Marketing Success Formula: See What Everybody Else Is Doing And Go In The Opposite Direction

Whenever I turn on my TV or read the paper (happens very infrequently these days), it seems as if we (the collective "we") are obsessed with our dietary choices. We count the calories, watch the trans fats, and load up on the proteins. And lest we forget the Omega 3, which is very good for us although nobody knows what exactly it is.

So what do our "purveyors of food" do? Let's see:

- Farmers are pulling their hair out trying to make their produce more organic;

- Food manufacturers keep coming up with increasingly healthier additives;

- And the restaurateurs are tripping over themselves adding "healthy choice" items to their menus.

Heck, even the ever-so-ubiquitous Golden Arches, the traditional stronghold of His Majesty The Burger, are now becoming more known for their salads!

Question: If you are a restaurant, should you follow?

If you do, you will be just a number in a huge crowd of others competing for the same piece of the pie. Remember that in business you don't get a reward for doing it the hard way (I'm paraphrasing the great Dan Kennedy here).

And if you go in the opposite direction, you may just corner the market.

The way Jon Basso of Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, AZ did.

At Heart Attack, you don't get just a burger. You get a Double Bypass Burger. There is also a Triple Bypass, as well as the most monstrous of them all, Quadruple Bypass. It is brought to you by a "nurse". Your vital signs are being monitored by a "doctor". And when you're done (done eating, that is) a "nurse" takes you to your car in a...wheelchair!

Heart Attack has been around for less than a year but has already deserved prominence on numerous news sites worldwide.

Jon claims to provide the "taste worth dying for", but his and the Heart Attack's fame has nothing to do with the quality of the burgers (I haven't had one, but now I'm so sold I can't even imagine them being not fantastic).

It's all about the decision to not only do something different, but do the exact opposite of what everybody else is doing:

- If they switch to salads, Jon gives you a burger;

- If they serve smaller plates, Jon builds the biggest burger you've ever seen;

- If they promote healthy eating, Jon offers the "taste worth dying for";

- If they are being serious, Jon turns it into a farce, compelte with "nurses", "doctors", wheelchairs, theme songs, and downloadable ringtones.

Once you get a business like this going, marketing is effortless. It just happens. Like a letter from the Office of the Attorney General of Arizona complaining Jon's... ahem, "nurses" are not real nurses!

http://www.heartattackgrill.com/not_real_nurses.htm

Two things are for certain:

a) Whichever way this controvercy gets resolved, Heart Attack stands to benefit from it.

b) Next time I am in Tempe, I'm having a Double Bypass.