Any Talk Is Good Talk… A Lesson in Advertising

Keeping your company name or product in front of people is the key to strong sales. I once learned a valuable lesson about the positive effect that any type of notoriety can have where advertising and marketing is concerned. I’d like to close out the month of July with a brief account of an experience that taught me a great deal about advertising and why you never want to look a gift horse in the mouth… even when it may not appear to be much of a gift at the outset.

Many years ago I worked for Jeep Corp. and while arriving to visit a local dealer I couldn’t help but notice a brand new Jeep Wagoneer parked across the street in a vacant lot. The reason I couldn’t help but notice it was due to the fact that mounted to its roof was a 4×8 sheet of plywood, painted green with white lettering that read “Another Hollingsworth Jeep Lemon.” To accentuate the sentiment, the owner had pasted cut outs of large yellow lemons all over the sign. I had to admit that he was pretty creative and it was all fairly well done.

Entering the dealership I spotted the entire sales crew peering at the “lemon” through the front showroom glass. I engaged the general manager in conversation and he related that the customer had burned up his automatic transmission, twice, due to towing a very large saltwater fishing boat after refusing their advice to install an auxiliary transmission cooler.

I asked him what he intended to do about it.  He quickly exclaimed, “What am I going to do about it? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it – I’m going to call the newspaper and see if we can get this in the afternoon edition!”

With a puzzled look on my face I inquired as to why he would want to further expose his dealership to such bad publicity. Then he said something that I’ve never forgotten… “There is no such thing as bad publicity. Any talk is good talk, just as long as they’re talking.” And then he added this, “We’re going to move a lot of cars this week. We’re going to set a new sales record. Wait and see.”

And you know what? They did.

“Any talk is good talk, just as long as they’re talking.”

The owner of the “lemon” eventually saw the positive effect his display was having and decided to remove his vehicle. The general manager of the dealership sent him a thank you note for the tremendous sales boost and, I was told, kept the man on his Christmas card list for many years afterwards.

Tom Kirkman

………………..