“Some say why? And some say why not?”
Sir Richard Branson
Outside Bristol Zoo there is a car park for 150 cars and 8 coaches. There also used to be a very affable attendant with a ticket machine charging cars £1 and coaches £5.
This parking attendant worked there for all of 25 years , then one day just didn’t turn up for work…
“Oh well,” said the Bristol Zoo management - “better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant”…
“Err no,” said the Council, “that car park is your responsibility”…
“Err no,” said Bristol Zoo Management, “the attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn’t he?”…
“Err NO!”
Living in Spain is a man who had been taking daily car park fees amounting to an estimated £400 per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. You do the sums!
The Bristol Evening Post ran this story about two years ago. Since then it has set cyberspace alight, having been emailed to thousands of people across the globe, eventually receiving an uproarious response with an airing last July on BBC’s The News Quiz.
A fantastic tale but, sadly, completely untrue. The Bristol Evening Post has since confirmed that the story is nothing more than an urban myth. Yet that hasn’t prevented it from acquiring a life of its own.
What has this to do with marketing?
Everything!
Canny marketers and their PR people disseminate such stories as a matter of routine. Their currency is gossip half-truth and innuendo. Whether or not a rumour is true is immaterial to the cause. As Oscar Wilde reminds us: “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is NOT being talked about.”
How much would Bristol Zoo have had to pay to receive such an avalanche of international publicity? And, as is so often the case with viruses, nobody can agree on exactly where this one started. Personally, I’d venture a guess that someone in the zoo’s marketing department had an inspired moment. No doubt whoever it was is now keeping their head down very low! If I found out who it was, I’d offer them a job!
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