• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 19, 2016

Selling consumers the idea of real healthy fast food these days? You need offer more -- perhaps a connection that has nothing to do with food.  Maybe a crazy car.

Speaking at OMMA Video, Jon Olinto, co-founder/chief brand & marketing officer of b.good, said when starting out this Northeast regional farm-based “real food” restaurant chain they wanted to change the marketing dynamic -- where adults, as customers, had little to no emotional connection fast-food restaurants.

“We wanted to do the opposite, that b.good, in some small way, cared about you,” says Olinto. “That there was some kind of connection there... and that we would make the community better.”

To do this, b.good incentivize farmers to grow and share food; as well as working with donations to serve lunch at schools that didn’t have access to good food; as well as creating unique emotional engagements with the community.

Over the years, one of the more interesting things b.good did, was reviving an old El Camino car, as part of a promotion. “We put a $2,000 flame paint job on a $1,400 El Camino that didn’t work,” says Olinto. “Then we took our consumers on a journey.”

That consisted of a series of videos showing the car origins, coming from the junkyard -- as well as driving customers around in it. “It had nothing to do with food,” says Olinto.  Then they gave the car a name -- LTO Superfly Clown Destroyer.

In spring the company would run a contest where the winner got picked up from their house in the car, got driven to work, and on the way home b.good would buy food for their whole family at one of their locations.

“We had people really passionate about it."