Pick your Fast Food Franchise

An entrepreneur, lets say Mr. Smith, wants to open up a fast food restaurant. He has already picked out a location and decided he wants to go with a franchise. However, our hypothetical investor is not married to any given franchise but has narrowed it down to three selections.

The location is in a high traffic area and near a traffic light that tends to have long reds. So Mr. Smith rents out the location two months early. He won't be opening up early but will be launching a clever campaign. Luckily he has the starting capital to afford the rent. The reason he is renting the building early is because of the sign he is going to post out in front.

The sign would read simply:

"

Text (XXX) XXX-XXXX with your pick of franchise

Franchise A, Franchise B, Franchise C 

The winning franchise will open here in two months

"

If properly promoted it could generate a fair degree of opening day hype. Hopefully the process would choose a franchise that would be more likely to appeal to the local customers. The people who would be texting in would be the people that would be more likely to be regular customers.

Now, if Mr. Smith was feeling adventurous he could even charge people to text. Some people (I would guess more teenagers, who go to school near the location, than other demographics) might be willing to pay to select the franchise.

Now I will admit that Mr. Smith would be taking a major gamble with the entire endeavor. Most people will not care. Mr. Smith doesn't need a lot of people to care, but he does need enough people to be interested. If interest did not pass a critical mass Mr. Smith would be just throwing his rent money away.

However, I have never heard of this being done before, and if Mr. Smith was the gambling type it might be worth the risk.