As you've probably heard, US doughnut chain Krispy Kreme recently opened its first store in Perth, and the results are a triumph of the type of thinking best demonstrated by South Park's Eric Cartman.
That may not seem like a huge deal, but to the distinctly weird people of Perth (it's okay, I'm one of them) it was such a huge deal that they actually broke the world record for most Krispy Kreme doughnuts sold in a single day.
People literally lined up for days, plural, so they could get their hands on Krispy Kreme doughnuts in a demonstration of psychological marketing.
All in all, 73,200 doughnuts were sold at the one store in Whitfords. Apparently this equates to 800 kilograms of sugar and 950 kilograms of fat.
While half of Perth chowed down, the others had their hands pressed firmly to their foreheads wondering why the hell sandgropers would go so nuts for doughnuts that barely rank at above average.
To answer that question, you have to get to the heart of why West Australians are so disgruntled.
You see, West Australians feel, rightly or wrongly, that they're constantly being looked down upon as the little state that couldn't, despite the massive economic contribution it makes to Canberra's bottom line.
Despite all the money flowing into the WA capital in recent times, thanks to the recent mining boom, some brands have been slow in getting to Perth.
Recently, fashion retailer Zara made its way across the Nullabor, and the fashionistas of King Street ate it up. However, now it's just become yet another fashion retailer with none of the aura surrounding it.
Krispy Kreme in particular has always struck a chord with West Australians for some bizarre reason.
I remember being on a plane coming back from a Sydney holiday as a teenager, and the pilot coming on to tell the passengers about not bringing fruit and vegetables into the state.
“Don't worry,” he said. “This doesn't affect boxes of Krispy Kremes.”
Arguably because Krispy Kremes contain no natural materials whatsoever, but that's another story for another time.
For years, boxes of Krispy Kremes have been a staple of westbound flights to Perth, as people who were going to Sydney were ordered to bring back Krispy Kremes or face ostracism to the superpit of Kalgoorlie*
While not a lot of brands made their way to Perth, Krispy Kremes were held up as the one example of Perth not being able to have nice things because of geographic isolation.
Perth, to put it simply, wanted what it couldn't have – a psychological quirk best inadvertedly exploited by Eric Cartman.
In the episode “Cartmanland”, the eponymous character inherits $1 million and buys a run down amusement park.
He then takes great delight in telling people they can't come. This subsequently drives people nuts, with Cartman hailed the marketing genius of a lifetime for turning a run-down park into the hottest ticket in town simply by telling people they couldn't go.
Substitute the amusement park with fried treats and you pretty much have the marketing strategy (whether intentional or not) used by Krispy Kreme in Perth.
So while sophisticated marketing techniques leveraging a billion points of data and whole teams of young professionals based in converted warehouses may be the hip thing, sometimes it's just ridiculously simple.
Creating an aura of exclusivity around a brand -- whether it's high-end fashion labels or what I like to call “diabetes rings” -- still works as a powerful piece of psychology.
* That part may or may not be true
For more opinions:
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Fear and loathing in regional Australia
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