Finders Keepers

Many of you have already heard this story, but it's such a good one I've got to tell it again. Scott and I were hanging out on campus at ASU on Wednesday and saw a little carnival set up on the lawn. So we went to check it out and play some of the games just to kill some time. As Scott was finishing a game of darts we turned around and he noticed a wallet on the ground. So of course we picked it up and looked at the ID hoping to see who it was in order to return it. The Florida license had a picture of The King as in The Burger King which I thought was kind of a funny joke on some college kid's part. But then we flipped it open and saw a little sticker that said "Attention Would Be Good Samaritan! Don't worry about lost & found. The King wants you to keep this wallet and everything in it." Inside was a dollar that at first glance I thought was play money because it had the King's face on it, but upon closer inspection I saw that it was actually just a sticker put on a dollar bill. Then we opened some more pockets and found a $5 Burger King gift card. Definitely the best marketing ploy I've ever seen. It's tough to describe how good it is just by telling the story. But just think of the emotions you feel when you find something valuable that someone has lost. Just for a second you hope that you might have gotten lucky, but then you start to resign yourself to spending some time trying to find the missing owner etc. Then imagine actually getting to keep the thing. Hey it's a nice leather wallet. It's also like winning the lottery without even entering. I decided I wanted one too so we went looking around and I hurriedly picked another one up that Scott spotted. One of the carnival operators saw me pick it up and tried to take it from me so she could put it in the lost and found. Very well done Burger King marketers. I felt compelled to blog about it and give them the extra marketing they were hoping for.