In these days when businesses are looking to find new revenue streams and maximize marketing dollars, not all ideas proove to be good ones.
Take the case of Alliance Beverage Distributing Co. of Arizona. The company has a fleet of trucks out delivering liquor, wine and beer to restaurants and other retailers. But since it’s a wholesale company, the name Alliance Beverage doesn’t really mean all that much to the average consumer.
 Alliance Beverage delivery trucks repainted to advertise for McDonalds. The liquor, wine and beer delivery trucks weren’t well recieved at fine restaurants such as Fleming’s and Sullivan’s. |
In the Phoenix area, Alliance Beverage has been "selling" advertising on their trucks to some of the products they deliver such as Jack Daniels and Guinness. In other cases, an outside advertising agency has sold them to a car dealer and a newspaper.
That advertising agency came to Alliance Beverage with the idea that McDonald’s would be interested in having the Tucson area trucks painted in their colors.
"When we considered it, we thought it would be politically neutral," said Jim McArdle, senior vice president of operations for Alliance Beverage. "By that I mean we wouldn’t paint the trucks to favor one customer over another. Who would object to McDonald’s? It’s an All-American company."
So, the week of Jan. 21, the freshly-painted trucks hit the streets. Some restaurants didn’t exactly welcome the trucks. Just imagine the image of what appears to be a McDonald’s delivery truck at a high-end steak house such as Fleming’s or Sullivan’s or at the AAA five-diamond award-winning Ventana Room at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort.
"I had just never expected the reaction we’d get from some of the white-table restaurants," McArdle said.
But that’s not the half of it, he said.
"Then we got a call that one of the McDonald’s franchisees saw a McDonald’s truck at a topless bar who wondered what in the devil it was doing there," McArdle said. "We took flak. Not only did we miss it from one side, we missed it from the other side."
As of last week, the Alliance Beverages trucks were repainted in a plain white.
"It just didn’t work. It irritated our customers and it didn’t work for the advertiser," McArdle said.
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