We’ve all seen them — the wildly gesticulating, six-foot chickens who want to lure you in for a One-Day-Only mattress sale or an auto dealer’s Grand Opening. Sure, they get our attention, but to what avail?

It’s not that wearing such suits is an inherently bad idea. Take Seattle’s Waxon Spa for example. To promote bikini waxing they’ve been known to use a guy dressed in a beaver suit. It gets attention, builds thier brand persona and it gets you thinking of the fine work they do. Nice job, Annie.

A true Chicken-Suit Strategy is based on the idea that any attention is good attention, and to get that attention you have to grab it by any means necessary. And to use the strategy you don’t have to literally don a chicken suit. There are many forms of metaphorical chicken suits such as flashing lights, loud voice-overs, bold and unsubstiated claims or any silly, slacious or controversial gimick.

It’s what Crispin-Porter used in their dog feces ad for Haggar, and arguably what they used in thier creepy and deispised resurection of Orvile Reddenbacher. The world hated the ad for a number of reasons, but for me it was the revolting mental juxtoposition of embalmed flesh and popcorn.

By Chicken-Suit standards, though, I must commend C+P. The revulsion/annoyance/WTF? response is exactly what they were aiming for. Hell, they will even count this very blog post as a sign of success. Indeed, though they may be Masters of Awareness, they might well be relevant to none.

The strategy is about as easy as it is effective. It is true that Chicken-Suiting gets attention — as does a bratty kid — but any fool can get attention. And any fool with a big budget can tailor for your company a world-class chicken suit. Look at Career Builder’s Age-o-Matic. With possibly the least inspired name imagineable Career Builder is doubtlessly drawing many thousands of eyeballs to its age-progression e-gizmo. But I ask you, dear reader, is there anything about seeing yourself with grey hair and liver spots that would motivate you to use Career Builder over others such as Monster or Craigslist?

If you’re wearing a chicken suit, then for the love of humanity and the health of your business, get rid of it. It doesn’t work. Burn it and never look back. There is a better way.

Marketing is at its least effective when it’s based on taking — attention, time, etc. And at its most powerful when it’s based on giving. If you give your target market something they WANT to be a part of and want to talk about, they will.

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