If you've ever driven from New York State to South Carolina in the 90's on I-95 then you would have noticed the hunderds of billboards promoting South of the Border. It's a tourist trap on the border of North and South Carolina with some of the funniest billboards I've ever read..Cold Today...Hot Tamale or Smash Hit at Pedros South of the Border.. After my visit to South Dakota which the locals said they classify themselves as the end of the Midwest I took a road trip out on I-90 which runs from Boston to Seattle to see Wall Drug.
Unfortunately at the time due to COVID-19 Wall Drug was closed but a recent reading about how the owner put up his first billboard during the recession of the 1930's offering free water turned the rest stop into an instant success story that will soon be 100 years in the making. Everybody gets thirsty and the price of water being free it's hard to say no to that. What happens is visitors start to shop for other items and the retail space at Wall Drug is huge so there's almost always a purchase that accompanies the free water.
Wall Drugs has been succeesful without being coy or deceptive or manufacturing faux needs and this is a message all businesses should uphold. Wall Drug just focused on something everyone wanted but no one was talking about free water while on the long lonely road. They started the conversation and consumers talked.
Bottom line and I quote "SELL THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE"
