Here at Consumerist, we’ve seen more than our fair share of PR stunts designed to lure us in and think “Gee, that product really is great!” But when said promotion involves bacon we already know we love the product and so it works. Oscar Mayer is betting on the general public’s love of meat with its new promo featuring a comedian who’s trying to barter his way across the country with only a trailer full of bacon to get by.
Oh and “only a trailer full of bacon” means the actor/comedian/writer is traveling with nothing less than 3,000 pounds of Oscar Mayer’s new Butcher Thick Cut bacon for the stunt, dubbed the Great American Bacon Barter, reports the New York Times. And of course, as all campaigns go these days, the promo can be followed on all kinds of social media and interwebby sites.
All he’s got to do is trade bacon for his needs on the road from Los Angeles to New York — food (yes, it is important to eat something other than bacon), fuel and lodging. His trip might be made a bit easier as Oscar Mayer says he’ll hit up cities that already love bacon like Charleston, W.Va.; Louisville, Ky.; Chicago; and Council Bluffs, Iowa.
This trip will do our country good, says Oscar Mayer. Because it isn’t more cow bell America needs — it’s meat and what we’d do in the pursuit of it.
“There’s this fever for bacon in this country,” said Tom Bick, director for integrated marketing communications and advertising at Oscar Mayer in Madison, Wis.
“How do we tap into that?” he asked. “If we don’t do something to put Oscar Mayer in its rightful place, then shame on us.”
Bick added that that this new bacon is “massive, awesome bacon.”
Gotta hand it to you, Oscar Mayer. Bring that bacon truck by my place and I will trade my kale and quinoa for a taste.
Oscar Mayer Proposes a New Bacon as a New Currency [New York Times]
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I bet the dogs fall for it>
sign me up. I would love to do that!
Be warned, Oscar Mayer. The power and miracle of bacon belongs to all people, everywhere. You think you’re restraining bacon and forcing it to your brand. But you’re so tragically wrong. Oh yes, a bacon-based economy *is* coming. But mankind isn’t ready for it yet. You have no idea what you’re about to unleash.
The Great American Bacocalypse?
Bacon for president!
If you can’t barter a ton and a half of bacon for food, gas, and accomodations across the country, then you really need to sharpen your negotiating skills. Easy as pie. Er, easy as bacon.
Yeah, my first thought was if he trades it for an equivilent of $2 a pound, which would be dirt cheap, that would give him $6k worth of goods/services, not exactly a hardship.
Although personally I’d probably park somewhere, fire up the grill and then eat bacon until my heart exploded, so I’d fail at the task.
That’s not failing, my good man.
Ron Swanson approves of this kind of failure.
How odd to have someone at Consumerist write a summary of a story about a comedian going across the country bartering for bacon and not mention the comedian’s name. I think it would be important enough to include in the summary but apparently it is not.
Agreed. The story is entirely meaningless without this exceedingly minute point of inarguably crucial information and so, by a lengthy extension of reason that for the sake of brevity I’ll omit here, is our entire existence. If not for the utter pointlessness of everything, it would have been a pleasure thanking you for your excellent point.
The comedian’s name is [redacted].
How odd to publish a comment lamenting that the comedian doesn’t get his due, without mentioning the comedian’s name. Sorry, comedian, not even people who think you should get more attention can be bothered to share your unknown name.
Sadly, I was happier when I pictured Jim Gaffigan as the comedian in question. Knowing his name was just disappointing.
No. Bacon is the only thing that matters.
Just google, comedian, bacon, desperate.
I would sell 2,900 pounds of bacon at $5.00 a pound, eat the other 100 pounds
as food along the way, sleep in the trailer and pocket the rest of the money.
If you’re ever interested, I know a…well, let’s just call it a clinic…that will do a coronary bypass for $14,000 even. It’s cash only, but they do offer courtesey shuttle service. For purely legal reasons you may have to ride in the trunk for part of the trip. There’s free bottled watter and a DVD player in there, so it’s nice.
Would they take a 1,000 pounds of bacon as part trade?
Also, is the movie playing in the trunk a new release?
I would invest the entire 3000 pounds of bacon and live off the delicious, greasy interest.
I sold the bacon for $2/pound and bought Facebook stock at the IPO. Now, I’m gonna travel in style and……aw, sonuva–
Truly utterly sickening, a new low.
Can’t wait to hear about the cases of food poisoning from this stunt.
Who is running the advertising/PR for these companies? Idiots.
Where have you been that trading bacon for goods and services is a ‘new low’?
You consider this worse than blatant lies by advertisers? You consider this worse than products that get recalled because they kill and maim people?
Why, pray tell, do you think there will be rampant food poisoning? There are these magical things called refrigerated trailers, you see, which we have been using for, oh, the last 50 years or so, to transport perishable goods safely.
I would offer him a meal, and a night in my guest room for a couple packages and the chance to talk to him over said meal (and he has to supply the breakfast bacon)
Or you could kill him in his sleep and steal the rest of the bacon.
Hypothetically speaking.
I love bacon, but I doubt I could eat theirs (nitrate/nitrite/etc).
What about “massive, awesome bacon” with nitrates?
Life is too short for crappy, nitrate-y bacon. Un-cured hippy bacon or death! (literally and figuratively)
June 25th 1968, with the absolute end of the Silver Standard the day before, the United States of America moved forward with the Bacon Standard.
November 25th 1968, having consumed ALL of it’s wealth and feeling pretty bad about it, the United States of America switched to the Rice Cake Standard.
November 27th 1968. Embracing the Rice Cake Standard, America’s population dropped to a historic low of 4.
Rice cakes are almost palatable when fried in bacon.
Fried in bacon fat, that is.
Can’t find the edit button due to all the bacon grease up in here.
OM’s Butcher Thick Cut bacon is good bacon, albeit a bit on the expensive side for the amount you get. That said, it’s not as good as homemade bacon.}:P But then, no bacon is as good as homemade.
What’s a Josh Sankey?
Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips & Bacon Strips
What is it with Consumerist redacting info? The actor/comedian/writer’s name (or at least his stage name) is Josh Sankey. That’s from the NYTimes article.
pamelad, Tucson, AZ [not redacted, no reason to do so].
When it said comedian I was really hoping it was Jim Gaffigan. That would have been such a perfect fit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaK9bjLy3v4
I think Jim can actually get work, so he doesn’t have to do stuff like this.