Marketing Plantains

My fiancé loves listening to ESPN 1000. I mean, what guy doesn't, right? It's his daily dose of sports and I have to admit, I like watching him agree and talk to the radio as if they can hear him :) We were at a bar a few weeks ago and I overheard a conversation he was having about how 'someone didn't know what plantains were.' So nosey me goes- WHO doesn't know what plantains are?? Turns out, while listening to Mike & Mike earlier that day- the hosts brought up a comment about how "The Dominican Team wear bananas as lucky charms." As in, they didn't realize those are not bananas. As in, they had no clue what plantains are. Never heard of one!

Sounds silly, right? Especially because one of the hosts played in Miami at one point in time and the other had been in Puerto Rico for an extensive amount of time. Nevertheless, this sparked somewhat of an interesting conversation on the radio and on social media. I don't think listeners were angry, but rather excited to educate both Mike and Mike on what a plantain is.

I always keep an ear to the ground for a marketing opportunity. What happened next, I think- is brilliant. Someone at a company called Pollo Tropical in Miami caught wind of the conversation (how? I don't know) but they seized the opportunity for a simple and affective marketing ploy. They actually sent Mike & Mike a box of plantains, with instructions on how to cook them in a variety of ways. Lucky for the hosts, they had a chef at the station who prepared them right then and there.

That day, they announced "We've embarrassed ourselves by our lack of culture" and laughed about how they've "been chastised on twitter with the fact that we didn't know about a plantain." Overall they loved tasting platano for the first time. The fact that this conversation carried on for a couple days when it could of been a random mention shows how much we are listening. "We" as in Latinos. Aside from the people that actaully made an attempt to reach the hosts, you can bet there were a hundred others who had a conversation about the incident with friends and family. Like my fiancé did.

Unfortunately, there is a missed opportunity here as well. In my opinion, Pollo Tropical should have taken the free radio shout out and maximized it on social media. I don't see a mention of their efforts on their Facebook page, and their Twitter page is a blank slate.

Never underestimate the power of Word of Mouth marketing!

Catch the full Mike & Mike transcripts here! March 21, March 22

-Dais