Doug:
“Okay, so we’ve got a good thing going.
People love us.
Sales are up.
Profits are up.
But how do we go from a successful small business to a global brand?”
Ron:
“I read an article last week talking about how parents want to go eat at places where their kids are excited to eat.
Places where their kids will eat with a smile on their face.
How can we make our establishment appeal to children?”
“Kids like sweet stuff right?
What if we added sweeteners to all our sauces and included them in the meals for kids?”
“Oh… Yeah…
That’s good, that’s good.
Oh! I’ve got a crazy idea!
Kids go absolutely nuts for Christmas, right?
Why?”
“Uh… Because of Christmas lights and Santa?”
“Toys.
Toy companies live and breathe off of Christmas season.
What if we literally gave kids toys when they came to eat here?
It’ll be like Christmas morning every day.”
“Oh come on, Ron.
We aren’t Toy’s “R” Us!”
“Doug, stay with me here.
We both agree that in order to grow, we need to win the children.
What do kids love? They love candy and they love toys.
We don’t have to serve candy. We aren’t MARS Corp.
But we can mimic candy by engineering our food to look like healthy food but taste like candy.
And we can give kids a toy every time they come to eat here.
So, sure we might lose money or even break even on the kids, but if we get the kids we get the parents.
Kids’ cant drive here on their own.
“And guess what, Ron? Kids become parents.
If we win the customer as a kid, we win them for their entire life.”
“Talk about a high customer lifetime value! Hahahaha”
“This is perfect.
The board will go bananas for this.”
“Wait a minute.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You know that theory about why our store in the central valley is the most profitable?”
“The one with the playground down the street?”
“That’s the one!”
“Okay, what about it?”
“What if that marketing researcher is correct?
What if it is the most profitable because of the playground down the street?”
“I don’t know. We start picking locations that have parks nearby?”
“Doug, we start building our own playgrounds attached to the freaking building.
Inside the building, Doug!”
“Hooooooollllllllllyyyyyyy Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
“You with me here?”
“You’re saying, we hit kids with the trifecta?
Sweet tasting food disguised as healthy food, a toy with every meal, and a freaking playground inside every single location?”
A large smile rolls across Ron’s face.
“Holy shit, Ron.
You know if this works, we will become the biggest franchise of all time, right?
You and I will become multi-millionaires?”
“Doug, if you win the customer as a kid, you win their parents until they can drive, then you win them through adulthood, and you win their kids when they start families.
If you win the kids, you win. Forever.
It’s a flywheel.”
“We gotta present this to the board.
They’re going to love it.
Ron, if this works, this will change our industry, no, our country forever.”
“If this works, you and I can quit our jobs and go sit on a beach somewhere.”
“I’m in. Let’s pitch it on Monday.”
Overheard in a fast food corporate office in 1978. Fiction.