The 33-year-old entrepreneur tried all kinds of ‘notice me’ tactics on people as they rushed by, heads down or plugged into their ear buds. These included impressive spinning skills with a giant arrow sign, standing on a ‘soap box’ to shout to people and even marching around wearing the sandwich board.
The Cockney ‘king of the sales pitch’ – known for his ‘bosh’ catchphrase – eventually gathered a crowd and entertained with his cheeky sense of humour.
The street antics came after a study of 2,000 adults revealed 21% regularly walk around staring at their phone or paying little attention to what is going on around them – spending an average of 15 minutes like this daily.
Tom Skinner, who has partnered with McDonald’s UK, which commissioned the research to launch its three for £3 ‘Mix ‘n Match’ deal, said: “Some people walk around in a bit of a daze – even when there’s a lot going on around them. I wanted to bring out all my sales tricks to point people in the right direction of something tasty.”
The study also found 31% of adults admitted to being so switched off to their surroundings they have missed something unusual happening near them.
However, 45 per cent of those polled, via OnePoll, will disregard special offers on food like lunch deals that they do notice, while out and about. Top reasons for not bothering are they don’t think it will save much money, there must be a catch and they find them too complicated.
Tom Skinner added: “It’s amazing what you’ve got to do to grab some people’s attention.”
