By now most of our aware of Takeout’s marketing stunt and have cracked (or at least heard) the obvious joke about Takeout acting like a needy girl seeking attention.

We could tell that this was probably a marketing stunt when Takeout started handing out Thank You cards near the end of January. They stuck to their promise and closed operations for a few days in February, but then things dipped into cringey territory when they released their ‘Miss Me?’ trailer. Takeout is many things, but Moriarty it isn’t.

Takeout opened doors once again on February 13th, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, with new food, better quality and, of course, increased prices. To their credit, Takeout did do a good thing with upping their quality game. “The patty is back to the quality it was known for back in the day, and the cheese and everything were just perfect,” said Rayaan Chowdhury while talking about one perennial Takeout favorite, Beef Cheese Delight. “The buns are the best in the city right now. The french fries sauce is better too.”

Not all of the new items were a success, unfortunately. “We were very excited about the new Steak Burger, but it was extremely disappointing to say the least,” said Tashfia Mamun. “The size of the burger was very small, and it was like a sandwich, with very thin slices of steak meat. The flavor was sort of smokey, but not that great.”

Most of us can agree that Takeout needed a makeover, especially because its quality had dropped off noticeably in the last few months.

However, there were several ways management could have gone about this task, and they decided to go the ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ route.

It’s important to note that this phrase was coined by PT Barnum, a shameless publicity hound and a con man of infamous repute. There was no other way for Barnum to gain publicity other than bad publicity.

Yes, some do make bad publicity work for them, like Kanye West. But then again, Takeout isn’t Kanye West, either.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

If we look at the social media numbers for Takeout, the posts shared recently before the campaign gained higher engagement in terms of impressions, ranging from 10k to 20k reactions while the comments averaged around 100. The newer posts, starting from the Thank You post, running to the Miss Me and We are Back videos, have noticeably lower rate of reactions, ranging from 1.5k to 3.9k, however the number of comments are considerably higher, ranging from 993 to 2.5k. Clearly, this marketing stunt got people talking.

(Although in Bangladesh, comments don’t mean much, since the majority of social media users are markedly more passive to their Western counterparts. Most of the comments were tags to friends to let them know about the updates.)

In addition to meme pages, Takeout also got its rivals to talk about them, offering discounts to celebrate Takeout coming back. That’s also a cool little feat.

For a marketing team to take the maximum about bad publicity to heart, it has to take a dim view of its audience.

Clearly, PT Barnum thought of the visitors of his attractions as suckers, and Takeout isn’t probably too far off from such a mindset. That’s one way to conduct your marketing, certainly, but at the same time, they could have also treated their audience like responsible adults and done so much better.

What if?

Since the Miss Me aspect and the timing suggests Takeout had Valentine’s Day in mind while planning this campaign, one alternative route they could have went is exploring the many ways people love Takeout, and also use its food and locales to express love. That wouldn’t have been hard, since it’s a magnet for millennial hangouts and has always been fairly popular in that demographic. There could also be a co-creation aspect to the campaign, where Takeout could invite people to share their own positive experiences with Takeout.

The campaign could have culminated with a landing that expounds on how relationships take trust and commitment to work, as well as an acknowledgement of your own failings and lack of effort. Thus, because Takeout loves its customers too, it had taken the step of owning up to its mistakes and making the whole experience better for them, because love is about commitment and renewing that over time.

Wouldn’t that have been nice, rewarding long time afficionados instead of treating them as simpletons?

But hey, at least this stunt got people talking. For maybe the rest of this week. So there’s at least that.