Recently on his travels the Chief was visiting the beautiful Port Douglas in far North Queensland, Australia. Following the tradition of tourist towns the world over, Port Douglass has an embarrassment of restaurants and bars – it’s a wonder how they manage to keep business ticking-over during quieter times. Fair to say, competition between the restaurants and cafes for the tourist diner is fierce and unrelenting. So you can imagine my curiosity when I came across one restaurant, seemingly identical to all the others, that was bustling every afternoon – at 5pm each day when most restaurants would be fortunate to have a table of six, why was ‘On the Inlet’ bustling with more than 60 customers.

The answer was George the Giant Groper. Many years ago the staff at On the Inlet began feeding a local Groper. For those without the Chief’s piscatorial sophistication – Gropers are giant, lazy fish that grow to the size of a hippo and do little but lie around eating. As the folks at On the Inlet first fed, then named George he became more giant and more friendly (well in the manner of a big old lazy fish without social skills). And over the years, as word spread, tourists began turning-up to see George get his daily fill of fish head. Now days, around 5pm each and every day of the year, as most restaurant traffic slows to a trickle, On the Inlet has a dozen tables booked and another forty customers standing, eating and drinking as they wait for George the famous groper to show up – a new take on the term Feeding Frenzy. All this has been achieved with little marketing promotion for George – the Chief wonders how much more popular the restaurant would be if the web site, and restaurant signage gave a plug to their giant fishy attraction.

Which all got the Chief thinking of what a great metaphor George was for small business marketing differentiation, and wondering what every business could do if they worked-out what their own George the Groper could be.

Happy Marketing from the Chief.
Logo Designer Extraordinaire and Marketing Guru to small businesses everywhere.