When Worlds Collide: Fortune Cookie Buzz Marketing

Though fortune cookies usually are not the subject of foodie attention, I do feel inspired to pass along an enjoyable story that lies at the intersection of my interests in food and customer acquisition strategies for online businesses. Yesterday Josh Kopelman regaled my colleagues and I with some of the guerilla buzz marketing stunts pulled off by his startup, Half.com (which in 1999 famously paid a town called Halfway in Oregon to change its name to Half.com).

Half.com was acquired by eBay in 2000, but even after that retained its heritage as a scrappy startup looking to find high-leverage marketing techniques. Mark Hughes, who was the VP Marketing at Half.com, somehow learned that:

• 97% of people given a fortune cookie will read their fortune

• 67% of those fortunes get read aloud to the people they’re eating with

• The fortune cookie industry is highly concentrated, with a few companies controlling most of the U.S. market (so dealing with only one, or a few, bakeries gives wide distribution)

Thus was born fortune cookie marketing! Half.com stuffed $5 coupons inside fortune cookies that were distributed to restaurants all over the country. To make the deal even sweeter, Half.com only had to pay the fortune cookie company for redeemed coupons ($2.50 each). Josh gleefully recounted, “I was happy to acquire customers at $7.50 a head all day long.” Mark is still practicing fortune cookie marketing and other creative techniques at his firm, Buzzmarketing.

Comments

[Chris Yeh]

Wow, that's a great story. Where do I go to book my fortune cookie marketing campaign? Where is the AdWords of fortune cookie marketing?

[Tom Cole]

My understanding is that Mark Hughes of Buzzmarketing has long-term contracts with several of the fortune cookie bakeries, which collectively control a big chunk of the U.S. market. So you can ask Mark to help you book your fortune cookie marketing campaign! http://www.buzzmarketing.com/