JOE'S BOWLING ALLEY
Joe’s is a newly renovated bowling alley. It is elegant, filled with amenities, and a little more expensive than its competition. Unfortunately, when it reopened, most people chose to go to the cheaper alley nearby. So Joe’s chose to build a marketing campaign targeted at young families with kids who lived in the area. Originally, they built a list of the attributes that they thought would appeal to young people, and included them in the copy of a number of local ads (orange/yellow branch), but they quickly learned that this approach failed to capture the interest of the young parents in the neighborhood. So, with the help of some expert bowling marketeers, Joe's built three “narratives” to capture the interest of their audience. The first was intended to convince people that with all the added benefits, it was actually cheaper to spend their night at Joe's versus going separately to dinner, drinks, and bowling at the competition (blue branch). The second focused on all of Joe's amenities and how nice they were (aqua/light green branch), so that customers should treat themselves to Joe's. The third approach (the one that Joe's management ultimately thought was most compelling) was about Joe's being a great way to combine a date night with a chance to get the whole family together (green branch).
Using the message map, Joe’s built a brochure, a web page, a TV advertisement, and a print ad that all used the same consistent set of messages.