Oscar Mayer Figures Serving Up A PR Stunt With Bacon Will Get The Public To Bite

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]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.