It seems it finally happened that many may have expected.  The Heart Attack Grill finally had a customer that had a heart attack.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2JVfAoyG4o]

With menu items like “The Triple Bypass” and “Quadruple Bypass” burgers as well as the “Flatliner Fries” the owner Jon Basso seems to relish on the fact that people may die from eating his food.  The customer that had the heart attack was eating the 6,000 calorie Triple Bypass. That one burger has the calorie equivalent of 2-3 days worth of meals.

Mr. Basso knows how to use hype to get notice.  The more such events take place, the more media coverage happens.  He uses it to its maximum effort. It may be a reason he moved from the original location in Chandler, AZ to Las Vegas. Remember, this guy is a business owner and marketer. And what he is doing is working.  Even what is considered bad is good to him.

P.T. Barnum used to create similar hype with his “greatest show on earth.”  It didn’t matter to him what the general public thought, the more media coverage he got (including the bad), the more famous his restaurant became.  He couldn’t buy advertising like this.

Look to the coming days for more hype and more people coming from all over the world to indulge because of what they saw on TV and the internet.  As a health and fitness expert, I am appalled at what Mr. Basso is promoting.  Though, as a marketer, I do have to hand it to him in looking at what he’s done in marketing and promotions.

What lessons can we take away from this?  For those of us in the professions of getting people to live an optimal life, how can we make getting healthy sexier?

While many have used statistics and other mundane ways to get society to change behavior, it’s not really working.  It’s high time to “fight fire with fire” by taking a page out of the hype book and use that same weapon.