It’s easy to think up a long list of products you wouldn’t market in a rest room. (Turn it into a parlor game and you could have fun playing it with your snarky friends, even.)
But you’d be scratching your, uh, head a long time before coming up with a product that’s less stall-likely than Cinnabon, a brand so successfully built around the scent of its product. In other words,
Cinnabon’s “gift of aroma and taste,” as the placard I found in the men’s rest room Friday at this Delaware I-95 rest stop put it.
You can see how this could happen–I guess.The ad, after all, was likely a free item for the manager at Cinnabon, a concessionaire to the state.
But contextual missteps like this are significant. Even when you get the air rights in the men’s room at no charge, your brand is not getting off Scott® free.
Filed under: Blogroll, advertising, aroma, branding, business, changethis.com, cinnabbon, cinnabon, cinnabon advertising, cinnabon marketing, cinnabonn, cinnamon, customer experience, customer service, customers, entrepreneurship, experience, hospitality, hospitality industry, humanize it, marketing, micah, micah solomon, odors, scents, service, smells, solomon, thoughts | Tagged: marketing, branding, business, micah, solomon, micah soloman, micha, customer, experience, service, customer service, customer experience, cinnabon, cinabon, cinabbon, cinnabonn, cinnabbonn, cinnabon advertising, cinnabon marketing, media, advertising, humanize, humanize it, mica, mica solomon, mica soloman, scents, smells, odors
Yeah, advertising food in the toilet, not good. But if you absolutely, positively feel the need to do so, how about doing so creatively?
Could Cinnabon have included branded wetnaps in the bathroom (free of charge)? That’s something I would love to have in the bathroom, and something I just about need to have at Cinnabon.
Well, yes! But I think we both know we’re rearranging restroom chairs on the Titanic.
Branded wetnaps are a good one, though branded Cinnabon trash in the restroom, perhaps not so good. And what should the scenting be on the wetnaps: raw cinnamon? cinna-pinesol?
You are absolutely right: IF Cinnabon were FORCED to advertise in the men’s room, THEN we could consider the possibilities, you and me, Rick, and see where our advertorial manstincts take us.
I came across this blog the other day and you got some great info here - thanks.
Thank you so much for letting me know; stay tuned for more–Micah
The cinnabon should be placed directly into the urinal -replacing the much maligned piss-toy. IF you manage to hose off all of the icing with your piss stream - then a light flashes and you win the slightly soggy bun, maybe a free tub of icing would replace the lost icing. I’m still working out the details but i think you can see I’m on to a real winner here……….Now we just have to deal with drying out the bun and the army of icing crazed ants marching up the drain pipe……….oh, and the piss wet cinnabon……..
Oh Martin, I see you’ve been spending a Wee too much time on the tour bus, working out these details. (Martin’s the author of the essential volume Tour:Smart and Break The Band (here’s the amazon link –you’ll have to copy and paste it: http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Smart-Break-Martin-Atkins/dp/0979731305/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218810962&sr=8-1 )
Thanks for the thoughts–Micah
thanks!
at least this wasn’t an ad for Jimmy Johns sandwiches - “where smells are free!”
yeee haaaaaa
MA
Hi, Nice to see your blog doing so well. It’s been a few weeks since I visited you here so I thought that I should just stop by for a quick hello. Ok, thats it, have a nice day. Bompa