Recession marketing hits, and one painful inflatable
Marketing News began the year with our “Get Your Head in the Game” series, basically telling marketers to accept that times are bad and move on to find creative ways to market today. It’s fun to see companies doing just that.
Hyundai set the bar for recession marketing pluckiness when it offered to take back cars sold to people who lose their jobs. Now others are coming out with similar offers. Two have caught my eye in recent days.
Domino’s Pizza has launched it’s "Domino's Big Taste Bailout" promotion that includes a contest in which people nominate others in need of a bailout. Two winners will get a year’s worth of Domino’s offerings free. Domino’s CEO plans to deliver the prizes himself. The contest is tied to a price promotion offering of three pizzas for $5 each. A lot of food purveyors are offering lower-priced options these days, but Domino’s is adding a nice bit of flare and dramatics with its contest offer.
Clothing retailer JoS. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc. is promoting what it’s named The Risk Free Suit, offering to rebate the purchase price of a suit bought during a current sale to anyone who loses a job between mid-April and July this year. Granted this is a bit derivative of the Hyundai offer, but it’s innovative for Banks which normally has a pretty staid approach to marketing, so kudos to the Maryland-based Banks.
Let us know what you’re doing to stand out from the crowd in this recession. We’d particularly like to hear about B-to-B offerings that break the mold these days.
On another score, I clipped something early this month about the Prevent Cancer Foundation and pharma company Sanofi-Aventis putting a giant inflatable colon in Times Square to increase colorectal cancer awareness. I suppose this succeeded as a PR stunt given the attention it received, but I found it a bit too painful to look at. Anyone over 50 will know what I’m talking about.
Comments
You mentioned the Prevent Cancer Foundation - sadly a lot of these organizations are in dire need of funding. It would be nice to see one of these major organizations kick some money towards a charity as part of the promotion instead of just focusing on those that may be adversely effected by the economy. It would capture a much larger potential customer base as even worst case 90% of us are still working.
Posted by: Jordan | March 22, 2009 10:28 PM