Put This On Your Radar

In December 1955, a marketer at Sears had an idea. They thought...”Let’s run an ad with a Santa hotline!”

That’s when it happened. They made a typo in the ad and listed the wrong number.

So who’s phone number did they actually print? NORAD, that’s who. As in strategic-air-command-nuclear-missile-button NORAD.

Oh, and not just any NORAD number. They printed the number for that red phone. You know, the one that connects directly to the Pentagon.

Oops.

So when kids started calling with their Christmas wishes, they were greeted with a soldier yelling “Is this some kinda fucking joke buddy?”

After discovering this response usually made the child on the other end of the line start crying, the hard-as-nails Air Force guys shifted their approach. They started sharing reports of mysterious flying objects on their radar that were shaped like a sleigh. Or updates on cities where reindeer had been spotted in the skies.

When radio stations heard about it, they started calling to get sleigh updates to share on the air. And so, this is how the “Santa Tracker” tradition got started. With a typo.

But more importantly, from a reaction to a typo.

Sometimes the universe throws you a curve ball. Something completely out of context. Instead of reacting in a knee-jerk way, how can you approach it from a totally different angle? How can you bring to it a dose of humor, a bit of personality, a level of humanity?

Because we’re all just people after all.

People with a wish we want to come true.

Philip VanDusen is the owner of Verhaal Brand Design, an agency that leverages strategy and design to build brands for companies and entrepreneurs. Get more from Philip in his newsletter brand?muse, join 187k subscribers on his YouTube channel or connect with Verhaal on Facebook.