NEWS

A Bizarre B2B Small Business Marketing, Get Your Next Meal for Free if You Look Good

We all have seen restaurants promoting free meals, if not discounts, for promotional purposes. Not only restaurants, such promotions are a go to strategy for any small business marketing. However, there is a story coming from China about a restaurant that takes their promotion to another new level, although whether this level is below or above par, we are not very sure about that. This campaign does make us wonder, who were their marketing consultants?

This story started developing in January this year when it gained the attention of social media users worldwide. Why did this restaurant gain so much attention? Well, it is not because of the world-beating dishes that they have but it is mainly because of the marketing ploy that they use to promote their restaurant. Get ready, this may shock some of you.

This Korean restaurant in China gives free meals to the first 50 physically attractive (yes you read that right) customers of every day. Now you may wonder, the attractiveness of each person is subjective, which we all may agree on. However, the way they get around this subjectivity issue is by partnering up with a group of plastic surgeons.

Here’s how it works: you enter the restaurant, you choose whether or not to participate in the ‘contest’, you opt in (or out, where you’ll just dine at the restaurant as per normal), you will have a picture of your face taken, and then your face will be evaluated by a panel of plastic surgeons. These plastic surgeons will then judge your attractiveness by 18 different beauty criteria, which include the distance between your two pupils. Your attractiveness will then be graded and if you surpass a certain benchmark, your meal will be free!

The restaurant let their customers know of these plastic surgeons they work with, and that is where business-to-business (B2B) trade-off occurs. Those customers that opt in may want to consult the plastic surgeons that have evaluated their beauty and subsequently may want to use their service.

The manager of the Korean restaurant created this B2B marketing idea taking inspirations from the Korean culture where they feel cosmetic surgery is popular. They feel that optional nature of the promotion may have saved them from wide criticisms as they have yet to receive any complaints, although local and international critics are still criticising their marketing ploy.

As small business marketing consultants in Sydney, all of us at Little Marketing are still unsure of how to react to this story. We just think that it might be a great idea, but it is certainly a bizarre one. What do you personally feel about this story? Let us know what you think on the comments section of our Facebook post!

To establish a good branding strategy and stay in your consumers’ minds, do not hesitate to contact Little Marketing – your small business marketing consultant based in Sydney and Melbourne, for help soon!

 

Please wait...