I know customers appreciate it when we develop campaigns that reflect how they perceive the world, not how we or our clients would like them to.
On the radio this morning I heard a radio spot for a local restaurant (The Mayan) that started with: The food here “sucks” - yes they used s-word. The spot went on to say that while they had great ambiance and quick service the food didn’t live up to expectations. So they fired the chef. Yes, they said that too.
Since perceptions are a very hard thing to change this spot goes right to the heart of the matter: “The reason you stopped coming is because we failed to deliver on our promise. In fact we sucked.” In essence they said we heard you (listening is good) and we’re changing.
Too bad they didn’t take this all the way to the website - it contains standard restaurant fare including a PDF of the menu. They should have started a contest - tell us which items suck and why you’d get rid of it. That would have been a completely integrated campaign.
We’ll need to check back in a bit and see how its changed.
