Nearly free advertising for entrepreneurs

In the late 1990s, a decade after founding Wahoo’s Fish Taco, a restaurant chain that serves an eclectic mix of Mexican/Asian/Brazilian food in a surfer atmosphere, my two brothers and I responded to a request from Merrill Lynch to its customers.

The brokerage firm was trying to shed its uptight Wall Street image and appeal to businesses that were youth-oriented, hip, and frequently (as was ours) founded by immigrants. It was planning to mount a nationwide advertising campaign, entitled "Only in America," that would feature such a company as its poster child.

Our business, which now has 38 restaurants throughout Southern California and Colorado, started with one restaurant in Costa Mesa in Orange County, California. My brothers and I are Chinese by birth, grew up in San Paolo, Brazil, and immigrated to the United States with our parents in 1975. Once in this country, we became avid surfers. Frequent surfing trips to Mexico introduced us to the fish taco, which we made our restaurant’s cornerstone offering.

Poster advertising

About 500 businesses responded to the Merrill Lynch request, with 30, including ours, making the cut. A representative came to take pictures and ask questions. Then, in a subsequent telephone interview, another Merrill Lynch individual asked what made us special, and I could hear my kid brother, Ed, saying, "Where else in the world can a Chinese guy serve Mexican food? Only in America!"

By Wing Lam, Wahoo’s Fish Taco
Reprinted courtesy of EntreWorld.org

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2005-02-02-entre-1-feb_x.htm