Marketing Musings - July 26th, 2018

When businesses back people, everybody wins - especially when those people are children.  A couple of grumps in the Hamptons began complaining that neighborhood children were selling lemonade without a license – seriously – and those complaints started racking up fines, in some cases tallying hundreds of dollars worth of Billy and Suzy’s lunch money.

But that’s when Country Time stepped in.  You know, that’s the drink-mix-turned-sweet nectar-of-the-gods lemonade company.  They took this head-scratching opportunity to do a little good and offered up some “Legal-Ade”, otherwise known as paying up to $60,000 worth of fines that any child across the country incurs for committing the high crime and misdemeanor of selling lemonade on the sidewalk. 

People ask us a lot what makes a “viral” social campaign.  There’s no true answer to that, because you never really know what’s going to catch, let alone hold, someone’s attention.  But if you’re launching a social campaign, the place to start is with social good.  A simple act of kindness that benefits someone else.  $60,000 is no small piece of change, but for Country Time, the goodwill their “Legal-Ade” bought them is worth way more in brand recognition than a similarly budgeted marketing campaign would have brought them.

It’s that zest to do good that we should all feel when life hands us lemons.

Read more about the campaign.