7 Keys to Marketing Genius: Golden Ticket
The following is an excerpt from The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius by Michael Daehn
If you are a child of the 70s like myself, you remember a magical place made of chocolate rivers, candied flora and mushrooms with marshmallow filling. I am speaking of the inside of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I show this film to my marketing students to demonstrate the powerful synergy of the Wonka marketing promotion. Five golden tickets are placed randomly in Wonka bars. Wonka throws the whole world into a frenzy looking for the coveted tickets. The news media covers the process, reporting on the finding of tickets. One girl’s father has his factory of workers opening hundreds of boxes of Wonka bars looking for a winner.
In this film, chocolatiere Willy Wonka is implementing a powerful and popular sales promotion. He knows his target audience of chocolate consumers would love nothing more than to see inside his secret chocolate factory. He gets free publicity from the news-hungry media who cover every second of the campaign. Wonka does not have to pay for advertising; the news media does it for him. A powerful synergy is created between the two elements of sales promotion and using publicity that sells thousands of Wonka bars.