LA CROSSE, Wis. -- They actually stood and cheered when the man in the walking banana costume marched by.
This is Oktoberfest in La Crosse, Wis., the birthplace of Old Style beer, college town, and headquarters of Kwik Trip—the epicenter of the retailer’s 475 convenience stores.
It certainly wasn’t the most sophisticated float in the parade, but the crowd around me hoisted their beer cans in fingerless-glove-clad hands and cheered when it rolled by. They high-fived the banana, who was also wearing a simple handmade sign promoting the retailer’s 33-cents-per-pound deal on bananas.
This isn’t a business that needs to advertise itself in this town of 51,522. Yet there they were, throwing candy out to the kids and goofing around with the well-oiled grownups.
Stop 10 people on the street in La Crosse and ask them where they buy their bananas and eight will probably tell you Kwik Trip. But this one product didn’t become synonymous with the retailer overnight. It took years of single-minded product promotion, from TV ads and radio spots to festival appearances.
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