Free Beer

People will try anything to get attention.

From publicity stunts, to false advertising, to straight-up lying, no stone is left unturned in the world of “how can I get people to pay attention to me?”

I know from experience.
 
When I was in high school, I played in a band. Our main way to drive attendance at our shows was through guilt-tripping friends and family members. Clearly, this was not the road to performing for a sellout crowd at Shea Stadium.

We needed something more. We needed something exciting. We needed…marketing.

So, like many inexperienced, overzealous marketers before us, we came up with an ingenious plan that centered around lying:

“We’ll name our band Free Beer! That way, all the fliers we hand out will say “Free Beer” on them and people will come to see us play because they think they’ll get free beer and then we’ll have a captive audience who will appreciate our cleverness and become instant fans!”

The owner of the first bar we pitched this to was not in agreement. His reasoning?

“If you tell people you’re going to give them free beer and there’s no free beer, you’re going to have some pissed-off people. And they’re not going to like you very much.”

Needless to say, he did not celebrate our idea. And despite his logic falling on deaf ears at the time, it’s turned out to be a valuable lesson that I’ve applied to the day job I swore I’d never have.

In marketing, it’s easy to get tempted into being deceptive.

We want people to open our email so we write a misleading subject line.

We want people to respond to our advertising so we make false claims.

We want our search engine rankings to be good so we manipulate our page titles and meta descriptions.

We want our resumes to look good so we inflate our experience and abilities.

We want people to “Like” us on Facebook so we devise a plan to confuse them into liking us.

We want people to come to our events so we advertise free beer.

In the end, all we end up with is bad brand equity and a bunch of disappointed, annoyed people.

Instead, maybe we should just focus on making a really good product–whether it’s an email, an article, or even original music–and labeling it accordingly.

At least then we’ll know that the people who show up are an audience, and not just a crowd.

And they’ll be glad they’re there.

Editor's note: The "free beer" trick doesn't work most of the time, but like any rule, there are exceptions. In 1997, a group of friends in Nebraska started "The Free Beer and Hot Wings Morning Show," which is still running strong to this day. They used the exact same logic:

“Instead of calling the show, The Gregg & Chris Show, which by all estimations would have been the most boring sounding radio show in the world, the decision was made to call it The Free Beer & Hot Wings Show, which seemed far more attention grabbing. It was admittedly nothing more than a cheap ploy to get people to listen under the false pretense that they may actually have a chance to win beer and/or hot wings.”

I guess if you can’t give them free beer, the next best thing is laughter.

[image: eatmeatnow]