Someone stopped me in the street the other day, asking for directions to Ponsonby Road. I pointed out the general direction, showed him the way on my smartphone, and he thanked me. So far so good.
"Oh, by the way", he then said, "I have a restaurant - have you heard of <insert restaurant name>?"
"Umm", I replied, humouring him, "well, I know there's one in Mission Bay."
He pulled out a little card, labelled "VIP card", with a 25% discount offer printed on the back, and proceeded to write my name and the date on it, then signed it. Well, that's nice, I thought. What a clever way of making me take his advertising, which I never would have done otherwise.
Then it got a bit weird. "Can I have your number for our restaurant records?", he asked. Not wanting to risk offence, I gave it to him, though I secretly thought it was intruding on my privacy. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I later received two text messages, one letting me know he found the place he was looking for, the next inviting me again to his restaurant.
He might have had a clever marketing tactic to begin with, but his forwardness has all but ensured I will not be visiting.
Very cheeky guerrilla marketing techniques, but it sounds like he was also partly hitting on you? Either way, creepy! Advertising by deception (I'm sure if he's in the Akl hospitality trade, he would know how to get to Ponsonby Rd) just rankles.
ReplyDeleteHmm, yeah, I don't know what to make of it. It was at a place with not much foot traffic, so he might have been genuinely lost rather than being out to advertise, I suppose.
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