by: Alain Thys
If you think marketing innovation is something we've got down here in the West, think again. When confronted with a overstock of bottled water in the stores, a local business man of the city of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan in the Caucasus came up with a brilliant sell-through campaign which sold out his total inventory in 72 hours flat.
In this he didn't bother to increase advertising, do DM or come up with a nice coupon offer. No, he was much more thorough. As in Russia most successful businesses are somehow "connected" to the City government, he arranged to have tap water switched off.
In the subsequent commercial miracle all inventory he had left was sold out in a mere three days, after which the water – equally miraculously – started flowing from the taps again.
Cheers!
Thanks to M. in Moscow for providing this story !
PS. in the same vein, a nice shopwindow for a computer store.
