Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing in Peru
Monday’s are devoted to marketing, so what does Play-Doh have to do with with marketing? Well it’s like this… Back around the late 80’s I started to really pro-actively market my show to the festival circuit across the country. I’d send off these carefully boxed up packages that included all of the regular stuff, the video, the pictures, the bio and press release, perhaps some stickers and a jar of Play-Doh.
Why the Play-Doh? Well I felt that there was something about Play-Doh that suggested a sense of playful fun that was in keeping with my show and wanted to say thank you to who ever it was who was opening the box for taking the time to review my materials. It wasn’t until I started to attend some of the festivals and visit some of the offices of the producers I had sent packages to that I began to see what a great marketing gimmick the Play-Doh was. Well after the video had been shelved and the press kit filled, people seemed to keep the Play-Doh on their desks which was a constant reminder of me.
I thought it would be even better to take this concept one step further and send out eggs of Silly Putty, but before sending it out, take the time to embed my face on the putty inside the egg. One of the things that Silly Putty marketed when it came out was the ability to lift the ink off of newsprint. In the adds they showed kids ‘copying’ images from comic strips then stretching them out and having fun with the warped images (OK… I’m totally showing off my age by knowing about this stuff). I totally thought it would be a hoot to send the putty pre-embedded with my image, but never quite got to that idea.
I’ve also heard of people who’ve put their entire promo kit on a view•master viewer and sent it out. Or another guy who had his own lunchbox made.
The point is to make the receiving of your promotional material into an event, not just the opening of an envelope. Anything you can do to be remembered right from the get go will have a long term benefit and it well worth the additional investment it takes to make it happen.
