Promotional products work wonders for businesses which use them effectively (read creatively). Among many different advertising strategies, this one has a quick and often positive emotional reaction.
According to the Global Advertising specialties impression study, Promo product has a low cost per impression in the United States than television advertising, magazine advertising, and newspapers ads. It is also ranked # 1 most effective form of advertising by Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers making it a $23 billion industry.
A lot of promo products fail too due to various reasons. Sometimes the idea is not creative enough to catch attention. Sometimes it misses the mark in campaign execution, and sometimes stakeholders have no clue of their target audience’s hot buttons.`
1. KFC’s Colonel Sanders as Mascot
KFC has always been crisp in their marketing efforts. They fearlessly used their founder, Colonel Sanders, in unique ways. You will see sanders in their restaurants, in their promotional brochures, and on the website.
They created Sanders’ floaties as a pool toy and offered it to Snapchat users. This was a limited-time edition and not for sale. Through an online contest on Snapchat, users can use the Snapchat lens to bring the mascot to life on the screen and enter their details to participate in the contest.
In another instance, during 2018, they dressed sanders as a honey bear to give him away to 705 lucky winners. It was a small, bear-shaped honey bottle dressed in white chef dress. Pretty enthusiastic of KFC.
There are lessons to learn: Any brand can create its own mascot like sanders or use already established mascots like Robot, Barbie doll, Einstein. Dress it with your branded logo on it and distribute it to your target consumers so that they can take it home a souvenir. Make sure to use a professional embroidery digitizing process for fabric branding.
The KFC marketing tactic seems to be working for the food chain. They successfully opened 1,000 new locations in 2018 alone.
2. Volkswagen Dent Car – Stickers
The German car brand, Volkswagen, wanted to promote its small but sturdy polo car. VW produced magnetic panels that looked like a dent from the distance.
They thought why don’t we digitize logo of VW, print it on the sticker and mounted it on strangers’ vehicle saying “Volkswagen Polo, small but strong.” What were they trying to do? It was a creative effort to raise awareness of this historical car model.
The result: The car owners had a knee-jerk reaction only to find out that it was just a sticker. VW claims more than 2,000 people contacted their dealers. This low budgeted promotional item was spot on to hit its target – create awareness and promote a product.
3. Colgate: Promoting Teeth Brush
Toothbrush and ice-cream often go together. Guess what, Colgate combined the two related things to communicate the social value of brushing. All the while promoting their brand in the process. Isn’t this what we call “creativity”.
Colgate Palmolive Thailand wanted to promote their product and the accompanying message during the Oral Health Month and other events. The brand managers contacted the advertising agency Y & R Bangkok. The creative director Marcus Rebeschini pulled out a masterpiece.
Throughout the year, Colgate distributed ice cream and cotton candies to their target consumers – mostly kids and their parents. The ice-cream and candy stick had a hidden message inside it. As soon as the kid finished her sweet gift, they see a toothbrush shaped stick saying “Don’t forget” with a Colgate logo on it. A surprise with a valuable educational message embedded.
4. Ketchup Sachet looking Stain Remover by Vantage
This example is a testimony that a human mind is a creative powerhouse. Who would have thought that a detergent brand can address ketchup stains that effectively?
The Brazilian brand vantage knew that every Brazilian mother’s woe is ketchup stain. So, they partnered with the advertising agency DPZ propaganda to come up with this not-to-be-ignored campaign.
The real takeaway is the package design of the product. The art director meshed up ketchup sachet with huge ketchup drops to create an attention grabbing design.
The company distributed thousands to its target customers with the help of restaurant and snack bars. The campaign was a huge success.
5. McDonald’s – Cardboard VR Headset
A lot of Swedish kids celebrate the annual sporting event at the end of February or the beginning of March. This is a favorite Swedish family holiday in which they go skiing.
McDonald, to catch up with this esteemed event, launched “Happy Goggle “meal boxes. What was so special? You may ask.
This Happy Google meal box is a variant of McDonald famous red-and-yellow happy box. Except, when a kid folds it, turns into a Virtual Reality headset box. The giant food company created the game “Slope Stars” to be played inside the box giving to give an immersive experience to kids.
The plan was to make 3,500 boxes available in 14 Swedish restaurants over the weekend with the price of $4 each. This is a classic example of leveraging the latest technology to your benefit.
6. Lipton Green Tea’s Health Checker Shopping Cart
People in Dubai don’t have time for anything, let alone Grocery shopping. So, if they really need to do shopping, all they do is: hit the store to quickly put piles of food products- mostly unhealthy and checkout.
Lipton wanted to make these customers realize that how important it is to make right healthy choices.
To do this, they partnered with Dubai’s top advertising agency Wunderman.
In an attempt to position Lipton Green tea as a healthy choice, they came up with something amazing. They created a shopping cart that tracks user’s health while they search for products between aisles. The cart handle is made up of sensors to act as a fitness tracker. The LED display shows how many steps you have taken and the resulting calories burnt.
Piotr Chrobot, executive creative director of Wunderman MENA, said: “This is something that would allow people to do something good for themselves and get into healthy choices. Green tea was always a healthy choice for them.”
Above are handpicked promo products that hit their mark for their brand by employing creativity. You might have notice one common aspect in all of them. They are simple yet creative and precisely aimed to grab their target market’s attention.
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