A short talk by Jim Johnson about how regional brands grow by building strong local goodwill before national expansion. He uses In-N-Out Burger (California) and Buc-ee's (Texas) as examples, describing stepwise expansion, customer pilgrimage, and brand extensions (e.g., Buc-ee's merchandise on a college campus).
In n Out Burger became a thing in California. And the way they did is like, they started here and then they went, hey, I'm going to build another one there and another one there and another one there. And people would come from outside, and they would track who was coming from outside. And they go, oh, that one, that one, that one. They just kept expanding like that until it was all over California. Anybody that visited California is like, man, in n Out Burger is the greatest thing in the world. Everyone In N Out Burger, they got enough goodwill that now they could go towards the national thing. The other one that's a great example of that is Buc EE's. If you live in Texas, you've known who who Buc ee's was for years. The very first one, I believe, was in Madisonville, Texas, between Houston and Dallas. And their big thing was billboards, signs that said, cleanest restrooms in Texas. And you'd always stop there. You're like, dude, gotta go to the bathroom. That's the place. Halfway between Dallas and Houston. But then they've turned it into this whole other thing. And I just saw last night that They've opened BUC EE's on the Texas A and M campus. Like, that's crazy to me. Like, no people at Texas A M can go to Bucky's, but they got Bucky's Beaver nuggets all over the place.
