Published on: August 22, 2017

When it comes to seizing a marketing moment, we clearly have a top banana - both literally and figuratively.
It seems almost impossible that you missed the biggest celestial story of the past few decades: the solar eclipse that worked its way directly across the US Monday afternoon. It was a constant presence of the news, social media and, varying degrees depending on your location, in the sky as well.
In other words you couldn’t miss it…unless you did. For instance, how did you market the event? Did you sell the special viewing glasses or even use the celestial show to build some excitement into the dog days of August?
If you didn’t, you missed a fabulous opportunity and, to make matters worse, others showed how it could be done, including 7-Eleven, which marketed the daylights out of those same glasses. But others were actually far more creative.
Consider the following examples collected by CNBC:
• Volvo marketed a special moon roof cover to allow eclipse viewing from the vehicle.
• Dairy Queen started a special marketing campaign of the Blizzard dessert and plans to continue it through the start of September.
• Door Dash food delivery services gave away free “eclipse” cookies, more usually known as half moons or black and whites.
• Krispy Kreme designed a special chocolate glazed eclipse donut just for the occasion.
• Other specials came from Denny’s, appliance maker Frigidaire, McDonald’s and even a realtor in Michigan.
In other words, if you did nothing you clearly missed an opportunity that comes along rarely and that others jumped on energetically. The good news is that you can redeem yourself on April 8, 2024, when a solar eclipse will move across the country, from Texas to Buffalo, NY.
Hopefully, you’ll both be in business and much more prepared for that one.
As you plan for that, give a lot of thought to your produce section. Because in preparation for Monday’s event nothing came close to Chiquita, which ran a marketing campaign that came close to outshining the sun itself. The tongue-in-cheek campaign ran virally on line and in full-page ads in major newspapers.
As Chiquita explained, the key to the solar eclipse was not about totality and that path across the nation. Rather it was in the areas where the sun would be mostly covered, leaving a yellow crescent shape that strangely enough looks like a banana. The ads jokingly explained that seeing that shape was the real show on Monday.
The ads and videos then went into detail on how exactly the eclipse - or “banana sun” - is really a celebration of Chiquita bananas, how Chiquita is actually behind the entire thing and how the sun and moon will not be harmed in the process. (Chiquita also managed to work in repeated cautions about the right way to view the eclipse.)
In other words, the ads and video were funny, timely and memorable. They were the essence of great marketing as they gave people one more reason to think of the Chiquita brand differently than everyone else.
Talk about seizing the moment and putting everyone else in the shade.
Michael Sansolo can be reached via email at msansolo@morningnewsbeat.com . His book, “THE BIG PICTURE: Essential Business Lessons From The Movies,” co-authored with Kevin Coupe, is available on Amazon by clicking here. And, his book "Business Rules!" is available from Amazon by clicking here.
- KC's View: