4 Facts About Hee Haw and Marketing

Yesterday I spent my day researching Hee Haw (don't ask), as I did my usual Sunday routine (assassinating flies) and getting some extra work done for the coming week.  I'm in marketing and any textbook about the subject will tell you that the definition of marketing is figuring out what products people may be interested in, then strategize and communicate it to the customer.  Rarely do they tell you that often marketing is the act of researching a variety show from the 70's with pitchfork-holding farmers telling jokes to scantily-clad cowgirls in cornfields. This was a regular routine of my youth, between my father's forced marathon viewing periods of M*A*S*H and Star Trek. 

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It was kind of like the flower ceremony on The Bachelor, only less embarrassing.

My problem:  How do you market a show that has been off the air for 20+ years for today's audience more attuned with the fast-paced action of CSI and the raunchy humor of South Park?  This then got me thinking about what I know about marketing and from there, I was on my way.

One of the first approaches a student learns in marketing is SIVA or, Solution, Information, Value, and Access.  In all honesty, it is basically the four P's (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion), renamed and focused towards the customer.  For giggles, let's discuss this using the test case of Harter House's Country Style Pork Loin Ribs.

1.  Solution requires their be a problem.  Marketers (i.e. Me) assume their is a problem, even if there is none.  We ask questions like:  Can we make it better?  Why are we not selling more?  Why will it not give people the power of flight?  Often we ask these questions when no problem exists, as in, the quality of Harter House's Pork Loin Ribs is perfect and the price is absolutely the lowest it could go, but that doesn't stop the marketer from attempting to create a campaign for the ribs.  This is exactly the same reason that multiple versions of Cheez-Its exist, even though they all taste the same. 

2.  Information is the easy part.  The key, is what information to share.  My life in marketing began at a bank, and we drilled people with words like trust, peace of mind, safe, and secure, all words that made the customer feel cared-for, while we raised APR's to 30% and offered high-risk home equity loans.  Needless to say, I eventually traded my high paycheck for a soul, and now I market for businesses I can feel good about, and I'm capable of sleeping at night again without waking up screaming covered in a cold sweat. 

So, when I'm telling you the Country-Style Ribs are delicious, packed with flavor, juicy and meaty, it's not that I'm using terms that I researched and felt more people would be motivated to buy....okay, it was but my research also involved TASTING the Country-Style Ribs and discovering they actually were delicious, packed with flavor, juicy and meaty.  

For extra relevance at this point, and to provide even more detail and INFORMATION the good marketer would include a picture, like this:

Look at that detail...

3.  We have provided you with the Solution and the Information, now we have to sway You, the customer, to make a decision.  PRICE.  Too high, and it doesn't matter how much time we spent and number of adjectives we used, no one will buy.  Too low, and then we create a sense of doubt in the product.  However, this is an easy situation with Harter House.

See, the beauty of Harter House is they have developed a reputation that is a pinnacle in our community.  The Bettlach family are some of the best people I know.  They are trustworthy, giving and would do anything for a anyone.  They also LOVE their customers, and they show this love in two regards:  unmatched quality and unparallelled price.

In this case, we are talking about Grill Ready Country-Style Pork Loin Ribs for $2.49 a pound.  Hello?  Why are you still reading this?  Shouldn't you be at Harter House picking up about 10 pounds of ribs about now?

4.  Then comes promotion.  This can be done in a multitude of ways:  Commercials, Print ads, Billboards, or blogs where I randomly start by discussing 70's variety shows, move to marketing concepts and then wrap it up with a loose tie-in to Country-Style Pork Loin Ribs at $2.49 a pound.  Honestly, the options are limitless. 

Well, I hope you learned something today.  Tomorrow, I will attempt an article in which I tie together 80's, Eric Estrada-fueled, television favorite CHiPs, service dominant logic, and 16 ounce packages of Best Choice Bologna for $1.59 each, but until then I recommend going out, cooking some amazing Country-Style Pork Loin Ribs and having some good old-fashioned fun watching Buck Owens and Roy Clark host a classic episode of Hee Haw.

Since the title of the article is four facts about marketing AND Hee Haw, here are four things you might not have known about the show:

1.  Hee Haw was on CBS originally for one season until it was dropped by the network during it's "Rural Purge" along with The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry RFD, and Green Acres because they felt the audience was becoming to "rural and less affluent".  I'm hoping this may occur again someday with the network as the "Idiot Purge", by getting rid of "Big Brother".

2.  Hee Haw ran in syndication from 1969 to 1992!  In fact, before cancellation, to update to a modern audience they introduced sets like a SHOPPING MALL and city street. 

3.  The concept of the show actually came from Canada.  The shows creators, Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth were from Canada and most of the concept was based off the already popular "Canadian" The Red Green Show.

4.  Elvis Presley loved Hee Haw and wanted to be on it, however his manager felt that it was bad for his brand.  Colonel Tom Parker did think it was okay for him to wear white sequined jumpsuits though.

Hee Haw, bad idea.  That suit, good idea?