The Promotional Idea Showcase - Spring 2003 - Updated Quarterly

 

Real Problems, Real Solutions

Promotional Posters Create Unique Impression

It’s a well-documented fact: The marriage of direct mail and imprinted products can deliver a knockout promotional punch. So when ServiceMaster Clean, a disaster restoration/janitorial service, approached the archer>malmo (a>m) agency looking for more bang for its advertising buck, a>m suggested direct mail. The folks at ServiceMaster Clean okayed the move, but they wanted to avoid the standard white envelopes. That, as it turned out, was no problem for a firm with a>m’s creative moxie.

Keying on the disaster angle of ServiceMaster’s services, the agency created two pseudo film posters portraying natural disasters in true “B-movie” style (think Attack of the 50-Foot Woman or The Blob). 

The first, Blown Away!, showed an evil cloud bearing down on an idylic town, while Flames of Fear featured a homeowner shrieking at the sight of a sinister blazing face. In both posters, the ServiceMaster adjusters were the calm, cool heroes of the day.

After focus groups discovered facility managers felt overworked and under-appreciated, two more posters – created specifically for the janitorial crowd – took a slightly different tack; they were designed to resemble comic books from the ‘50s. One showed a facility manager turning on his “Clone-O-Matic” to make duplicates of himself to get all his work done. The other pictured a manager daydreaming about being appreciated by his coworkers, aptly titled Improbable Fantasy. Both noted how using ServiceMaster made them heroes to their customers.

There was some trepidation about the campaign, as ServiceMaster is composed of thousand of franchisees, making it difficult to please everyone. But they needn’t have worried. “They absolutely loved it,” says Laurel Pyron, the company’s account service director. “Both posters created something the recipients wanted to keep, and they were ecstatic about it.” 

What’s more, publications like the New York Times and Adweek started calling right after the rollout. “They wanted something that stood out,” says Pyron. “They got it.” 

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MultiLevel Promos Help NCBF Set Records

Promoting the two-week National Cherry Blossom Festival (NCBF) in Washington, DC, is an annual challenge for TouristArt.com, the official merchandiser. Efforts include PSAs, posters and the distribution of over 100,000 brochures and 20,000 programs in the DC area. Corporate sponsors and tie-ins are also part of the mix. 

“This year’s official design was chosen as part of an art contest,” says Jim Siemer, TouristArt spokesperson. 

The design was placed on T-shirts and posters, and things exploded. Items were sold in over 50 shops in the DC area and online, and TouristArt offered over 30 NCBF products on its Web site. Proceeds went to NCBF-supported programs.

Further, pencils went to schoolchildren planting trees, engraved pens to corporate execs involved, coffee mugs/packets as gifts at a dinner benefit, and the Airport Authority gave lapel pins to those making a purchase of $7.50 or more at airport shops.

NCBF’s merchandise sales were three times greater than previous years, and attendance was nearly 1 million – an all-time high.

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Promo Pak Packs ‘Em In At Penny’s

For retailers, Mother’s Day generally means scratching, clawing competition, even among the big guns. The mission: cut through the clutter and create consumer commitment.

“We wanted to appeal to our customer demographic with something that would tug at mom’s emotions; what’s on her mind, her values,” says J.C. Penney PR spokesperson Stephanie Brown. “We also wanted to tie the promo into our Afterschool program that sponsors events for school students.”

Marketers latched onto the obvious connection between moms, Mother’s Day and chocolate – a 
no-brainer – but they took it a step further. A gift pack was created. Inside was a chocolate bar, gift card, 10 chocolate recipe cards and a specially produced and logoed hardcover copy of the inspirational book Chocolate For A Mother’s Heart. The pack also included a brochure about the Afterschool program.

The packs were given to anyone spending $50 or more in a Penny’s store during the two weeks leading up to Mother’s Day. The campaign was supported by newspaper ads, TV commercials, credit-card stuffers and direct mailings to five million customers.

By the time Mother’s Day came and went, Penny had distributed in excess of a million gift packs – at a minimum of $50 per, that’s a lot of revenue. 

“We felt this was very cost-effective for us,” says Brown, adding, “more and more of our marketing funds are going toward promotional strategies like this.”

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Personal Connection Results In Inspired Initiative

The desire to help others is sometimes serendipitous. For counselor Gary Bombay, a fellow squash player had an intestinal problem that reduced his weight by 65 pounds in five weeks. Bombay rallied the squash community to raise funds for Children with Intestinal Liver Disorder (CHILD), an organization for those with similar conditions.

The three initial goals were to raise money for CHILD, boost awareness of it and, to a lesser extent, promote squash. The effort uses promotional products to reward donations.

Basic donors receive logoed stainless steel water bottles and shirts. Golf shirts, caps and picture frames go to mid-level contributors, and custom leather jackets and track suits round out the upper echelons.

“There were prizes for raising $200, $500 and $1,000,” says Bombay. “People in this demographic are very competitive, so many just went to $1000 as their goal.”

In the past three years, the program has been featured on TV and radio, and is branching off into other activities. Bombay hopes to break the $200,000 mark. This year.

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Tale Of The Tape: Imprinted Items Invite Ink

After lots of municipal debating, in-fighting and pontificating, the city of Philadelphia recently made the decision to shutter Veterans Stadium, its dual-use, 1970s-style sports facility (known as “The Vet”) and build the Philadelphia Phillies their very own baseball-only facility, following on the heels of a similar decision involving the NFL’s Eagles. 

When it was time to announce the field dimensions and layout, a new problem arose – how do you stir excitement among jaded reporters for a press conference about a new ballpark they’ve been writing about in various incarnations for years? Let’s face it, sports may be big news in Philly, but an announcement about stadium dimensions isn’t. Especially in early April, when the local hockey and basketball teams were in the thick of playoff races and baseball season hadn’t yet begun. 

Deb Mohrdieck, communications coordinator for the new ballpark, knew they had to come up with something unique, and promotional products were deemed the best vehicle. After considering and rejecting numerous possibilities, an imprinted tape measure was selected as the press conference traffic-generator.

Invitations showed a rendering of the playing field of the new park with large question marks in right, left and center fields. Mounted over home plate was the tape measure bearing the Phillies Ballpark logo and the copy, “Measuring up for success!”

The results were everything stadium officials hoped for. The standing-room only crowd was peppered with local and national media. “The invitation was definitely a success,” says Mohrieck. “It was cost-effective and exceeded our expectations in generating participation in the conference and buzz about our announcement.”

Dare we say it? A home run.

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Offbeat Product Gives Agency’s Message Real Punch

The advertising/marketing industry has become dog-devour-dog competitive. This is perhaps most apparent among ad agencies seeking new clients. For some, it’s the age-old idea of likening marketing to war – something adopted by many firms as gospel ever since Sun Tzu got rediscovered back in the 1980s. 

But for Manhattan agency Mezzina/Brown (M/B), that’s old-school. It promotes its strategy by telling potential clients marketing isn’t like war, but more like a street fight – “unexpected, unforgiving and most often, unclear.” 

To underscore its philosophy, says David Kreinik, M/B director of marketing, the firm developed a small brochure titled Street Fighting For Marketers. Screw-bound with stiff board covers to attract attention, it contains three tenets for successful marketing street fighting: 1) Shift the fight to a space you can control; 2) Think fast and exploit what you have on hand; and 3) Find the opening, deliver the knockout punch. The book, illustrated with comic-book-like drawings, also contains case histories, a fold-out poster of one of the rules and a CD-ROM of some M/B’s work.

The agency sends the books to prospective clients, but sometimes it wants to generate interest beyond the book – when an M/B rep visits with a prospect, for example, handing them something as a memorable leave-behind. “We wanted it to be something different, complete unexpected and in line with our philosophy,” Kreinik says.

The answer? A solid brass paperweight in the form of a set of brass knuckles, a classic street-fighting accessory. M/B puts them in a velvet bag to emphasize the gift aspect. “We only give them to those we consider serious prospects,” Kreinik says. “If it’s a special meeting or prospect, we’ll have them engraved and placed in a gift box.”

The firm usually gives out about 30 paperweights a year. “They’ve been very successful in people remembering us,” Kreinik notes. “True, they’re not PC, but nobody’s been offended. They appreciate the joke, and we make our point – we’re serious about street-fight marketing.”