond.
For years after I conquered my burger, I'd show off my photo to visiting friends.
And when I pass the Bub's at the airport on the way to my gate, I always check for new photos, thinking "who would want to eat an enormous burger before boarding a flight?"
You can do this too.
You can build this kind of bond.
You just have to make your customers PART of your marketing.
Market WITH them, not AT them.
During the pandemic, the Getty Museum executed this playbook perfectly. They asked fans to recreate famous artworks using 3 household objects. Some folks REALLY overdelivered on this.
My new favorite
But then I learned about Gordito's Mexican Food, in Seattle.
The best example EVER of customer-cooperative marketing?
These burritos are "as big as a baby" joked a customer, who created a baby + burrito photo to prove the point.
Humble beginnings. And now, it's a THING.
