The Seattle Mariners' "Hot Dogs From Heaven" Ballpark Gimmick Is Marketing Genius At Its Best And Other Parks Need to Follow Suit
Oregon Live - While many people looked up at the sky to see the Aurora Borealis spectacle during the weekend, thousands of Seattle Mariners looked up at the sky to see ... hot dogs?
Yep, Mariners fans were trying to grab the free hot dogs - equipped with tiny parachutes- that were falling from the sky during Seattle’s game against the Oakland Athletics on Saturday.
The dive-bombing dogs were featured during an in-game promotion labeled “Hot Dogs From Heaven” inside the stadium. Video of the promotion quickly went viral on social media.
This is the best thing I've seen at a ballpark in a long, long time.
ESPECIALLY coming off receiving this sorry excuse for an "Italian sausage" at Yankee Stadium last week...
(The sausage guy outside Fenway would NEVER)
But man, talk about a no-brainer move that somebody should have thought up eons ago.
It's marketing 101. People love free shit. And they love it even more dropped from the rafters or shot into the stands where they have to fight over it. And people love hot dogs. How did it take so long to combine the two?
I guarantee it was some entry level 20-something year old kid in the marketing department who came up with it too. The Mariners sales team was probably sitting around looking at the white board trying to figure out how do they fill the hole between the bottom of the 7th and top of the 8th inning, when the new guy raised his hand and said, "what if we parachute in hot dogs?"
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Think about how awesome a gimmick this is. Amazing branding and advertising for Hempler's Hot Dogs here. Plus it keeps asses in the seats until the 8th inning. No chance anybody is leaving before the cased meats rain down from the skies.
The only thing is this probably wouldn't fly (no pun intended) in cities like New York, Philly, Boston, and Chicago. Seattle and San Diego and those nice west coast and mountain cities where people are nice and have manners it works, but I've seen people almost come to blows way too many times at Bulls games in Chicago over free fucking t-shirts from car dealerships with a tiny Bulls logo on them. Can't imagine the damage two land whales could do battling over a kielbasa at Wrigley.
P.s. - if you ever need to put a group of girls in a good mood, throw Belinda Carlisle on and watch what unfolds. It’s a simple as that. Chicks hear that opening line and go crazy. Every time. Such a great jam.