A Bennie Shaved

The following is a case history …

Two developers, three sales associates and two marketing guys are sitting around the table. It’s a lunch marketing meeting and Jimmy John’s sandwiches have been consumed. The 125 unit condominium project in New Brighton, MN has sold well based on a hot market and great pricing, but the consensus is that activity has cooled some and a new idea or approach is needed to keep moving forward.

“What we need is an authoritative spokesperson,” says a sales associate. “Like George Washington, or somebody people trust.” There is immediate agreement from the developers and brainstorming ensues re: who best to represent the prudent value of property and financing we have to offer. In the final analysis, when historical authority is matched with monetary wisdom, there emerges but one clear choice—Benjamin Franklin.

With Ben in place the conversation turns to how best to present him. First thoughts relate to Ben’s familiar representation on the $100.00 bill. It’s the obvious choice—it would work and fill the bill—but it seems a little too obvious and perhaps too easy. Maybe there’s something better. With meeting time remaining on the clock and everyone still in brainstorm mode, talk continues … but nothing concrete develops.

The marketing guys quietly exchange a few words and acknowledge that it’s up to them at this point. “We’ve got some ideas. We’ll put something together and bring it to the next meeting.” And with that the meeting adjourns.

Getting together after the meeting to discuss their options, Todd and Don (they’re the marketing guys) realized they knew someone—a relatively obscure character actor—who, if he shaved his beard, would make a pretty convincing Ben Franklin. By the following week they had photographed their “Ben” and put together some initial layouts for a mailer to spread the new “face” of the project. The layouts were a surprise to everyone, and enthusiastically received. The mailer was immediately approved and plans were developed to get this new image and message into the marketing pipeline as soon as possible.

Over the course of the following two years Ben was seen on signs and in ads all over town, pointing out the wisdom of buying these condos. This was a single condominium project, so no metrics were initiated to test Ben’s effectiveness. No focus groups. No surveys. But it was clear from the weekend traffic, new prospects—many with Ben’s mailer in hand—and sales figures that he was doing his job.

Sometimes marketing can be just plain fun as was the case with Ben, but fun doesn’t count if it’s frivolous. Ben was serious business, and the business behind Ben involved a number of marketing axioms. First, the initial idea of an authoritative spokes-figure was a sound one. It’s why prominent sports figures are hired to sell GatorAde. After that, the decision to go with a human Ben over a graphic of a $100 bill was equally savvy. People simply connect more readily with the human face, and that’s the connection the advertisers were seeking.

The other message in this short story is that the whole concept was hatched, developed and executed in the normal course of business … NOT as the result of a high-priced consultant or a big budget advertising campaign. It was a creative, practical and pro-active approach to emerging conditions. The entire program grew out of simply paying attention to marketing on a consistent basis: devoting the time for a group of individuals to focus on the reality, goals and possibilities at hand, allowing new ideas to materialize and grow, and folding those ideas into the existing budget.

Ben’s “human” face was seen everywhere, especially on signs—the mainstay ad media of real estate. Ben Franklin has a long history as statesman, inventor, publisher and founding father. Now you can add real estate salesman to the list.