Mardi Gras Weekend - Media Meditation #5

This past weekend was the Mardi Gras Parade on Church Street in Burlington. The parade was at 3 in the afternoon, but from noon until the parade there were a ton of different promotions and booths having to do with Mardi Gras. Church Street was a crazy place to be on Saturday February 27th. There were people in masks and different costumes dancing throughout Church Street. Little kids had their faces painted, while all the adults had Mardi Gras beads and hats on. It was a very spirited day promoting Mardi Gras. Not only does the holiday of Mardi Gras call for a celebration but also all the restaurants and shops benefitted quite a bit from this celebration. Many stores had major sales going on, creating lots of business for them as well. The one thing that really stuck out to me was how Bolocos (a burrito place on Church Street) was offering FREE BURRITOS AND DRINKS! This stuck out to me because in our economy you don’t hear the word FREE much anymore.

This whole event was a huge media experience for me. It was my first year coming to the Mardi Gras parade in Burlington. It is media because it gets the community of Burlington together to celebrate a common interest. This common interest creates that media attention for restaurants such as Bolocos. Bolocos majorly benefitted from this media experience. Everyone who was on Church Street this past Saturday will remember the employee’s generous contribution to the people of the community, FREE BURRITOS! The media of this event mainly was how people of Burlington will keep coming back to the Mardi Gras parade for a fun time and great deals.

Bolocos has created people of the Burlington Community to remember where and what Bolocos is. People will know Bolocos as a friendly and hopefully a tasty experience. For Bolocos this was a great marketing plan. Free stuff always gets a attention to whoever walks by. With how crowded the streets were they created much talk about heir business, making more business for them in the future. The fact that so many people knew about Bolocos FREE BURRITOS made it a media experience for everyone because of the act of word of mouth.

When it comes to to the brain, this event really reached out to the Limbic Brain. This is because the emotions I felt throughout the whole time was excitement and happiness. There really was no thinking involved it was more of a fun and exciting afternoon than anything.

For this event Bolocos really shined on the idea of Value message. this is because there message was that Bolocos staff treats you nice. That they care about their customers needs and wants.

I feel like another technique that stuck out to me would be based on Group Dynamics. This is because you can tell that Bolocos works as a team, always stating "how can WE help you." When you walk into this restaurant it is very easy to tell that the employees work together for a common goal - to make their customers happy.

Overall this act of FREE BURRITOS shows major Strength. This is because it is showing how the restaurant knows how to get there customers attention. They simply know what to do to gain that revenue by advertising themselves. It demonstrates that strive to be great which in my eyes equals much Strength for their business.

I like to think of how Bolocos gave out FREE BURRITOS as a great advertisement. Instead of a little piece of paper, they went all out this year and gave everything away to gain that amazing attention on their business. This business by far stuck out the most on Church Street this past Saturday.