In the 1960s, McDonald’s introduced The Monotony Index to help them put a value on how boring a town was. They would use this metric to prioritise potential franchise locations.
They believed that a McDonald’s restaurant would have a greater chance of success at a location where people had the fewest alternatives things to do with their free time.
Or as they put it:
“In big cities with all kinds of shops and restaurants, you are only one of thousands of choices, but when you go into areas where there is nothing to do on Sunday afternoon, and people do not know how to spend their free time, your rate of [McDonald’s customer visits] frequency will go up dramatically.”
– Luigi Salvaneschi quoted by Ray Kroc, in Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s.
Boredom is a powerful motivator. If your product or service provides an escape from boredom, sell it in boring places.
After all, does it matter if people buy your product out of boredom alone?