The Promotional Idea Showcase - Fall 2004 - Updated Quarterly

Success Stories
By Karen Akers

Spidey Helps Embassy Capture Family Market
Judging by the success of last year’s Spider-Man film, Embassy Suites had to know it was in for a swinging time when it partnered with Sony Pictures to use Spider-Man 2-themed products in its primary summer promotion. “We do promotion-like opportunities every summer to help drive leisure business, but in this case we tied-in with a property that we knew was going to perform well,” explains Jennifer Hoffman-Jones, director of brand marketing for Embassy Suites Hotels, adding, “and we know this one certainly has.”

To entice families to stay at its chain of hotels, Embassy appealed to the people who have arguably the strongest sway in family vacation plans – the kids. It developed a “Web Pack,” full of Spider-Man 2 goodies, and announced it would be giving them out to kids aged 3-to-18 at its 170 hotels in the continental United States, Puerto Rico and Latin America. A multifaceted marketing campaign followed, with ads in USA Today, on cable TV and online supplemented by direct mail and point-of-sale materials.

The kit included a reusable camera with film, a 6-inch plush Spider-Man toy with suction cups, a Velcro “Toss and Catch” game, a treasure-keeper rubber coin holder with carabiner clip, Spider-Man stickers and a puzzle picture cube featuring six different Spider-Man images – all packed in a custom-made web-lined messenger bag.

Just like the movie, which has grossed over $300 million to date, the Web Packs were a summertime hit. Of the 100,000 kits made for the promotion, 80% have been given away with about a month left in the promotion. In addition, the packs led to a notable increase in the hotel’s average daily rates – up 12% from the previous year.

And, of course, kids and parents love it. “Everything has been very positive,” Hoffman-Jones says. “Spider-Man is a hot property, so the feedback that we’ve received from both guests as well as our general managers and internal constituents has been nothing but positive. Everyone has just rallied around the Spider-Man character and around the pack to make the whole program a success."

Aussie Animals Help Boost Insurance Sales
GE Mortgage Insurance knew it needed something unusual to get the attention of loan processors in national financial lending institutions. So, it turned to promotional consultant Sandra Parrish-Woodlief to create a program to reach its target audience and increase sales during a specific period of time. “Our goal was to create an entire campaign with a truly unique theme – we wanted it to be one-of-a-kind and exclusive in nature,” Parrish-Woodlief says. “Furthermore, we wanted to create a campaign that would maintain a level of excitement to generate sales in each of the eight weeks of the campaign.”

An Australian Outback theme was chosen and custom plush toys were created to deliver the message. “Our artists and designers custom-designed eight animals – chosen for their ‘out of the ordinary’ appeal and ‘aww-factor,’” she explains. “These are the critters that we believed that you would most likely meet on an Australian Walkabout, not seen regularly at retail in the United States: emu, kookaburra, Tasmanian devil, dingo, platypus, koala, penguin and kangaroo.” Each one wore a chain-like collar with a leather debossed tag featuring the GE logo.

Brochures explaining the program were sent to 50,000 potential participants, along with pictures and descriptions of the animals and an invitation to participate in a weekly trivia contest to win Outback Steakhouse gift certificates. Then, based on information sent in response to the initial mailing, 1,000 of the group were chosen to receive the animals over the eight-week period.

The program proved to be a great success for GE – its most successful campaign to date. As a result, online loan applications increased 23% over the same time period the previous year. Parrish-Woodlief maintains that it was the custom nature of the campaign that generated such positive results: “Our out-of-the-box, not off-the-shelf creative promotional theme products yielded a large return on investment.” In fact, GE liked the promotion so much that it partnered with Parrish-Woodlief’s firm again to produce a similar one – this time based in the arctic – for this year.

Do You Have A Success Story To Share?
If you or your company have a great tale to tell about an effective, clever campaign you’ve done utilizing promotional products, please email us – we’d love to interview you and tout your marketing talent as a future “Success Story”!