Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…This has always been part of the strategy, even going back to the FedMart and Price Club days. Sol and then now Costco doesn't advertise either at all or very, very minimally. But they very intentionally, back in the day, tried to get local 6:00 news stories about like, oh, the lines at Costco, oh, crazy treasure hunt item at Costco, and it always worked. Whenever there is a store opening, news crews would go nuts. It's like the Nike athletes wearing the shoes on the cover of Sports Illustrated thing. That's worth a lot more in earned media than anything you could ever buy. All right, David, while we're here, we have to tell the hotdog story. This comes up literally every time there's any writing, podcast, book, or anything about Costco. Very famously, as David and I talked about, the hotdog and drink combo has been $1.50 for many, many years. When Jim Sinegal handed over the reins to Craig Jelinek, Craig went to him and said, hey, we're close on margin here, or maybe we're upside down, nobody really knows, on the hot dogs, we might need to raise the price. Of course, Jim, Sinegal looks at him and goes, if you raise the price of the hot dog and drink combo, I will effing kill you. That is why it's still priced the way it is today. This story has gotten so much airtime. And it's classic Costco. I'm sure this didn't actually happen. They just made up this story.…

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