Joking aside…
By Robbie DaleWhen 7 million or so people hear a positive review of your restaurant from one of the UK’s best loved comedians, you can expect interest to pick up. Even if that review is done very much tongue in cheek.
It’s that old adage you see, ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity‘. So when Harry Hill reaped Harvester restaurants for a bit of Saturday night comedy the other week, it’s hardly surprising traffic to their website doubled.
This is great news for any business of course. More eyes leads to more intrigue, and the law of averages alone says you should get a few more covers through the door. But a big bang quickly dies down, and hits on a website can only do so much. Where do potential diners go from there? What do they hear when they ask their peers about Harvester? What do they experience when they actually get there and chow down? These experiences for any customer, are just as important as the catalyst that drives their interest in the first place.
By all accounts, Harvester didn’t know about the impending flurry of interest, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out long term. Come next week, it would be nice to see their conversation continuing to tick over. If not, then it could serve as a lesson on missed opportunities for others looking to capitalise on mass media coverage. Word of mouth thrives on mass coverage, not in spite of it. Fail to stimulate it and you fail to nurture the long term conversations and advocates that will help you convert the intrigued, into the committed.
I for one, hope things go well for Harvester however, if only because a positive outcome carries with it the possibility of seeing the writer’s of ‘Have I Got News For You’ go in front of a tribunal for receiving bungs from Little Chef. Now that would be good weekend viewing.
