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Marin Independent Journal – iPhone Ad Boosts Marin Restaurant
The Pacific Catch restaurant in Corte Madera scored a marketing coup when Apple chose to feature its sister restaurant in San Francisco in an ad for the new iPhone.
Since the ad began airing several weeks ago, business at both Pacific Catch restaurants has spiked, said Keith Cox of Belvedere, CEO and co-founder.”
This month of June is our best month ever in the company,” Cox said. The 30-second spot begins with a screen shot of a giant octopus battling a pirate ship taken from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
A voice-over comes next: “Did somebody say calamari?”
The ad then shows the iPhone being used to locate the nearest seafood restaurant, which happens to be the Pacific Catch restaurant on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. The ad quickly shows the restaurant’s phone number and address.
Both Pacific Catch restaurants were inundated with calls. “We’d get over 100 calls a day from people just trying to see if we were a real restaurant,” Cox said. “We got one collect call from a county jail. “
Pacific Catch promptly put its calamari appetizer, which was being tested in Corte Madera, on the menu in both restaurants.
Cox says his restaurant’s selection was “just dumb luck.”
“Everybody wants to think either we know Steve Jobs or we paid Apple,” Cox said. “We could never pay for product placement like this.”
Katie Giannotti, a spokewoman for TBWA Media Arts Lab in Los Angeles, which produced the ad for Apple, declined to comment on Pacific Catch’s selection
Richard Halstead
Marin Independent Journal
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