Whatever happened to…?

So I was rummaging through my drawers (no, not the ones under my pants, the ones under my desk) the other day and I stumbled across an article called “Top 10 Marketing And Advertising Ideas In 2006.”

Let’s take a look at a few of them, and see if they actually were “top” ideas. Ready? OK, let’s go:

#1 – Charmin’s “Brand Space” – this refers to what amounts to a bunch of gussied up fancy outhouses, mostly in Times Square (New York City). Charmin reckoned at the time that over 300,000 people would visit these places and that this was great “brand space.” I have no idea how many of these people felt the sense of reciprocity towards Charmin, that they subsequently went out and bought a few rolls. However, I do know many of them were very grateful there was a convenient loo they could use, precisely when they had to pee.

# 4 – The “Brajacket” – the Brajacket is an advertisement disguised as a dust cover for a book. Apparently when this first came out, these Brajackets werere one of the hottest new trends in Japan. Basically, Brajackets are given away free at newsstands and popular bookstores, and the theory is, you wrap these jackets around your book to protect it. Since it also comes with a bookmark, it has some functionality as well.

While I think this is very “cute,” I’m not sure how popular or effective this is. I’ve been to New York City two times since this article came out, and I’ve never seen even one of these things, on the street or on the subway. To me this is kind of like selling fruit, and then offering someone a disposable wrapper to hold their fruit in: too much work involved.

And lastly, # 8 – “Passout Marketing” – This group, out of Australia, is using nightclub hand stamps for advertising. These are the standard ink stamps that are placed on the back of your wrists when you leave a nightclub, to prove you’ve either paid admission to get into the club, or that you’re of legal drinking age, or so you can get back into the club if you leave.

Passout Marketing feels this space is too worthy to go unbranded, and so they are working with the club owners and advertisers to stamp marketing messages on club hoppers.

Now I’m no genius for sure, but to me, who the hell wants an ad stamped on their hands that they have to walk around with for a few days, until it finally wears off. Perhaps these folks should talk to the Brajacket people and come up with a free wrist cover with an alternative message on it.

Perhaps something like, “Go sell something — for real.”

Don’t forget — you measure an ad’s effectiveness by how much sales it generates, not how good it looks.

See you tomorrow, Craig Garber

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