I wish I had had my camera to capture this bizarre offer. Actually, it wasn’t so much the offer itself as much as it was the context it was presented.

Let me set the stage for ya… I live outside of Phoenix, AZ. It’s a desert. Dirt, sand, shrubs, and what we call mountains (folks from the Rockies laugh at our mountains, we laugh at folks from the Rockies when they’re blanketed in snow). Emphasis on dirt, sand and shrubs. There’s really not much else.

I was driving on my road through nowhere and I passed a handmade sign on the side of the road that said “shrimp.” Now, I’m a big guy so I didn’t take this personally.

A moment later I passed another sign that said “lobster.”

Here’s where it got really weird… just a ways down from the lobster sign was a van. Parked on the side of this road through nowhere. More signs, this time making offers of jumbo shrimp and lobster for $2.99 or something.

What the…?

The signs even used the words “fresh.” Out here in the middle of the desert on the side of the road? If I had come across this somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway I would have had a different reaction entirely.

Needless to say, I didn’t buy any fresh shrimp or lobster.

As marketers we spend a lot of time thinking about our offer. We try to match it with a thirsty market, make it irresistible. The whole nine yards. You get the idea… a lot of time is invested in refining the offer.

You may have come up with the killer offer, but without the story, proof, or reason-why (the whole context of the offer) to give it legs… your offer doesn’t stand a chance.

Anyone for some shrimp cocktail? It’s fresh… really!