Marketing Miss: The Idaho Potato Museum
The Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho might be the the biggest missed marketing opportunity that I came across in all 4,000+ miles of my cross-country road trip.
Even a palace made only partially out of corn managed to out-market the Idaho Potato Museum and that is saying something; if you’ve ever been to The World’s Only Corn Palace in South Dakota you know exactly what I’m talking about.
The backstory:
Idaho is known for its potatoes. At least myself, in all my ignorance about things in the very country that I grew up in, truly only always knew Idaho to be the land of potatoes… anddd that’s pretty much it. So naturally I had to find a way to incorporate potatoes into the Idaho-portion of my journey.
Potatoes first made their way to Idaho in the 1840s and today their growth is concentrated around the Snake River area and it’s fertile river valleys, which has volcanic-ash deposits and ample irrigation opportunities that make it ideal for potato-growing. Blackfoot, Idaho, aka home of this now infamous Idaho Potato Museum, is smack-dab in one of these such areas in South Eastern Idaho
Today, more than 29% of the US potato crop (or about 5 million potatoes) comes from the state of Idaho alone, so it makes complete sense that Idaho would try to capitalize on this claim to fame and open up a tourist attraction/museum.
Where they excelled:
They somehow got us to go there. Seriously, I have to give them at least some credit for the fact that I discovered this place with little to no effort in the first place. (The Roadtrippers app definitely helped to this end too, but that’s a story for a later post.)
A well-placed smart phone holder in the perfect position to take a selfie with a giant baked potato sign that all but guarantees word will get out about this museum (the name of the museum is proudly across and in front of said giant fake baked potato) was definitely the best and most memorable marketing tool employed here. See above for photographic evidence of this ingenious device that allows the entire party (aka in this case just my husband and myself) to be in the same photo without taking an awkward one-armed selfie.
How it missed the mark:
A nonexistent gift shop did not help the cause. I’d encourage them to sell even a single postcard that says something about Idaho, or Idaho and potatoes, or just a potato. The SPAM museum, for example, had an entire store full of all things SPAM that were not edible - awkward keychains, t-shirts, baby bibs, Christmas ornaments… you name it, they had it. Even a Mr. Potato Head (available for a whopping $10 on Amazon) for purchase would have been a great lire for kids looking for some reprieve after a long car ride
The sub-par potato cafe that ran out of potato chips by the early afternoon is in need of an upgrade. There is no reason why some kitschy signage with potato puns should not be all over this portion of the establishment. Servers behind the counter should be required to wear Johnny Rockets-style caps and uniforms instead of whatever t-shirt was cleanest in their closet that morning. A selection other than five standard potato-based boring old snacks would also have been nice - especially since most travelers that grace this fine establishment are stopping in as a detour on one road trip or another and not making Blackfoot, Idaho their final destination and therefore could probably use a snack before getting back in the car.
And for god’s sake, on the ingredients list of literally everything they sell, how could they not list “Idaho potatoes” instead of just boring old garden variety “potatoes” from wherever. The missed marketing opportunity of purchasing a bag of chocolate dipped potato chips (because again, the home of the potato ran out of regular potato chips on a weekday…) and not including the phrase “Idaho potatoes” on there somewhere, anywhere, was astoundingly sad - and also made for a less impressive Instagram post since it literally could have been a bag of meh potato chips from anywhere.
Marketing Thoughts:
The Idaho Potato Museum is a place that could improve if it really wanted to. The museum part itself is solid if you find yourself really in need of learning some fun facts about potato growing and the world’s largest potato crisp. However, what good is an informational and educational museum if no one show up to it, or worse, if the people that do show up don’t actually contribute to your success in any way because there is nothing to open their wallets for?