I took my wife to Benihana for her 30th birthday. If you've been to Benihana you know that it is more than a meal, its an experience. First,there's the guy who works his magic on the grill in front of you. Then there is the fun of sitting at the same table with some people you don't know.
When I made the reservation they made a point of asking me if it was a special occasion. I told them that it was my wife's birthday and I could tell by the slight pause that the woman on the other end was making a note of it.
There were about 10 other grills in our dining room and during the course of our meal/experience we must have heard them do the Benihana birthday song for 3 or 4 different people. Because I heard the song I knew they were going to sing for my wife. On queue, at the end of the meal they brought my wife a complementary dessert, set up a ninja statue with a candle next to it, lit the candle and then sang us the birthday jingle. So far, so good.
But here's the thing that really impressed me from a marketing perspective. Our server then proceeded to take an old fashioned Polaroid picture of us and give it to us in a little Benihana bi-fold photo holder.
Click on the Image to see a Bigger - Higher Res image.
Not only is there the little folder, but should you want to take the Polaroid out of the protective folder and pass it around....
Click on the Image to see a Bigger - Higher Res image.
the Polaroid film/picture itself is Benihana branded (genius). So now I not only have something to talk about, but Benihana has made it very easy for me to share the message about the good time we had there.
Although Benihana is a restaurant, this has implications for any business that has customers and wishes they had more. Or has investors, and wishes they had more. Or has an idea that could save lives, or the world, or whatever, and wishes more people knew it.
So, here's the nugget: Come up with something worth talking about that is simple and obvious (but subtle if you can manage... no one told me to share the picture with my co-workers), and make it easy for people to share it.
If you want to go more in depth on Word of Mouth read Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz. I recommend it.
