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Tourism Marketing Genius: Corydon, Ind.’s Butt Drugs

Travel news — By on May 10, 2010 at 9:49 am

So what do you do when you run a small-town pharmacy with a name that instantly inspires smirks and giggles?

If you’re Katie Butt, the third-generation owner of Butt Drugs in Corydon, Indiana, you embrace the joke – and allow masters of viral video to come in and make a commercial.

Rhett & Link,  a North Carolina-based musical comedy team that specialize in web videos, run a campaign funded by Microbilt Corporation called “I Love Local Commercials.” To enter, a business must be nominated on the website, ILoveLocalCommercials.com. Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal then go through the submissions and select the videos that they want to create.

As the duo said in their behind-the-scenes Butt Drugs video (below), choosing Butt Drugs as a subject was a no-brainer. “There’s a place called Butt Drugs and people love it. ‘Nuff said,” the duo wrote on their blog. Can’t argue with that.

The campaign has brought new recognition to tiny Corydon, a historic town in the south-central part of the state mostly known as Indiana’s First Capital. Since the Butt Drugs ad first aired on YouTube in early March, tourists have been stopping by the Harrison County town, just to see the place for themselves. Sales of “I Love Butt Drugs” T-shirts are going through the roof, and the jingle has appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show and Carson Daly. The pharmacy, founded by Katie Butt’s grandfather William “Blackie” Butt in 1952, has more than 1,800 fans on Facebook (that’s more than half the population of Corydon!)

It’s how the best tourism marketing is done these days. I still can’t get the jingle out of my head.

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    2 Comments

  • Jim says:

    Chris, this has been fun for us at the Convention & Visitors Bureau in Harrison County to watch. Katie is an excellent marketer bringing an out-of-the-box approach to the management and marketing of a traditional, downtown business.

    • Chris says:

      Jim – I bet it has been! Kudos to your team for recognizing that this kind of publicity can be beneficial to the town. If I’m ever in Harrison, I know I’d visit Butt Drugs!

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